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Looking forward to tomorrow’s Apple tablet announcement

Assuming there is one, of course. But signs point to yes. Gizmodo, as usual, has an awesome roundup of coverage here.

I wrote about this a while back, but an Apple tablet will be a major game-changer for e-readers and the e-book industry (as well as the associated industries who’ve hoped to cash in on e-readers, such as newspapers and magazines.

Just for the sake of clearing up terminology, an Apple tablet isn’t an e-reader, and vice versa. E-readers are basically screens that replicate ink on paper through the use of some e-ink technology. The battery life is great, you can read them in bright sunlight and they’re excellent for replicating printed pages. Arguments about them are over whether it’s better to provide them with some extra capabilities (wi-fi in the case of the Kindle) or less capabilities for better battery life (Plastic Logic, Sony) or whether size and weight matter, as in the Skiff. And, most importantly, there are no color options for e-ink now, though I’m told it’s coming.

So the takeaway is that e-readers have very limited functionality. They, basically, let you read stuff. A tablet computer — and Apple’s purported tablet is far from the first — is a computer, with all the functionality that implies. You can surf the Web, play games, create documents, chat with friends, etc. And, a tablet PC is also conveniently sized for reading and conveniently light and portable. The screen isn’t going to be great for reading in bright sunlight, but neither are current laptop screens. And when I’ve used my laptop outside, like other people, I find a shady spot.

In other words, if you’re faced with a choice between paying close to $400 for a reader, or around $1,000 or even $1,500 for a computer that does everything an e-reader does AND everything a computer does … well, that prices the e-reader straight out of the market.

Anyhow, now that we’re done with definitions. What’s changed since my last post is that the magazine industry, in particular, has become very interested in the possibilities that a full-color, video-capable tablet (as opposed to an e-reader) has. If you haven’t seen this yet, you should take a look at what Sports Illustrated is thinking of:

Now THAT’s functionality that could save the magazine industry.

Posted in Computers, New media, Newspapers.

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By Rob – January 26, 2010

Guardian’s History of the Internet project

This is a few days old, but if you haven’t seen it you really should spend a few minutes with it. The Guardian has created a “People’s History of the Internet,” and it’s a very cool project. Some of the fun facts: the first bulletin board system was developed during a Chicago blizzard in 1978; Usenet started in 1979 (and retains its homegrown charm); the first Webcam was set up to monitor a coffee pot at Cambridge University; etc.

What’s more interesting, however, is how the newspaper sourced its project. They asked ordinary readers to tell them what they found important about the Internet, and then supplemented it with interviews and video features with key people. So while an ordinary Guardian reader might think that Dave Hughes is important, the Guardian itself has the resources to track him down and interview him.

It’s something cool to think about when we consider the confluence of crowdsourced media, such as wikis, and contrast it with our desire to be accurate. This is a nice compromise — we let people tell us what’s important and then we flesh it out.

Anyhow, take a glance at the finished project. It’s worth the time.

Posted in New media, Newspapers.

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By Rob – November 6, 2009

Apple tablet could be a game-changer for e-readers

An interesting post over at Gizmodo has me thinking about e-readers again. I went to an e-reader summit a couple of weeks ago hosted by the Digital Publishing Alliance here at the Reynolds Journalism Institute.

It was pretty clear that the folks in the room all thought that e-readers would be a part of their business model. What wasn’t clear is how large a part of the business model they would be, or how exactly newspapers would monetize content that’s being delivered on an e-reader. There were reps at this meeting from Sony and Plastic Logic (no one from Amazon, unfortunately) and there was a lot of talk about the next generation of e-readers, which would feature quicker page-turning and refresh rates, be thinner and lighter, etc. Color might be coming in 2011, and so on.

Well, if Apple really does intend to put out a tablet — and the signs point to it being a when, not an if — it would pretty much blow any current e-reader out of the water, simply because at a similar price point, the tablet would have massively more functionality than an e-ink device.

Beside the functionality, though, a tablet (being also a full-on computer) could also pave the way for multimedia presentations and new ways of creating and linking digital content. For current books, that’s a “meh” — are you going to provide photos of Victorian England to go along with Bleak House? (Well, actually, that sounds kind of interesting …) But it would be really interesting to see what newspapers and magazines can do to provide multimedia and interactive graphics on a device that’s close to an e-reader in size — something that’s got the read-in-bed capability that laptops and larger devices are lacking. It might eventually come close to the vision Roger Fidler and I had for our eMprint project at the Missourian.

Posted in New media, Newspapers.

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By Rob – October 1, 2009

I’m done feeling sorry for the AP

I don’t know if it’s the AP’s status as a co-op, or its decentralized nature, or its ties to traditional (old) media, or what the problem is. But once again, they’ve proven that they just don’t get it when it comes to new media.

The AP launched a stylebook app for the iPhone/iPod Touch today. Which is pretty cool on the face of it. But there are two things that make it a major bucket of fail:

1. It costs $28.99 (for comparison’s sake, the print edition of the same book is $12.89 on Amazon.com).
2. It doesn’t dynamically update. Check the snippet from the news release below:

The 2009 AP Stylebook app is available for $28.99 from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore. Annual releases for the app are set to coincide with the release dates for the Stylebook print edition. As a bonus, 2009 AP Stylebook app users will automatically receive an upgrade to the 2010 AP Stylebook app as soon as it becomes available.

I did a quick search for “dictionary” on the App Store and turned up more than 50 results, many of which were free or cost $0.99. Even complicated dictionary programs, such as Latin-English or English-Chinese, didn’t go above $3.99. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary was on the high end, at $24.99, but comes in seven languages. (I’m aware that the stylebook is more than a dictionary, but please …)

I’m just really not sure of who the market is for this. Most journalists I know who use the stylebook daily have several sitting around a copy desk, paid for by the newspaper. I had a previous experience with the AP when I attempted to buy their online stylebook for our newsroom; they had no clue what a “concurrent license” was and insisted that $25 was a fair rate, even with our university bookstore charging $10 for the print edition.

But, most of all, what irks me is the utter lack of dynamic content. It’s an app on a phone that connects to the Internet — AP, seriously, you really can’t provide updates automatically?

Big chunk of fail.

Posted in New media, Newspapers.

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By Rob – September 28, 2009

No, you can’t just take anything off the Internet and publish it

Just because something’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s free. I tell students this all the time, but the story of a man who posted a photo to Twitter, only to have it used by Sky News, is a good cautionary tale for journalists.

You can read the whole sad tale here courtesy of OJB, but the summary is as follows: Joe Neale had taken a picture of a shooting at Waterloo Station, and posted it on his Twitter account using Twitpic. SkyNews grabbed the pic to use on their Web site, which violates the Twitpic terms of service, which of course means that Mr. Neale is entitled to payment for the use of his picture (and possibly legal recourse if he isn’t paid — or, for that matter, even if he is, because they took it without permission).

The ironic part, of course, is that Rupert Murdoch owns Sky News. Remember how he recently announced he wants all his media properties to start charging for content? Here’s Mr. Neale’s take on this, via the aforementioned OJB:

“I think this story is interesting because it points to the dangers of social media for the citizen journalist. I’m pleased that my picture has achieved good reach but I worry that the cooption of apparently free content from twitter by big media is something that may become endemic and devalue the rights in photography. Rupert Murdoch has announced people will have to pay to access his sites from 2010, meantime he doesn’t seem to mind not paying for material and happily infringes on other people’s work.”

Mr. Neale got paid partly because he started a successful hashtag (hashmob?) to take up his case, using #skypic as a rallying point. Which wraps the whole thing up rather neatly.

But the take-away point for journalists is twofold: don’t assume content posted online is free for you to take; and get permission from users before you steal their stuff. Seems like common sense, but we know common sense ain’t that common.

Posted in New media, Newspapers, Twitter.

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By Rob – August 19, 2009