Wattpad Reports 300% Growth in Traffic Dec. '09 vs. Dec. '10

Press Release:

Wattpad is reporting a record December, seeing a 20 percent growth over November’s traffic and 300 percent more visitors when compared to the previous year. This reading spike resulted in many novels crossing the 1 Million Reads landmark.

 The Android app saw the largest percentage of growth, with four times the usage in December as compared to the month before, furthering its gain over the BlackBerry. December also saw an increase overall in minutes spent on the site to 338 Million minutes a month.

The iPhone, iPod and iPad app remains the largest driver of mobile traffic of all devices, accounting for as much traffic as the web.

As Wattpad’s overall numbers grew, many novels and their authors saw exponential traffic increases. The top three books on Wattpad this December were:

1. YA novel “The Adventures of You: Fabulous Terrible” by Sophie Talbot, published by Chooseco, publishers of the Choose Your Own Adventure series.

2. 16 year old Jordan Lynde’s YA novel “A Proscriptive Relationship” which brings her total number of reads to 4.85 Million

3. Historical novel “The Last Dance” by S. Dust which has been read 3.6 Million times" ...

Bob Stein and The Future of (Social) Reading

LA Times: "Stein, 64, has a history tied to media innovation. In the early 1980s he worked in Los Angeles on an effort to create a digital encyclopedia for home-computer maker Atari. He then launched Criterion Collection, a video distributor that pioneered the use of interactive features, initially on laserdisc, a predecessor to the DVD. A company he started with some friends and his former wife published multimedia CD-ROMs, such as one on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, using techniques that since have become commonplace on the Web. ... " Stein's big thing is social reading - a concept I think to be over-rated. In any event, social reading is not for me. I like solitary reading.

How Online Reading Habits Have Changed Over 2010

Macmanus, NYTimes: "One of the more subtle trends of 2010 has been the way that our reading habits have changed, due to a convergence of other Web trends: mobile apps, real-time Web (mostly Twitter), and social networking as a way to track news (mostly Facebook). In the previous era of the Web, the so-called Web 2.0, RSS Readers and start pages were all the rage. Over 2010, though, more people used tools like Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper, Flipboard, LazyWeb, Feedly and TweetDeck, to track news. Nowadays I'm more likely to find stories to read via a vertical aggregator (the media-focused Mediagazer is my current favorite) and save them to Instapaper for later reading via my iPhone or iPad. I still use Google Reader, but in all honesty I now use it more to scan than to read. ... "

Scribd’s New Social Dashboard for Reading

Technologizer: "Reading, writing, and publishing is morphing like crazy thanks to the Web’s evolution along with social media innovations such as news feeds, “likes” and sharing. Word that an iPad-only newspaper from Apple and News Corp. is on its way further amplifies just how much things are changing for digital content. But perhaps an even more transformative development, albeit lesser noticed, is already here. Scribd Stats, which quietly began rolling out last week, is an analytics tool– a social dashboard–built specifically for reading. ... "

Copia Goes Live But Questions Remain

PW:

Copia, DMC Worldwide’s much anticipated book retail and social networking platform, officially launched yesterday. But while the Copia launch offers consumers an iPad app as well as client software for desktop and laptop computers that will allow consumers to buy and read books as well as connect with like-minded readers, Copia’s debut seems to have raised more questions than it answers.

Copia executives Ben Lowinger and Mike Lundgren held a conference call to kick off the launch of Copia and outlined the potential as well as the functionality of the Copia platform. ...

However, the presentation did not answer questions about the seemingly abrupt departure last week of Copia executive Anthony Antolino, the executive most closely identified with bringing Copia to market. In addition, there is Copia’s seemingly abrupt cancellation of a long planned and aggressively priced line of Copia branded digital readers; and now a lack of specific information on the devices (and when they’ll be available) and the OEM and device manufacturing partners. Copia now says it plans to bundle and place its software. ...

Rowing a Lifeboat Away from Copia

The Digital Reader: "Anthony Antolino, Senior VP at DMC Wordwide (Copia’s corp. parent), has abruptly left his position only days after the launch of Copia. ... Question: was he fired because he screwed up (Copia was supposed to launch in April [and was supposed to include hardware]), or is he simply the first to leave the sinking ship?" Italicized comment comes from me. - EJR

Copia Released from Beta

Per the Digital Reader: "The long awaited social reading platform Copia has finally ended beta testing, and is now available to the general public. You can sign up at www.TheCopia.com. Right now you can download the Windows or OSX desktops or you can get the iPad app in iTunes. But before you do anything be sure to go to the site and register (you can’t do it from inside the app)."

Copia Offers Turnkey Storefronts to Skeptical Indie Booksellers

PW: "As its launch date approaches, Copia, a book-focused social network and e-commerce platform, is talking up a new partnership program offering independent bookstores a turnkey online retailing solution with digital fulfillment supplied by Copia. However, some retailers have questioned the proposed service, concerned that affiliating with a large international retailing and merchandising company will undermine their independence."

Call it "Wiki-italicization" - That Annoying Kindle Highlight Feature

NYTimes.com: "What to make ... of  ... italics added right in books, postpublication, by readers, in a kind of wiki-italicization project? These are the so-called 'popular highlights' that now show up in Kindle e-books. Marked by a dotted underscore that indicates that other Kindle users have found the passages significant, popular highlights constitute crowd-sourced literary criticism. Readers, on the spot and yet collaboratively, make meaning of what they’re reading. The effect is odd — even for those of us who see literature as something readers determine incrementally and collectively."