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Qwitter: Accessible Twitter client (uses TTS) (via @doctorow)

By Andrew Savikas
November 5, 2009

Just make sure not to follow anyone who's a member of the Author's Guild ... "The Qwitter client enables blind individuals to interface with the Twitter service globally, regardless of...

"Web-based ePub validator adds Preflight and API" (via @liza)

By Andrew Savikas
November 4, 2009

From @liza at Threepress:"EpubCheck’s lesser-known companion checks for additional issues like content documents that exceed 300K, which can’t be loaded on the Sony Reader."http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/04/epub-validator-updates/(ps -- thanks to @liza for making...

BookServer: A Web of Books

By Andrew Savikas
October 19, 2009

I'm thrilled to be at the Internet Archive's "Making Books Apparent" event today in San Francisco, where they're debuting the new BookServer architecture. As the audience for digital books grows,...

Second "Open Feedback" Title Now Online

By Andrew Savikas
September 30, 2009

Over on the O'Reilly Labs blog, Keith Fahlgren talks about the latest title to go live in our Open Feedback Publishing System, which gives authors and readers a way to...

Mobile as New Medium

By Andrew Savikas
September 7, 2009

While prepping for my talk tomorrow on mobile publishing at the Digital Publishing Group in New York, I was also popping in and out of a related ongoing email conversation...

New on O'Reilly Labs: Open Feedback Publshing System

By Andrew Savikas
May 21, 2009

O'Reilly engineer Keith Fahlgren has formally launched our new Open Feedback Publishing System over on O'Reilly Labs: Over the last few years, traditional publishing has been moving closer to the...

Authoring Tools from Alpha Geeks

By Andrew Savikas
May 11, 2009

Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) has posted a nice article covering some of the tools he's built or borrowed to make his writing life more manageable. I'm especially intrigued by the Flashbake...

Real world RIA productivity tools

By Dan Thomas
April 26, 2009

Ever noticed how certain phrases seem to do the rounds in the tech industry? One such phrase I see a lot is "eat your own dog food" or more charmingly "dogfooding". I can relate this to a number of RIAs which I use day-to-day when developing, managing and promoting RIAs which I thought might be of use to share in no particular order (and with no affiliation).

Open Publishing Distribution System -- an Open-Standards Catalog Format

By Andrew Savikas
April 8, 2009

It's no secret we're big fans of the iPhone/iPod reading app Stanza. While the Kindle App has overtaken Stanza for the top-spot among free book apps in iTunes, Stanza offers...

"Bite-Size Edits" from BookOven

By Andrew Savikas
April 2, 2009

Hugh McGuire's startup BookOven has opened up an alpha version of a project they're calling the Gutenberg Rally, an attempt to harness collective intelligence Mechanical-Turk style to proofread Project Gutenberg...

Software Development as Collaborative Writing

By Andrew Savikas
March 31, 2009

Following a lively backchannel email discussion, I'd planned to blog about what writers, editors, and publishers can learn from software developers (specifically their tools and techniques) but Tim beat me...

What Publishers Need to Learn from Software Developers

By Tim O'Reilly
March 31, 2009

There was a great exchange on the O'Reilly editors' backchannel the other day, so illuminating that I thought I should share it with the rest of you. We've been discussing the fast-track development we're using to produce The Twitter Book. (We're basically authoring the book as a presentation, after I realized how much more quickly I am able to put...

Jakob Nielsen: Kindle Content Must be Kindle-Specific

By Mac Slocum
March 16, 2009

Jakob Nielsen offers an in-depth look at Kindle formatting best practices: For Kindle, it's certainly unacceptable to simply repurpose print content. But you can't repurpose website content, either. For...

Taxonomies and Starting With XML

By Laura Dawson
February 25, 2009

This is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote last week on taxonomies and chunking. Last October, the StartWithXML team wrote a post called "To Chunk or Not To...

Virginia Open Sourcing Physics Textbook ("Flexbook")

By Andrew Savikas
February 16, 2009

I was part of a brief Twitter exchange recently with Cengage's Ken Brooks about the cost of textbooks: kenbrooks: @doctorow #toc That depends entirely on the type of book. A...

Video: Android meets Eink

By Andrew Savikas
February 13, 2009

Keeping with the "labs" theme for recent posts, via a tweet from George Walkley: Lots of talk about devices at TOC - now just saw this, Android + e-ink http://vimeo.com/3162590...

The "O'Reilly Bump" and Bookworm

By Andrew Savikas
February 13, 2009

During his TOC Keynote, Tim O'Reilly talked about how the status he confers through "retweets" on Twitter are really just another form of publishing, not much different from the status...

Photos from NYT R&D Lab

By Andrew Savikas
February 12, 2009

Nick Bilton was a hit yesterday at the TOC Conference, and during his keynote he talked about what they're working on with content at the NYT R&D Lab. Nick was...

Open XML API for O'Reilly Metadata

By Andrew Savikas
February 10, 2009

In addition to Bookworm, O'Reilly Labs now includes an RDF-based API into all of O'Reilly's books: Most publishers are familiar with the ONIX standard for exchanging metadata about books among...

At TOC: Cory Doctorow to Publishers: Demand Option To Not Use DRM

By Andrew Savikas
February 10, 2009

I knew Cory Doctorow would be a great wrap up to the first day morning keynotes at TOC, and he more than delivered. He ended the keynote with a challenge...

StartWithXML Research Report Now Available for Sale

By Andrew Savikas
February 4, 2009

If you weren't able to attend the StartWithXML Forum last month in New York, the accompanying research report is available for sale. The report covers topics like: Where am I...

Good Company Culture Comes in Small Packages

By Kate Eltham
February 3, 2009

Small publishers' culture of experimentation-by-necessity gives them a leg up on the large publishing "dinosaurs."

Webcast Video: Essential Tools of an XML Workflow

By Mac Slocum
January 30, 2009

Below you'll find the full recording from the TOC webcast, "Essential Tools of an XML Workflow," with Laura Dawson....

New York Times Opens "Best Sellers API"

By Andrew Savikas
January 28, 2009

On Tuesday the New York Times opened up its "Best Sellers API" offering programmatic access to best-seller data (going back to 1930!)

The Coming Readers' Economy and Data Portability

By Mac Slocum
January 22, 2009

This is a guest post by Mark Bertlis. At the end of last year one event signaled a huge shift in how the book publishing industry will do business. It's...

Why the AWS Console is Good for Cloud Tool Vendors

By George Reese
January 9, 2009

The release of the Amazon Web Services console has had a number of people predicting doom for cloud tools providers. On the contrary, by removing a barrier to experimentation that has kept people out of the cloud, the Amazon Web Services console should bring more people in the cloud and benefit tools providers whose value propositions are beyond Amazon's core value proposition.

Conversation is the New King

By Mac Slocum
January 5, 2009

Kate Eltham calls out publishers who blog through a PR lens and points the way to publisher blogs that fully embrace the medium: It used to be common wisdom...

The Realities of Big Web Traffic and Advertising

By Mac Slocum
December 18, 2008

Major news sites that rely on advertising as their primary revenue stream need to log hundreds of millions of page views per month to attract significant attention from advertisers, according...

What are Your Force Multipliers in Software Development?

By chromatic
December 12, 2008

Programming language features and tools are obvious force multipliers for software developers. Development practices are less obvious. Here are some of my favorite productivity improvements.

Slides from "Essential Tools of an XML Workflow" Webcast

By Mac Slocum
December 12, 2008

Laura Dawson has made her slides available from the recent TOC Webcast, "Essential Tools of an XML Workflow." A complete recording of the event will be posted here soon. View...

[TOC Webcast] Social Media for Publishers

By Mac Slocum
December 12, 2008

Tools of Change for Publishing will host "Social Media for Publishers," a free webcast with presenter Chris Brogan, on Tuesday, Dec. 16 at 1 p.m. eastern (10 a.m. pacific)....

Magazines Now in Google Book Search

By Mac Slocum
December 11, 2008

Google is adding back issues of magazines to its Book Search index. From the Official Google Blog: Try queries like [obama keynote convention], [hollywood brat pack] or [world's most challenging...

Book Publishing's Scale Issue

By Mac Slocum
December 9, 2008

In a post looking at the future interplay of content, gatekeepers and consumers, David Nygren touches on a key issue for large book publishers: scale. Mega Publishing Conglomerates Go Bye-Bye:...

Webcast Video: What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization

By Mac Slocum
December 5, 2008

Below you'll find the full recording from the recent TOC Webcast, "What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization," with Liza Daly....

Slides from "Making the Case for POD" Webcast

By Mac Slocum
December 5, 2008

Brian O'Leary had made his slides available from this week's TOC Webcast, "Making the Case for POD." A complete recording of the event will also be posted here soon....

Amazon iPhone App Uses Crowdsourcing for Product IDs

By Mac Slocum
December 3, 2008

Amazon's new iPhone application has an experimental feature, dubbed Amazon Remembers, that blends product discovery and crowdsourcing. From the New York Times Bits blog: The tool lets users take a...

Point-Counterpoint: Digital Book DRM, the Least Worst Solution

By Bill McCoy
November 24, 2008

In the second part of a point-counterpoint exchange, Bill McCoy examines two scenarios: a publishing industry that doesn't embrace interoperable DRM, and one that does.

Point-Counterpoint: On Digital Book DRM

By Peter Brantley
November 20, 2008

In the first part of a point-counterpoint exchange, Peter Brantley outlines reasons why DRM is bad for book publishers.

Publishers Need to Get In on the Conversation

By Peter Brantley
November 19, 2008

Kassia Krozser has a Cluetrain-like manifesto for publishers. From Booksquare: It's time to get your hands dirty, to dig into the real-world conversation. It's a weird thing, and sometimes...

[TOC Webcast] Making the Case for Print on Demand

By Mac Slocum
November 19, 2008

Tools of Change for Publishing will host "Making the Case for Print on Demand," a free webcast with presenter Brian O'Leary, on Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 1 p.m. eastern...

Redefining Professional Content and Accepting Digital's Limitations

By Mac Slocum
November 18, 2008

Scott Karp's 10 observations about the future of media inspired a few thoughts on the shifting definition of "professional" and the limitations of digital.

Tagging the Real World through Barcode Apps

By Mac Slocum
November 14, 2008

Mobile phones with barcode apps bring digital tools into real-world curation.

Slides from "What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization" Webcast

By Liza Daly
November 13, 2008

Slides from the "What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization" webcast.

APIs, New "Transactions" and the Google Book Search Registry

By Peter Brantley
November 13, 2008

At PersonaNonData, Michael Cairns discusses the Google Book Search registry, and muses whether it might support certain types of transactions through an API: How the registry may be formed is...

Webcast Video: Why Publishers Should Care About SEO

By Mac Slocum
November 6, 2008

See the full video from the TOC Webcast: "Why Publishers Should Care About SEO," with SEO expert Jamie Low.

Open Source, Community and Audiobooks: Q&A with LibriVox Founder Hugh McGuire

By Mac Slocum
November 5, 2008

LibriVox is a volunteer effort with a big goal: record audiobook editions for every title in the public domain. In this Q&A, LibriVox founder Hugh McGuire discusses the project's beginnings, the organic development of the LibriVox community, and the distinctions (or lack thereof) between "professional" and "amateur" efforts.