Summary: The Kindle is losing its market against the new iPad; The Telegraph compares the best e-readers

• Apple has sold 3.27 million iPads, way more than Amazon’s Kindle…
• The Telegraph:  iPad is the best e-reader. “It’s not a one-trick device”, they say.
• Digital Publishing and e-books have a dedicated zone at the Hong Kong Book Fair. Many publishers say it’s there to stay
• Apps Vs. Web Content. Folio says the web wins

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The iPad is a phenomenon. More than 1,500,000 units have been sold and most of them are being used to read magazines. Auditing firm ABC is aware of the changes in the industry and has posted a list dos and don’ts when creating publications for Apple’s device.

“The new guidelines allow ABC magazine members to design digital editions that are better suited for the specific distribution device, like the iPad, and provide additional features in the digital edition that enhance both the editorial and advertising content while still counting that circulation in rate base,”  said Teresa Perry, SVP, publisher member audit.

Here’s some highlights of the document:

Dos

• Make sure your advertising content is integrated with your editorial content.
• Ensure that the full print editorial and advertising content is included in your replica digital edition. In a few cases, you can substitute advertising or sell additional advertising and still qualify the digital edition as replica.
• Include extra content (video, audio, etc).
• Allow your advertisers to swap out ads between the print and digital edition. The creative of the ads can be change, but if the advertisers are included in the print edition they must also be represented in the digital edition.
• Make sure you have the appropriate documentation available to verify that the subscriber requested digital delivery and payment was made.

Don’ts

• Separate your advertising content from your editorial content by putting it behind a separate tab or otherwise “hiding” it from the consumer.
• Feel like the only digital edition you can produce must be a PDF of your print edition. The new guidelines were specifically revised to allow you to respond to the changing technologies and create replica digital editions that reflect those technologies and still count toward rate base.
• Limit your digital edition advertising to just one sponsor or a few ads. All of your print publication’s advertising must be included in the digital edition to qualify it as replica.
• Substitute editorial photos in the digital edition. If you cannot use the same editorial photos in the digital edition as you used in the print edition, the circulation cannot qualify as replica.

Some of the rules leave space for experimentation, which seems to be reasonable given the newness of the device. It’s easy to expect that ABC will have a similar open approach for other future tablets, including the Wepad and the Microsoft-HP gadget.

Photo Credit: Apple

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Summary: Google’s e-book store could have more than 4 million publications; Adobe creates e-reading app without Flash

• Google Editions could have more than 4 million e-books. Google jumps in the wagon of digital publishing e-commerce
• Internet Explorer 6 is doomed. Is has less than 6% of the market in Europe and the U.S.
• LG unveils tablet that uses Windows 7. Features 1.3 megapixel cam and SD card support. Price and availability are unknown
• Adobe launches magazine reader for the iPad. A way to work around Apple’s Flash ban…
• Vanity Fair restructures its content for the iPad. In vertical mode the magazine is shown with a split screen: images at the top and text at the bottom.

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Summary: ‘Sesame Street’ unveiled its e-bookstore‎; Barnes & Noble launched ‘PubIt’, a self-publishing platform

• Sesame Street has opened its e-book library for a flat yearly fee. For $40 per year, parents have unlimited access to “more than 100 Sesame Street eBooks.”
• Barnes & Noble announced PubIt!, an “easy” digital publishing and distribution platform for independent authors. Publishers left out of the game…
• Acer to launch its own tablet with a 7-inch screen and a physical keyboard, similar to Amazon’s Kindle
• Sony to challenge Apple in Japan with a new e-reader. No tech specs or other details were revealed.
• Book publishers look forward to the massive adoption of the iPad. A news business model for that industry?

Photo Credit: CacheFly.net

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Taptu, an agency that studies mobile touch media, published its second quarterly report and revealed that Mobile Touch Web has grown 35 percent since last quarter and 232 percent since last year. This puts Mobile Web growth rate ahead of the App Store with an annual growth rate of 144 percent.

Steve Ives, Taptu CEO, said: “The strong growth we observed over this quarter really took us by surprise but with device shipments of touch screen phones forecast by Gartner to reach 360m for 2010 it seems brands and content owners are waking up to this new mass market medium”.

The report also predicted that the Mobile Touch Web will increase to 1.1 million sites, fueled in part by the continued consumer love affair with touch screen phones and by the skyrocketing sales of mid-range touch-screened devices.

The study also said that:

• The largest growth has been in the young Android Market, that has 35,947 apps
• Touch-friendly websites have increased dramatically from 326,600 in January 2010 to 440,100 sites in April 2o10, which means 35 percent more in the quarter
• Although the iPhone is strong, it only has 10 percent of the worldwide market of touch screen devices, which means that if a company relies solely on iPhone apps it will only pursue 10 percent of the market

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Summary: Google to begin selling digital books  in June‎; Playboy introduces 3D centerfold in June issue

• Google to launch its own digital bookstore: ‘Editions’. The giant will join the war between Amazon.com, Apple and Barnes & Noble.
• Playboy will publish a centerfold in 3D. Hope Dworaczyk is the lucky girl
• The new iPhone operating system -4.0 beta 3- will have an e-reader… Its name is iBooks and is also available on the iPad
• Fujitsu announces color e-paper. It is fast and features an image size of 1,024×768.
• Canadian company launches one of the lowest priced e-readers in the market: the Kobo, with six inch display with, SD card slot, USB port, integrated bluetooth and 1 Gig of built in memory

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Blackberry gave a sneak peek of its OS 6 last week. And we can tell that it’s iPhone’ish, better to access rich media and obviously publications.

You can pinch-to-zoom on images and type using the touch screen. Plus, the web browser will support tabs and multi-touch navigation.

All these changes should give BlackBerry devices a much better handle on plain old HTML pages – especially in conjunction with multitouch. Good news for digital editions and any kind of visual content.

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Summary: The Sun to publish 3D edition for the World Cup; Adobe Creative Suite 5 begins to ship

• UK newspaper will have a 3D version for June 5. The Sun’s special edition will come complete with 3D glasses, 3D ads and 3D editorial
• Adobe releases Creative Suite 5. Shipping started yesterday and features new versions of 14 products and their assorted applications, four new online services, and a brand new interactive Web design product.
• Newspaper circulation in the States continues to drop. Print editions went down 9% in the six months to March 31
• Lady Gaga, one of the most influential according to Time mag. Bill Clinton, Obama and Robert Pattinson from Twilight also made the 100 list
• Steve Jobs: We don’t need Flash anymore. Apple’s CEO claims that the language drains the battery of mobile devices and has security flaws

Photo Credit: Cnet.co.uk

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Publishers are hopeful about the future of print books and the rise of digital ones, the Canadian Press published. E-readers like the iPad and Kindle, and Google’s plan to convert every book haven’t worried them at all. In fact, some  even think that both platforms will complement eachother. Here are some quotes:

“I think the book will be around for a while. People are feeling quite hopeful about what can happen with digital books (…). It could possibly be even a renaissance for writers and publishers as opposed to a doomsday scenario (…). We’re putting systems into place to make our content… available in whatever format people want.”
- Lynn Henry, publishing director at Doubleday Canada

“When something is that present it doesn’t just wither and die instantly (…). (iPads and Kindles) are certainly going to keep becoming more popular, but that doesn’t necessarily mean print will disappear. It just means it’s going to do different things (…) (With the iPad), next-generation e-readers will increasingly move away from their reliance on things like the page as the primary interface (…). On the one hand, it really feels like knowledge is being reorganized very dramatically right now as we move from a kind of paper print system to a digital system.”
- Andrew Piper, English progessor specialized in book history at McGill University

The story also explores how new technologies affect the reading experience. The impact of this change, according to Piper, may be no less than a reordering of how people understand ideas. I highly recomend the rest of the piece.

Photo Credit: Tempe.gov

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Summary: Digital publishing leader Mygazines released its web-based iPad Edition; Adobe unveiled its Creative Suite 5 product family

• TechCrunch: Publishing leader Mygazines launched an iPad Edition for written content and said no to apps
• Magazine industry contraction slows down, but so do the new launches
• Adobe introduces Creative Suite 5 (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.). iPad compatible, speedy and with a more accurate performance
• Apple delays international iPad launch until the end of May because it has sold more iPads (over half a million) than it anticipated

Photo Credit: Mygazines

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