Showing posts with label E-book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label E-book. Show all posts

Friday, July 27, 2012

Google Books Deserves To Get Life

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase
Just like sane countries force broadband providers to share their pipes with competitors, Google Books should be made to share its content to other online distributors, and authors of the books should get their cut, but the idea of getting in the way of digital books is plain stupid. Why deprive humanity of the treasure trove?

Google urges end to authors' digital book lawsuit
its ambitious plan to build the world's largest digital book library .... Google has said it has scanned more than 20 million books, and posted English-language snippets of more than 4 million .... authors actually benefit because the database helps people find and buy their books ..... a "de facto monopoly" to copy books en masse without permission and served to "further entrench" its market power in online searches. ..... Among the libraries whose works have been scanned are those of Harvard University, Oxford University, Stanford University, the University of California, the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library .... The United States, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp had been among those to raise antitrust concerns about the settlement.
Paper books should feel odd. Digital books should be the norm. Digital copies of all books current and past should be available. Why do you want to get in the way of authors penetrating markets?


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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Eureka Moment: The Local Library On Kindle

Cover of "Kindle Wireless Reading Device,...Cover via AmazonI just found out that the local library is on Kindle.

The Next Web: Amazon launches Kindle book-lending service with 11,000 US libraries

Then I proceeded to download the free Kindle app for the PC. It looks swell on my computer.

Then I went to the New York Public Library website and found out Kindle is nowhere to be seen. I can't get the library books on to my Kindle, at least not yet. I went to the Queens Library website. And I found out the same thing.

I guess news travels faster than reality.

Once this comes to be it will be like Spotify for books. So we got books and music covered. Will someone please do the same for movies? Or I might as well go ahead and pay Netflix some money.

I grew up in Nepal. We are kind of underdeveloped.


Your Local Library On Kindle
Me: Author
My Dream: A Netflix For Books
A Netflix For Books Needed

Sunday, September 11, 2011

My Dream: A Netflix For Books

In 1998 Reed Hastings founded Netflix, the lar...Image via Wikipedia
The Next Web: Amazon reportedly in talks to launch a Netflix for books: charging a fixed monthly fee for access to a library of books. Amazon will reportedly offer book publishers a substantial fee for their involvement in the program. ..... With Amazon’s Kindle platform and intimate relationships with every premium publisher on the planet, this is a unique new space only the likes of Amazon and Apple are likely to be able to cater to. ..... my bet is on Amazon to dominate thanks to its first mover advantage and a name synonymous with books. Let’s face it, iBooks hasn’t had quite the impact we would have expected to see from a digital giant like Apple. I’d argue this is because of its lacking selection of books
Your Local Library On Kindle
A Netflix For Books Needed (October 2009)

AllThingsD: Amazon in Talks to Launch Digital-Book Library: Several publishing executives said they aren’t enthusiastic about the idea because they believe it could lower the value of books and because it could strain their relationships with other retailers that sell their books

CNet: Amazon eyes Netflix-style service for e-books: publishers are wary and the latest titles may be excluded--just like with Netflix's streaming service.

Business Insider: Amazon Is Trying To Launch A Netflix Style eBook Subscription Service: the subscription service could take some time to launch since Amazon is busy trying to woo publishers and get them on board.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Adaptive Text: The Book Deserves To Come Alive

A Picture of a eBookImage via Wikipedia
The Technium: What Books Will Become: a screen that we watch can watch us. The tiny eyes built into your tablet, the camera that faces you, can read your face. Prototype face tracking software can already recognize your mood, and whether you are paying attention, and more importantly where on the screen you are paying attention. It can map whether you are confused by a passage, or delighted, or bored. That means that the text could adapt to how it is perceived. Perhaps it expands into more detail, or shrinks during speed reading, or changes vocabulary when you struggle, or reacts in a hundred possible ways. There are numerous experiments playing with adaptive text. One will give you different summaries of characters and plot depending on how far you've read. ..... books with moving images. We don't have a word for these yet .... Text inside of moving images as well as images inside of text. .... This hybrid of movies and books will require a whole set of tools we don't have right now. Presently it is difficult to browse moving images, or to parse a movie, or to annotate a frame in a movie. Ideally we'd like to manipulate kinetic images with the same facility, ease and power that we manipulate text -- indexing it, referencing, cut and pasting, summarizing, quoting, linking, and paraphrasing the content. As we gain these tools (and skills) we'll make a class of highly visual books, ideal for training and education, which we can study, rewind, and study again. They will be books we can watch or TV we can read. ......... The current custodians of ebooks -- Amazon, Google and the publishers -- have agreed to cripple the liquidity of ebooks by preventing readers from cut-and-pasting text easily, or to copy large sections of a book, or to otherwise seriously manipulate the text. But eventually the text of ebooks will be liberated, and the true nature of books will blossom. ...... We can even filter the most popular highlights of all readers, and in this manner begin to read a book in a new way. I can also read the highlights of a particular friend, scholar or critic. ....... Reading becomes more social. We can share not just the titles of books we are reading, but our reactions and notes as we read them. Today, we can highlight a passage. Tomorrow we will be able to link passages. We can add a link from a phrase in the book we are reading to a contrasting phrase in another book we've read; from a word in a passage to an obscure dictionary, from a scene in a book to a similar scene in a movie. ........ Even a minor good work could accumulate a wiki-like set of critical comments tightly bound to the actual text. ....... dense hyperlinking among books would make every book a networked event ....... Wikipedia is the first networked book. ...... This deep rich hyperlinking will weave all networked books into one large meta-book, the universal library. Over the next century, scholars and fans, aided by computational algorithms, will knit together the books of the world into a single networked literature. ....... no work, no idea, stands alone, but that all good, true and beautiful things are networks, ecosystems of intertwingled parts, related entities and similar works ........ The complete universal library, all books in all languages, will soon be available on any screen. There will be many ways to access a book, but for most people most of the time, any particular book will essentially be free. (You'll pay a monthly fee for "all you can read.") Access is easy, but finding a book, or getting it attention will be hard, so the importance of the book's network will grow, because the network is what brings in readers. ...... A book is an attention unit. A fact is interesting, an idea is important, but only a story, a good argument, a well-crafted narrative is amazing, never to be forgotten. As Muriel Rukeyser said, "The universe is made of stories, not atoms." ...... In the long run (next 10-20 years) we won't pay for individual books any more than we'll pay for individual songs or movies.
Reducing price and enhancing quality is what businesses strive for. But the music and movie industries have been bummed out for years now because modern technology has managed to drive the price point to zero. That is like the price point attaining nirvana, no?

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Your Local Library On Kindle

Cover of "Kindle Wireless Reading Device,...Cover via Amazon9 To 5 Mac: You'll be able to borrow Kindle books from 11,000 libraries, says Amazon
ReadWriteWeb: Check Out Library Books on Your Kindle: the announcement from Amazon this morning that it is launching a Lending Library "later this year" that will let Kindle owners check out books from their local library..... participation of over 11,000 libraries in the U.S. ..... the ability to actually make margin notes in your library books. You'll be able to take notes, store them privately - in other words, the next library patron won't see them - and then access them again should you check the book out again or purchase it in the future
This is huge. This kind of made my day. Does this mean all of the New York Public Library will be available on Kindle? That is pretty awesome.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Five Books

vector version of this imageImage via WikipediaAutobiography
Me: Author

I have talked about writing a 50-100 page autobiography, and I am going to do it, I have already started work on it. But I have come to realize I would not want that to be my first book to go public.

Instead I have decided on putting out five volumes of Topics In Tech based on my posts at this blog. Going to Amazon Kindle Self Publishing. Price $2.99. I think I get two bucks, Amazon keeps the other buck.

This is tempting. I already got the material ready.

This is tempting. The question you find asking yourself is, will the books sell? If they do, I could take bootstrapping to a whole new level.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Me: Author

Cover of "Kindle Wireless Reading Device,...Cover via Amazon
Business Insider: This 26-Year-Old Is Making Millions Cutting Out Traditional Publishers With Amazon Kindle: 26-year old Amanda Hocking is the best-selling "indie" writer on the Kindle store, meaning she doesn't have a publishing deal ...... She gets to keep 70% of her book sales -- and she sells around 100,000 copies per month. ..... Hocking sells her books for $3, and some $.99. ..... she can make more on volume, especially impulse buys. Meanwhile e-books cost nothing to print, you don't have to worry about print volumes, shelf space, inventory
I write, I write a lot, I write daily, but I am not a writer. I get offended when I get called a writer. I am not. A writer. No.

People who disrespect my political work into the Nepal democracy movement of 2006 call me a journalist. Fuck no. I am not a journalist. That was digital activism. That was political work.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

130 Million Books


It is not an infinity. There are only so many books in the world. Google has come up with the magic number. It is almost 130 million.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

eBooks: Yet Another Technology Looking For Business Models

Bill and Melinda Gates during their visit to t...Image via Wikipedia
CNet: New study suggests e-book piracy is on the rise
It started with music. Movies and books will not be spared, are not being spared. It is a mindfood thing. The Internet is like this vast farm custom made for the production and consumption of mindfood in its various forms.

The first instinct of the industries has been to fight the technology. It is not true that people seem to have this unbeatable thirst to steal that which comes out during the night that is the internet. People like the convenience of the digital format. In digital formats these products - books, movies, music - take no space. Your device does not count, it is not music, it is not a book, it is no movie.

Just like the pharmaceutical industry does not have the same static price globally - it charges less in the poor countries and even gives it out for free in some - the textbook industry has to be the same way.

Maybe the price of that eBook is not $9.99. Maybe the price of that song is not 99 cents. Those prices have to go down. And they have to go even further down in the Global South.

And then the industry has to make peace with the fact that there will be some leakage. Like Bill Gates said a long time ago about China, "We want them to pay for our software, but if they are going to steal it anyway, we want them to steal our software." That has to be the spirit. Have you even been to a supermarket where some guy/gal is standing outside an eatery giving away free samples? It might be just one bite, but it is good business. I get the impression even free is a business model. When you are not raking in the cash, you are giving stuff away for free and you are building your brand.

Even when people don't give you cash, they give you mindshare. The whole advertising industry revolves around that mindshare. Don't complain when you get it.

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Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Blogger + Amazon = Wonderful Things

Blogger (service)Image via Wikipedia
One of the things I have done during the final weeks of 2009 is to make a serious attempt at blogging as a secondary career in 2010.

There are three components: content, traffic, and monetization. Unless you have great content, there is no reason for people to come to your blog. You can have great content, but unless you get your word out there, you are not going to get traffic. You can have top notch content, and thousands of visitors per day, but unless you actively take steps to monetize, you are not going to make any money from your blog.

There are five layers to monetization.
  1. Google AdSense. This will make you little to no money starting out. 
  2. Blog post ads. Text link ads. Try Sponsored Reviews, Blogsvertise, LinkWorth, and InfoLinks.
  3. Affiliate Marketing. Try Amazon Affiliate.
    NEW YORK - MAY 06:  Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (R) ...

  4. Using Aweber software to collect emails to sell eBooks and online courses to. 
  5. Corporate blog. Say if your blog is an instrument that helps you raise money for your tech startup. 

Image representing Amazon as depicted in Crunc...Image via CrunchBase
Image representing AWeber Communications as de...
The list is a spectrum. Item 1 makes you the least money, item 5 the most. And there is a gradation in between. In 2009 I did a lot of 1 and 2, mostly 2. And I had been gearing to focus more on 3 in 2010. I had mentally picked Amazon as the affiliate program to focus on. My reasoning was the same as why I picked Blogger as my blogging platform years ago. 10 years from now Google will still be there. I guess Amazon will be there 10 years from now. And they sell millions of items. I might try out other affiliate programs later on, but Amazon liked a good one to start with.

Image representing Zemanta as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase
And so I was thinking I was going to start embedding links to Amazon products in my blog posts. That kind of embedding is the best way to do affiliate marketing in the first place. That was the impression I had from reading around the blogs of the pros. And then Sunday afternoon I discover after logging into the Amazon website that Amazon had integrated with Blogger and now embedding links to Amazon products in your blog posts was almost as easy as using Zemanta to jazz up your posts. Perfect timing. Just when I was waking up to affiliate marketing for my blog, Amazon and Google gang up to do this for me. This makes life so much easier for me going into 2010. Thank you Amazon. Thank you Blogger.
Accidental Post To Google's Blogger Buzz

December 16, 2009: Amazon Associates And Google Blogger Now Integrated
Bloggers highlight the relevant text and the Amazon Product Finder will search Amazon’s millions of products and recommend the ones that are most closely associated with the text ....... Bloggers can then insert a link or image to that product which includes their Associates ID, enabling them to earn up to 15% in referral fees from Amazon....... Bloggers will also be able to show dynamic content in their blog sidebar using a new set of integrated Sidebar gadgets, such as gadgets for MP3 clips from the Amazon DRM-free music store, an Amazon Deals gadget, and an Amazon Search box.
Well, I have had the Amazon search box at my blog for months now. You could do that long before this integration happened.

How have you been monetizing your blog? Please share in the comments section below. 

The Pro-Blogger's Daily Routine
This Blog's Alexa Rank Is Up Substantially
Bill Gates Drove Up Traffic To This Blog
Seth Godin And Blog Traffic
TechCrunch Has Linked To A Blog That Stole My Material
7 Ways To Make Money Blogging
15 Ways To Boost Traffic To Your Blog
How To Become A Professional Blogger
The Big Money Is Not In Blogging 

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Friday, October 16, 2009

A Netflix For Books Needed

Image representing Netflix as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase
Netflix For Books

Google might have started with public domain books, and Amazon might have taken a step with its Kindle and the $9.99 per downloaded book, but what would really change the game is if you could pay a monthly flat fee and read as many books as you might want online. That would include books old and new. Charging 10 bucks a month for that would make sense. The Netflix business model needs to be replicated for books, or maybe Netflix itself should want to get into the books business. They have already done it for movies, maybe they are well positioned to replicate it for books.

Kindle Or The Browser

Google wants to do over your browser what Amazon wants to do through its Kindle. My prejudice is for the browser. You should not need a different appliance to read books. Your computer should do it.
Image representing Amazon EC2 as depicted in C...Image via CrunchBase
Hey, you already paid for it.

All Books Need To Go Digital

In The News
  1. Libraries and Readers Wade Into Digital Lending New York Times 
  2. When the Icing on the Cake Spells Disaster
  3. Small-Business Guide: Real-Life Lessons in Using Google AdWords


  4. $100 Laptop prototypeImage via Wikipedia
    Nicholas D. Kristof: Democrats and Schools

  5. Rethinking the Older Woman-Younger Man Relationship
  6. Well: Phys Ed: Does Exercise Boost Immunity?
  7. Room for Debate: Does the Brain Like E-Books?
  8. So You Think You Know Pasta
  9. By Degrees: Curbing Emissions by Sealing Gas Leaks
  10. Happy Days: The Art of Defying Death
Off the Charts: By Some Reliable Measures, Recession Is Over the manufacturing sectors of China, Taiwan, South Korea and India had begun to grow by April, but that the United States did not follow suit until August.
The Tech Sector Trumpets Signs of a Real Rebound for many technology companies, orders are starting to bloom like flowers after a spring rain........ Computer hardware and software are building blocks of the modern economy, as basic as iron ore and coal were to the industrial era. Together, technology products represent about half of all business spending on equipment. ...... “I th
Image representing Amazon Kindle as depicted i...Image via CrunchBase
ink we are entering a period very similar to 1997 to 2004, where you’ll see a decade run of productivity increases”

Paul Krugman: A Hatchet Job So Bad It’s Good
Democrats Address Their Own Rifts on Health Care
Public Option Is Next Big Hurdle in Health Debate
How to Sell a War: First, Start to Win

Nuevo Kindle de AmazonImage by LA100RRA 3logs via Flickr
Parents Burning to Write It All Down
  1. 5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe (and Private!) on Facebook
  2. Q & A: Tip of the Week: Free Antivirus Software
  3. State of the Art: Cameras That Dazzle, and Dismay
  4. From the Desk of David Pogue: Computerized Health Records
  5. Brisk Ad Sales Spur Google in Third Quarter
  6. Q & A: A New Life for Old Drives
  7. Gadgetwise: App of the Week: Photoshop for the iPhone
  8. Bits: Acer Eclipses Dell and Apple
  1. In Shift From ’08, Holiday Airfare Is Soaring Daily
  2. Patient Money: Nearly 65? Time for the Medicare Maze
  3. Even as Fares Creep Up, Airlines Tack on Fees, Too
  4. Bonuses Put Goldman in Public Relations Bind
  5. Choosing a Policy to Cover What Medicare Doesn’t
  6. Burdened by Defaults, Bank of America Misses Forecast
  7. Bank of America Chief Forgoes Pay for 2009
  8. Entrepreneurial Edge: Managing Your Career as a Business

“The true aim of everyone who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his own opinions, but to kindle minds.”
- Frederick W. Robertson quotes (English Preacher b.1840)







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