Tim's lecture about computer hardware had me thinking about projects to re-purpose old computers. One example from the book is to make a trivet out of the old electronic cord. The link below is to the Amazon book description.
http://www.amazon.com/Projects-Make-Dead-Computer-Electronics/dp/0761152431/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273973201&sr=8-1
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Can the iPad or the Kindle save book publishers?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126196977
I still see a role for publishers in the future of the book business. They weed out books that should not be published. Publishers also bring their marketing skills to help introduce and sell their books to the public. Their value proposition to authors should be that they can put their books in as many places as possible in order to sell them. I don't know many authors who want to spend the time dealing with retailers and wholesalers in order to have their book on the market.
Publishers are not threatened. Their past level of profits may be threatened, but their role is still necessary. If people start to buy e-books in greater numbers than print versions, and the prices people are willing to pay come down, then publishers will have to figure out ways to deliver their services even though they are making less money. Print marketing campaigns may be replaced with cheaper online campaigns. Different ways of marketing books may also be explored.
With less money to go around because book sales are down overall, publishers need to be innovative if they want to stay in business. Someone is going to fill their role if they fail.
Amazon, Apple, and Google all have a vested interest in selling books. Although I don't believe the existence of those companies depends on how many books they sell. That being said, people are still buying books and none of the companies would turn their backs on the revenue in selling books to readers. The fighting about formats and containers to read the books is hurting everyone. Customers shouldn't be tied to one format or one company in order to buy a book. The iPad seems to take that into account, which is perhaps a strength for Apple and the iPad. I think customers will gravitate toward a device that doesn't make them think about where they need to buy their next e-book.
I think everyone mentioned in the podcast has a role. Publishers help select books worthy of publishing and leverage their brand of professional marketing. The retailers like Amazon and Apple have content to sell. The author alluded to the fact that Google can't depend on advertising dollars as much and may need the book sales as another revenue stream.
One problem I see with Google is that I believe people will have a hard time being charged by Google. People believe Google is free and I think Google will have a hard time convincing customers to pay them for anything. Thus, I think the more successful model is where the publishers continue to price the product where it must be in order to maximize sales.
I wonder if books will be priced by the chapter, like music is priced by the song. Pay for what you read when you read it versus paying for the entire book all at once. I like a pay as you go system.
I still see a role for publishers in the future of the book business. They weed out books that should not be published. Publishers also bring their marketing skills to help introduce and sell their books to the public. Their value proposition to authors should be that they can put their books in as many places as possible in order to sell them. I don't know many authors who want to spend the time dealing with retailers and wholesalers in order to have their book on the market.
Publishers are not threatened. Their past level of profits may be threatened, but their role is still necessary. If people start to buy e-books in greater numbers than print versions, and the prices people are willing to pay come down, then publishers will have to figure out ways to deliver their services even though they are making less money. Print marketing campaigns may be replaced with cheaper online campaigns. Different ways of marketing books may also be explored.
With less money to go around because book sales are down overall, publishers need to be innovative if they want to stay in business. Someone is going to fill their role if they fail.
Amazon, Apple, and Google all have a vested interest in selling books. Although I don't believe the existence of those companies depends on how many books they sell. That being said, people are still buying books and none of the companies would turn their backs on the revenue in selling books to readers. The fighting about formats and containers to read the books is hurting everyone. Customers shouldn't be tied to one format or one company in order to buy a book. The iPad seems to take that into account, which is perhaps a strength for Apple and the iPad. I think customers will gravitate toward a device that doesn't make them think about where they need to buy their next e-book.
I think everyone mentioned in the podcast has a role. Publishers help select books worthy of publishing and leverage their brand of professional marketing. The retailers like Amazon and Apple have content to sell. The author alluded to the fact that Google can't depend on advertising dollars as much and may need the book sales as another revenue stream.
One problem I see with Google is that I believe people will have a hard time being charged by Google. People believe Google is free and I think Google will have a hard time convincing customers to pay them for anything. Thus, I think the more successful model is where the publishers continue to price the product where it must be in order to maximize sales.
I wonder if books will be priced by the chapter, like music is priced by the song. Pay for what you read when you read it versus paying for the entire book all at once. I like a pay as you go system.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources
A Report to the OCLC Membership
http://www.oclc.org/reports/pdfs/Percept_all.pdf
The conclusions are worth reading if you have an interest in libraries.
http://www.oclc.org/reports/pdfs/Percept_all.pdf
The conclusions are worth reading if you have an interest in libraries.
Computer History Museum
http://www.computerhistory.org/
The Internet History exhibit was interesting. For all the mixed feelings people have about the U.S. Department of Defense, it's clear the Internet may not have existed without their influence. Seems like many things in our lives today originated in the DoD.
The Internet History exhibit was interesting. For all the mixed feelings people have about the U.S. Department of Defense, it's clear the Internet may not have existed without their influence. Seems like many things in our lives today originated in the DoD.
2004 Information Format Trends: Content, Not Containers
Written and compiled by OCLC Marketing Staff
http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/community/2004infotrends_content.pdf
The link to the 12 page report is above and there are a few parts I will paste below to make comments and hope others have comments too.
The paragraph above from page 1 of the report provides a summary of what the report writers see as a trend. As a library student, I wonder how this trend is playing out in libraries with their collection development policies and practices. One area I've been exposed to that seems to relate to this trend where content is no longer solely found in books and other print formats is in the government documents area. The U.S. Government is the largest producer of information and historically has provided the information they generate to libraries around the country that are designated as depository libraries (http://www.fdlp.gov/). These depository libraries maintain the print collection and provide access to this collection to anyone who has a need for government published information. Increasingly, government publications are no longer offered in print formats and are being born as digital documents. Why? Cost and access. Thus, the implication of this trend is that any library can offer a government documents collection without participating in the formal depository library program. In addition, patrons can access the information when they need it and anywhere they are, thus eliminating the need to visit the library physically. Rather, they can access the library resources remotely in order to view the links to the government information.
On a similar note, the Gov Docs librarian mentioned above has stopped the print copies of most items that are also available in digital formats. The cost of maintaining a large print collection is high and access is limited as compared to the cost and access to the same items digitally.
The report also cites trends where libraries are collecting more electronic journals over traditional print journals and similar trends with books. I wonder how much trouble a library will have in the future when it attempts to justify its existence to those who need to see a large physical collection in order to feel a library is worth the investment. It seems that libraries will be reinventing themselves in order to remain relevant and also reinventing how they measure success. The challenge may lie in how they communicate these changes to the communities they serve.
Page 13 in the report mentions how the role of libraries may be changing. I've copied that section below.
My last comment deals with the interesting aspect of looking at a 2004 report in order to see if the predictions come true. In this respect, reading a 6 year old report can be a worthwhile experience.
http://www5.oclc.org/downloads/community/2004infotrends_content.pdf
The link to the 12 page report is above and there are a few parts I will paste below to make comments and hope others have comments too.
In the 18 months since we wrote the previous Format report, the rapid “unbundling” of content from traditional containers such as books, journals and CDs has had a significant impact on the self- search/find/obtain process. Digital content is often syndicated instead of being prepackaged and distributed, and access is provided on an as-needed basis to the information consumer by providers outside the library space.
The paragraph above from page 1 of the report provides a summary of what the report writers see as a trend. As a library student, I wonder how this trend is playing out in libraries with their collection development policies and practices. One area I've been exposed to that seems to relate to this trend where content is no longer solely found in books and other print formats is in the government documents area. The U.S. Government is the largest producer of information and historically has provided the information they generate to libraries around the country that are designated as depository libraries (http://www.fdlp.gov/). These depository libraries maintain the print collection and provide access to this collection to anyone who has a need for government published information. Increasingly, government publications are no longer offered in print formats and are being born as digital documents. Why? Cost and access. Thus, the implication of this trend is that any library can offer a government documents collection without participating in the formal depository library program. In addition, patrons can access the information when they need it and anywhere they are, thus eliminating the need to visit the library physically. Rather, they can access the library resources remotely in order to view the links to the government information.
On a similar note, the Gov Docs librarian mentioned above has stopped the print copies of most items that are also available in digital formats. The cost of maintaining a large print collection is high and access is limited as compared to the cost and access to the same items digitally.
The report also cites trends where libraries are collecting more electronic journals over traditional print journals and similar trends with books. I wonder how much trouble a library will have in the future when it attempts to justify its existence to those who need to see a large physical collection in order to feel a library is worth the investment. It seems that libraries will be reinventing themselves in order to remain relevant and also reinventing how they measure success. The challenge may lie in how they communicate these changes to the communities they serve.
Page 13 in the report mentions how the role of libraries may be changing. I've copied that section below.
Historically, libraries have been the unparalleled collectors of content, and for many reasons: their mandate to protect collections that reflect local communities; the necessity of a single place to find and obtain information; and because, frankly, no one did it better. Today, however, none of these statements is exclusively true. The “just-in-case” community collection is no longer adequate and consumers of content expect a great deal more personalization and dynamism in their content experiences.
Library content was, and still is, the gold standard: the best content money can buy on behalf of an identifiable audience. But it is no longer enough to present a warehouse of content and expect community members to create their own personalized meaningful context, post hoc, out of the raw materials. Others in the content market have read the oracle’s tea leaves and so provide syndicated and scoped content with personalization features that make perhaps inferior content very attractive to an ever more demanding, format-agnostic information producer and consumer.
What seems clear is that libraries should move beyond the role of collector and organizer of content, print and digital, to one that establishes the authenticity and provenance of content and provides the imprimatur of quality in an information- rich but context-poor world. The challenge is how to do this. The best way to adapt is to understand what’s forcing the change.
Research suggests that end users see the most important role for their libraries as making content available in the user’s digital workspace, regardless of what devices are in that space. The networked ambient environment will support “tasks...on the appropriate computing devices and will be available anywhere, anytime. The sources of information and tools will be abstracted, much as the power plants that provide electricity and the reservoirs that provide water are invisible to the consumer. Web Services, XML and WiFi and other such technologies form the foundation for this virtualized environment. While it is not yet clear how this marriage of technology and content will play out, it is clear that those that have not moved to XML and Web Services will be locked out of a key channel of distribution. XML and Web Services are not options—they are imperative.”
The “library’s role as archive or steward of information goods is being transformed as a collaborator and, potentially, a catalyst within interest-based communities.” We are at a crossroads. Technology and culture have come together to foster a transformation in the world of content. This new world is abundant and unstructured, but contextual mechanisms for navigating and synthesizing the information commons are scarce, even in—perhaps especially in—libraries. “We are drowning in information but are starving for knowledge. Information is only useful when it can be located and synthesized into knowledge.”
My last comment deals with the interesting aspect of looking at a 2004 report in order to see if the predictions come true. In this respect, reading a 6 year old report can be a worthwhile experience.
Cellphones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls
By JENNA WORTHAM
The New York Times
May 13, 2010
Liza Colburn uses her cellphone constantly.
She taps out her grocery lists, records voice memos, listens to music at the gym, tracks her caloric intake and posts frequent updates to her Twitter and Facebook accounts.
The one thing she doesn’t use her cellphone for? Making calls.
“I probably only talk to someone verbally on it once a week,” said Mrs. Colburn, a 40-year-old marketing consultant in Canton, Mass., who has an iPhone.
For many Americans, cellphones have become irreplaceable tools to manage their lives and stay connected to the outside world, their families and networks of friends online. But increasingly, by several measures, that does not mean talking on them very much.
For example, although almost 90 percent of households in the United States now have a cellphone, the growth in voice minutes used by consumers has stagnated, according to government and industry data.
This is true even though more households each year are disconnecting their landlines in favor of cellphones.
Instead of talking on their cellphones, people are making use of all the extras that iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones were also designed to do — browse the Web, listen to music, watch television, play games and send e-mail and text messages.
The number of text messages sent per user increased by nearly 50 percent nationwide last year, according to the CTIA, the wireless industry association. And for the first time in the United States, the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services on mobile devices in 2009 surpassed the amount of voice data in cellphone calls, industry executives and analysts say.
“Originally, talking was the only cellphone application,” said Dan Hesse, chief executive of Sprint Nextel. “But now it’s less than half of the traffic on mobile networks.”
Of course, talking on the cellphone isn’t disappearing entirely. “Anytime something is sensitive or is something I don’t want to be forwarded, I pick up the phone rather than put it into a tweet or a text,” said Kristen Kulinowski, a 41-year-old chemistry teacher in Houston. And calling is cheaper than ever because of fierce competition among rival wireless networks.
But figures from the CTIA show that over the last two years, the average number of voice minutes per user in the United States has fallen.
Still, even the telephone design industry has taken note. Ross Rubin, a telecommunications analyst with the NPD Group, said cellphones outfitted with numerical keyboards — easiest for quickly dialing a phone number — were no longer in vogue. Touch screens, or quick messaging devices with full “qwerty” keyboards, on the other hand, are. On the newest phones, users must press several buttons or swipe through several screens to get to the application that allows them to make calls.
“Handset design has become far less cheek-friendly,” Mr. Rubin said. Mr. Hesse of Sprint said he expected that within the next couple of years, cellphone users would be charged by the data they used, not by their voice minutes, a prediction echoed by other industry executives.
When people do talk on their phones, their conversations are shorter; the average length of a local call was 1.81 minutes in 2009, compared with 2.27 minutes in 2008, according to CTIA. For some, the unused voice minutes mount up.
“I have thousands of rollover minutes,” said Zach Frechette, 28, editor of Good magazine in Los Angeles, who explained that he dialed only when he needed to get in touch with someone instantly, and limited those calls to 30 seconds. “I downgraded to the lowest available minute plan, which I’m not even getting close to using.”
Mr. Frechette said part of the reason he rarely talked on his phone was that he had an iPhone, with its notoriously spotty phone reception in certain locales. But also, he said, most of his day was spent swapping short messages through services like Gmail, Facebook and Twitter. That way, he said, “you can respond when it’s convenient, rather than impose your schedule on someone else.”
Others say talking on the phone is intrusive and time-consuming, while others seem to have no patience for talking to just one person at a time. They prefer to spend their phone time moving seamlessly between several conversations, catching up on the latest news and updates by text and on Facebook with multiple friends, instead of just one or two.
“Even though in theory, it might take longer to send a text than pick up the phone, it seems less disruptive than a call,” said Jefferson Adams, a 44-year-old freelance writer living in San Francisco. By texting, he said, “you can multitask between two or three conversations at once.”
Nicole Wahl, a 35-year-old communications manager at the University of Toronto, estimates she talks on her phone only about 10 minutes a month.
“The only reason I ever call someone anymore is if I don’t have their Twitter handle or e-mail address,” Ms. Wahl said. “Like my hairdresser to see if she has a last-minute appointment or my parents to say I’m dropping by.”
American teenagers have been ahead of the curve for a while, turning their cellphones into texting machines; more than half of them send about 1,500 text messages each month, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project.
Mrs. Colburn, from Massachusetts, said she caved to the pleading of her 12-year-old daughter Abigail for a cellphone to send text messages with her friends after she and her husband discovered it was hindering her from developing bonds with her classmates.
“We realized she was being excluded from party invitations and being in the know with her peers,” she said.
Mrs. Colburn said texting had also become a much easier way to stay in touch with her daughter and receive quick updates about after-school plans.
“The other night she texted me from upstairs to ask a vocabulary question,” she said with a laugh. “But I drew the line there. I went upstairs to answer it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/technology/personaltech/14talk.html?hp
The New York Times
May 13, 2010
Liza Colburn uses her cellphone constantly.
She taps out her grocery lists, records voice memos, listens to music at the gym, tracks her caloric intake and posts frequent updates to her Twitter and Facebook accounts.
The one thing she doesn’t use her cellphone for? Making calls.
“I probably only talk to someone verbally on it once a week,” said Mrs. Colburn, a 40-year-old marketing consultant in Canton, Mass., who has an iPhone.
For many Americans, cellphones have become irreplaceable tools to manage their lives and stay connected to the outside world, their families and networks of friends online. But increasingly, by several measures, that does not mean talking on them very much.
For example, although almost 90 percent of households in the United States now have a cellphone, the growth in voice minutes used by consumers has stagnated, according to government and industry data.
This is true even though more households each year are disconnecting their landlines in favor of cellphones.
Instead of talking on their cellphones, people are making use of all the extras that iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones were also designed to do — browse the Web, listen to music, watch television, play games and send e-mail and text messages.
The number of text messages sent per user increased by nearly 50 percent nationwide last year, according to the CTIA, the wireless industry association. And for the first time in the United States, the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services on mobile devices in 2009 surpassed the amount of voice data in cellphone calls, industry executives and analysts say.
“Originally, talking was the only cellphone application,” said Dan Hesse, chief executive of Sprint Nextel. “But now it’s less than half of the traffic on mobile networks.”
Of course, talking on the cellphone isn’t disappearing entirely. “Anytime something is sensitive or is something I don’t want to be forwarded, I pick up the phone rather than put it into a tweet or a text,” said Kristen Kulinowski, a 41-year-old chemistry teacher in Houston. And calling is cheaper than ever because of fierce competition among rival wireless networks.
But figures from the CTIA show that over the last two years, the average number of voice minutes per user in the United States has fallen.
Still, even the telephone design industry has taken note. Ross Rubin, a telecommunications analyst with the NPD Group, said cellphones outfitted with numerical keyboards — easiest for quickly dialing a phone number — were no longer in vogue. Touch screens, or quick messaging devices with full “qwerty” keyboards, on the other hand, are. On the newest phones, users must press several buttons or swipe through several screens to get to the application that allows them to make calls.
“Handset design has become far less cheek-friendly,” Mr. Rubin said. Mr. Hesse of Sprint said he expected that within the next couple of years, cellphone users would be charged by the data they used, not by their voice minutes, a prediction echoed by other industry executives.
When people do talk on their phones, their conversations are shorter; the average length of a local call was 1.81 minutes in 2009, compared with 2.27 minutes in 2008, according to CTIA. For some, the unused voice minutes mount up.
“I have thousands of rollover minutes,” said Zach Frechette, 28, editor of Good magazine in Los Angeles, who explained that he dialed only when he needed to get in touch with someone instantly, and limited those calls to 30 seconds. “I downgraded to the lowest available minute plan, which I’m not even getting close to using.”
Mr. Frechette said part of the reason he rarely talked on his phone was that he had an iPhone, with its notoriously spotty phone reception in certain locales. But also, he said, most of his day was spent swapping short messages through services like Gmail, Facebook and Twitter. That way, he said, “you can respond when it’s convenient, rather than impose your schedule on someone else.”
Others say talking on the phone is intrusive and time-consuming, while others seem to have no patience for talking to just one person at a time. They prefer to spend their phone time moving seamlessly between several conversations, catching up on the latest news and updates by text and on Facebook with multiple friends, instead of just one or two.
“Even though in theory, it might take longer to send a text than pick up the phone, it seems less disruptive than a call,” said Jefferson Adams, a 44-year-old freelance writer living in San Francisco. By texting, he said, “you can multitask between two or three conversations at once.”
Nicole Wahl, a 35-year-old communications manager at the University of Toronto, estimates she talks on her phone only about 10 minutes a month.
“The only reason I ever call someone anymore is if I don’t have their Twitter handle or e-mail address,” Ms. Wahl said. “Like my hairdresser to see if she has a last-minute appointment or my parents to say I’m dropping by.”
American teenagers have been ahead of the curve for a while, turning their cellphones into texting machines; more than half of them send about 1,500 text messages each month, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project.
Mrs. Colburn, from Massachusetts, said she caved to the pleading of her 12-year-old daughter Abigail for a cellphone to send text messages with her friends after she and her husband discovered it was hindering her from developing bonds with her classmates.
“We realized she was being excluded from party invitations and being in the know with her peers,” she said.
Mrs. Colburn said texting had also become a much easier way to stay in touch with her daughter and receive quick updates about after-school plans.
“The other night she texted me from upstairs to ask a vocabulary question,” she said with a laugh. “But I drew the line there. I went upstairs to answer it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/technology/personaltech/14talk.html?hp
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Other names considered for my blog
- You, me, and this blue-green ball of ours
- Intellectual Origami
- Pause, Think, Hope
- The Ambitious Host
- Break the sword into two trowels
- Five good dogs do not equal one bad cat
- Keep your skillet good and greasy
- Life is a pigsty
- Better world a-comin'
- I let my mind wander
- Behind that locked door
- The Chaotic Librarian
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