Michael's Blog

Archive for the ‘Gadgets’ Category

One day after the launch of the IPad, Macmillan – one of the major book publishers in the US – announced to Amazon that they would not agree with the Amazon pricing of their content anymore. The following weekend a showdown happened that eventually concluded with Amazon giving in and changing their pricing model. This was the first public locking of horns about ebook pricing and may be symptomatic of future discussions between publishers and digital distributors.

Amazon wanted to sell books for their Kindle ebook reader at 9.95, Macmillan said they want to determine the pricing of books themselves, not undercut their hardcover editions by that much and sell at least some of them at a higher price (14.95), just like they have always done with distributors/booksellers of paper titles. Macmillan stated that they would not allow Amazon to sell their books. This was communicated by their CEO John Sargent via a paid ad in an online newsletter on Saturday.

Amazon promptly withdrew all Macmillan titles – e- and paper books – from their online store (which had the effect that Macmillan titles shot to the top of the other online retailers, like Barns & Noble).

Eventually, Amazon gave in, allowed Macmillan to set their own pricing and re-instated all titles.

In the meantime, other publishers, like the french Hachette Group, have joined Macmillan. Harper Collins have also expressed their dissatisfaction with Amazon’s pricing.

Amazon’s Kindle Team posts a letter to their customers citing a mission for inexpensive ebooks.

So this was to a big part prompted by the introduction of the IPad by Apple, who will open an ibook store in competition to Amazon, so far the dominant ebook distributor.

The Apple IBook store will work according to the “agency model”, in which publishers determine pricing of their titles, proceeds are split 70/30 between publisher and Apple. Amazon, on the other hand, operates on a low cost model, buying books at a big wholesaler’s discount (70%) from the publishers and selling them at bargain pricing.

So the result is that ebook prices are going up. In the short term. In the long term there will be competition, and many more of these battles will be fought. No publisher will price themselves out of a competitive market, and if titles are available on a variety of platforms, from a variety of distributors, this can only be a good thing in the long run.

2010 will be an exciting year in book publishing and distribution. Old business and pricing models will have to be questioned and revised, and even traditional media producers must re-think, ideally before technological advances, market changes and consumer behaviour force them to.

This week the Apple IPad was unveiled after much anticipation and speculation. There was a lot of media hype, the most entertaining of which were probably  Jason Calacanis’ tweets before the event about features he pretended to have seen on a prototype, which were taken as truth by some journalists who re-posted them immediately, further raising expectations (and showing the dilemma of confusing tweets with a respectable news source in the process).

The official video is here and the device looks definitely cool.

It does, however, not have anything unexpected, there are no unknowns, nothing magical in the device, it is a 9.7 inch screen that you can use to play games and read news, books and magazines. It is lacking a few features that were expected. It is clearly made to consume contents, not to create.

To me – and I am working in a printing company – the IPad looks like a gaming tool and like print replacement. It has the ability to make online content accessible and trendy.  Apple has used brilliant design to make technology accesible many times before, and I am sure the IPad will accelerate the uptake of online distribution and consumption of content.

“The iPad and other tablets will continue the erosion of preference for printed goods” writes Dr Joe Webb.

I don’t know if it will kick some new life into newspapers or magazines, but it will make their online content available to more traditional readers, who so far have not spent extended time with online reading.

As for books, it really depends on whether Apple can secure the content. If you decide to read for an extended period of time, say a book, you will welcome the fact that you will be able to get the exact content you want within minutes. Whether you will be able to focus on an LCD screen, whether the updates from facebook and messaging applications will not distract you, and whether you will actually have the device ready and powered up where you want to read is another question.

At least now we don’t have to speculate on what the IPad will be and we can start thinking about whether it will bring any change, what it will change and where it will accelerate change.

QR Codes are a popular type of two-dimensional barcode, which are also known as hardlinks or physical world hyperlinks. The quick readable (QR) barcodes can store a variety of text information, be read very fast and even upside down and can be scanned from a screen, a newspaper or magazine, flyer or even a billboard.

QR Codes store text, which can be:

• A website address
• A telephone number
• An SMS Message
• Contact Details (VCARD)
• A Google Map
• A Facebook or MySpace Profile

QR codes can be generated easily and read by scanners or camera equipped mobile phones. Many Nokias have the software built in, if you have an IPhone, you can download free QR barcode readers at the ITunes store.To generate qr codes you can use dedicated software or a number of free online tools, there is a list here.

QR codes can be placed in magazine ads or on outdoor billboards, pointing to further information about products. These hyperlinks on paper help integrating paper into the information and marketing media mix, they can be found on books, McDonalds packaging, pointing to information about your burger and there is even an example where codes on a cemetery point to information about people. Another very cool application is Starbuck’s loyalty IPhone app.

The code below is pointing to this post, if you have the software on your phone you can try it out:

Update: QR codes gaining popularity:

NYT: From Print to Phone to Web. And a Sale?

Since I have bought my IPhone I am trying to get by without carrying a laptop around, and that means using the IPhone for things usually done by a computer

In my mind presentations was one of the obvious thing to use the IPhone for: it stores and displays data very well, it is very good at displaying email attachments such as Word documents, Excel or pdf files and it can show videos and pictures.

So I went to the Apple Store and bought the AV adapter, which will display your image to projectors or large screens and doubles as a charger via a USB power connector.

However, it looks like you cannot display anything on your IPhone screen except for pictures and videos. This means that using email attachments is out. This also means that pdfs and office documents can not be shown.
So the IPhone for presentations only works to show videos or slides shows of the pictures. To use it for presentations it is necessary to convert your slides to rasterised images in jpg format. This is not difficult, most programs do this; Acrobat saves as jpg, Powerpoint saves slides as numbered images). These then show, however without animation or transitions. You can also not zoom in. This is a bit disappointing, as it would be really no problem to use the IPhone as a presentation platform, but for some reason Apple does not seem to let you.
The workaround via the pictures library is not really a great solution, surely there will be an application for this purpose soon

Just out of interest: the Nokia N95 comes with a composite video cable and can project anything from its screen with a projector or big display, including videos, pictures, pdfs or other office files.

So here I am thinking about e-books on the IPhone and the possibilities of communication, but a few days with a bunch of kids, a wireless network and a new IPhone 3GS in typical rainy English weather makes me realise, what one of it’s best functionalities is: Gaming.

These kids had nintendos, Playstations and all kinds of other gadgets, but the IPhone was most popular, by far, because it was easy to use and easy to update, in seconds they had downloaded another free game. Who needs e-readers?

This is just a loose list, all apps can be found in the appstore, some apps may require you to install additional software on your computer, most of them are free.

Instapaper

Instapaper is an application that allows you to read web pages on your phone offline. When you browse and see a web page you might like to read it later, and this is where instapaper comes in. The software places a link in your browser toolbar. When you click it, the web page you are looking at is uploaded to a server, and next time you start the Instapaper app on your IPhone, it will download the page and have it ready for you to read on the phone when you have the time (and possibly no connectivity). Great idea, easy app. Free and commercial version.

Some IPhone news applications now link to Instapaper, e.g. if you use NetNewsWire, you can click on a news item and it will appear in your “Read Later” list in Instapaper.

Stanza

Stanza is another reading app, the free desktop software allows you to convert any text to a number of ebook format and upload it to your phone. Stanza then acts like an ebook reader. You can also download books and magazines. This is a very versatile application, and it shows: Stanza has been downloaded millions of times and the company Lexcycle has just been bought by Amazon.

INewz

INews is a simple newsreader, it is customisable and has a clean, simple interface.

Tweetie

Tweetie is a very versatile Twitter client, which shows you tweets from people you follow, from people nearby, trending topics and it has a good search function. If you only use one twitter app, this could be it.

facebook

Oh, well.

Wordpress

If you have a wordpress blog this application allows you to add and edit articles, upload pictures etc. You can write offline and then upload when you get connected again and you can administer your blog.

Shazaam

A great app, when you hear a song you would like to identify, start Shazam. It will listen for ten seconds, then send the soundbite to a server and return the name of the song and the artist. Great technology, I tried everything from German punk to Pavarotti, and it did not fail once.

Around Me and Urbanspoon

Two applications that make use of the location awareness of the IPhone. Around Me shows you nearby bars, restaurants, pharmacies, banks and other noteworthy things,and it is a godsent when you are in another city and need to find your way around quickly.

Urbanspoon shows restaurants nearby, and you can choose a style (Greek; Japanese, Modern Australian etc) and a price level (one to four stars). Urbanspoon suggests a restaurant and shows you the way there through Google Maps. Urbanspoon also shows you reviews of that restaurant, using data from other users.  A great way to find new places and be inspired.