Readum Combines Google, Facebook for Reader Comments

PW: "In an unusual social media venture that brings together Google and Facebook, BookGlutton.com founder Travis Alber is releasing Readum, a new social media application that allows readers to add comments and notes to books in their Google eBooks library and easily post them on Facebook for the general public or to specific groups. ... "

At Huff Post and Social Media Networks - A Nation of Serfs, and a "Tom Sawyer Moment"

David Carr, NY Times:

... The Huffington Post, social networks and traditional media may all seem like different animals, but as advertising, the mother’s milk of all media, flows toward social and amateur media, low-cost and no-cost content is becoming the norm.

For those of us who make a living typing, it’s all very scary, of course. It’s less about the diminution of authority and expertise, although there is that, and more about the growing perception that content is a commodity, and one that can be had for the price of zero. (Content manufacturers like Demand Media that gin up $15 articles based on searches, put the price only slightly above that.) Old-line media companies that are not only forced to compete with the currency and sexiness of social media, but also burdened by a cost structure for professionally produced content, are left at a profound disadvantage.

For the media, this is a Tom Sawyer moment. “Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” he says to his friends, and sure enough, they are soon lined up for the privilege of doing his chores. That’s a bit like how social networks get built. (Just imagine if Tom had also schooled them in the networking opportunities of the user-generated endeavor: “You’re not just painting a fence. You’re building an audience around your personal brand.”)

“The technology of a lot of these sites is very seductive, and it lulls you into contributing,” said Anthony De Rosa, a product manager at Reuters. “We are being played for suckers to feed the beast, to create content that ends up creating value for others.”

Last month, Mr. De Rosa wrote — on Tumblr, naturally — about how audiences became publishers, essentially painting the fence for the people who own the various platforms.

“We live in a world of Digital Feudalism,” he wrote. “The land many live on is owned by someone else, be it Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr, or some other service that offers up free land and the content provided by the renter of that land essentially becomes owned by the platform that owns the land.” ...

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. ... "

Kindle 2.5 Firmware Update Now Available in US

The new release (2.5.3) has been available to international users for a couple of days already, and now American Kindle owners get theirs. The update is automatic via the wireless connection. Just leave your Kindle wireless turned on and the update will flow. (Don't have 3G? Go to the Amazon Kindle update page for a manual download.) 2.5.3 gives you "collections" to help you organize your books and docs ... and tools to use Facebook and Twitter posts to share your notes and highlights with others. More perks: zoom in and pan across PDFs, see what others living and reading in the Kindle ecosystem think are the best passages of the book you've currently your eyes in, enjoy a wider array of font sizes (all improved in clarity), and get the security of password protection. Check Geek.com. But note: the 2.5 update is not compatible with the original Kindle.

Kindle Upgrade

Seems the 2.5 Kindle Firmware upgrade includes the ability to Tweet book passages on Facebook. "Other new features of Kindle 2.5 include password protection as well as the ability to categorize a book library into collections. Amazon also claims improved clarity and readability with two new font sizes. Staying with the social networking bandwagon theme, they've also provided functionality that highlights the e-book passages considered to be the most interesting by the Kindle community."