Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog

What if Amazon Got it Wrong?

When Jeff Bezos introduced the original Kindle almost 2 years ago he talked about how long-form reading was on the decline.  He also noted how the Kindle would reverse that trend because it will now be more convenient to take all your books with you and read them wherever you are.

Bezos used the phrase "info-snacking" and how the web encouraged all of us to read shorter bits of content, not long-form works.  His core assumption was that lots of people would love to read more books and that they just need a new delivery platform to quench their thirst.

What if Amazon's assumption was wrong?  What if short-form content that's all over the web is really the preferred format? It's still very enjoyable to read a Harry Potter book or something in the Twilight series, but what if most people looking for business advice or how-to info prefer to get in and get out as quickly as possible?  What if, outside of novels, the added value here is convenience and time-savings?

If the Kindle is the answer to long-form content could the Apple Mediapad/Tablet/iPad be the answer to short-form content?  Sure, you could read a book on an "iPad" if you want to, but what if the rumored device focused primarily on delivering an "insanely great" experience for short-form content instead?

While Amazon waits for eInk's full-color display technology Apple simply features a good old backlit one.  Again, not ideal for reading a hundred pages of a book in one sitting but perfect for magazines, blogs and other short-form content.

I've been a Kindle owner for well over a year now and I'm doing even more short-form reading than ever.  I'm also using workarounds and hacks to do some of that on the Kindle, so I'd welcome a device like the iPad that's better suited for it thanks to full color, wifi, a real browser (not an experimental one), etc.  How about you?

A Kindle App I'd Buy

Amazon's tightly closed Kindle ecosystem doesn't offer customers an App Store like Apple does with the iPhone.  That doesn't matter though because the idea I have in mind would reside on your computer, not the Kindle...

How many emails like this do you get each week?: "You need to read this article over on so-and-so.com. I just read it and thought it was terrific/funny/relevant/etc."  I get these all the time.  Sometimes I click the link and read the first sentence or two.  If it's good and I don't have time to read it all now I'll leave that browser tab open and hope I don't forget about it, but I often do.  If the article looks really good and I don't want to miss it I might even print it out and read it later.  None of these approaches are very effective though, especially when I also have a $360 Kindle at my disposal.

OK, if you're a glutton for punishment you'll try to access all those articles on your Kindle via Whispernet.  Good luck with that.  Even if you manage to get the page loaded you'll find the formatting and readability is awful in most cases.  And what if you're out of Whispernet range, say, on a plane?

Someone needs to write a desktop application that lets me grab a url and drag it to my Kindle, which is connected to my Mac via USB.  The app has to do more than just drag the web page to the Kindle though; it needs to convert the contents of that page to mobi format so that it looks nice and clean on the Kindle display.

I'd use this app every day and I'd be more than happy to pay for it.  Let's not stop there though...  Think of the dynamic advertising income opportunity a developer could create with this.  During the conversion process, the app would also apply Google AdSense-type logic to the contents and serve up relevant ads in each piece.

The beauty of this is you don't have to work within the confines of that closed Kindle system Amazon has built.  You're just pulling content off a website and converting the HTML into mobi files (plus the advertising component, if you want).

Does this tool already exist and I've somehow overlooked it?  If so, where is it?  If not, how soon can someone write it?!

P.S. -- I'll ask the question once again: Why isn't Amazon building this sort of thing?

Google Wave and Publishing

Have you heard about Google Wave?  It's been described as "how email would work if it were invented today."  So instead of simply tacking on new features to existing email clients, Google Wave offers a clean slate approach.  In fact, it looks like Google Wave will offer a new, intuitive way of communicating while still using some of the email/IM/etc. features you've grown to know and love; IOW, it will offer the best of both worlds.

Think about this now in publishing terms.  The Sony Reader is just a convenient way to access books in electronic form.  The Kindle took it up a notch by enabling wireless delivery of more content forms, not just books but also magazines and newspapers, for example.  At the end of the day though, both of these products still mostly re-render print content in e-form.  They don't do much to fully leverage the e-platform, mostly because they're working with content that was built for print, not e-use.

What the publishing industry needs is a product like Google Wave more fully leverages e-content capabilities while still supporting all of the useful features of print.  If you haven't watched the Google Wave demo from last week's Google I/O you need to (see below); and even if you can't spare the almost 90 minutes the full demo/keynote required, just watch the first 10-12 minutes and you'll have a good feel for this amazing service.  And when you watch it, think about how an approach like the one used for Google Wave would create an enormous splash in the publishing industry (books, magazines, newspapers, etc.)

Three New Books from Our O'Reilly Team

One of the benefits of coming home after a long trip is that there's usually a package (or 2 or 3) waiting for me.  My return last Friday night was no different as I came home to about a dozen of our recent publications.  Three of them really jumped out at me and I wanted to highlight them here.

Twitter API: Up and Running is an extremely timely book.  Twitter continues to grow at a torrential rate and more and more developers are trying to figure out how to tie into it.  Our book provides everything you need to know to ride the wave.  And as I mentioned in this tweet yesterday, auto-tweeting and other services are likely to make Twitter an even more important technology in the future.  (Btw, don't miss our next important title on this topic, The Twitter Book, by expert tweeters Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein.)

Next up, Search Engine Optimization for Flash.  SEO remains vitally important but think about all that Flash content out there that's so hard to leverage on this front.  Our book offers one-of-a-kind solutions for applying SEO techniques to your Flash video.  The book is part of our Adobe Developer Library program and is written by Todd Perkins, an Adobe-Certified Flash Instructor.  If you've got a lot of Flash content on your site, make sure your SEO expert is aware of this one.  It's a quick read at only 250 pages but it's loaded with wonderful insights.

And finally, a gorgeous book with an equally eye-catching cover.  I'm talking about Beautiful Teams, the latest in our Theory in Practice series.  This book offers more than two dozen "inspiring and cautionary tales from veteran team leaders."  The list of contributors includes Scott Berkun, Grady Booch, Cory Doctorow, Steve McConnell, Scott Ambler, and our own Tim O'Reilly.  And when you buy a copy of this book you'll be doing your good deed for the day as a portion of the proceeds is being donated to PlayPumps International.

Heading to ETech Conference

I'm on my way to O'Reilly's ETech conference in San Jose...literally...I'm waiting for a flight connection in Dallas.  I spent some on my first flight looking over the conference schedule.  Wow, what a great lineup!

I plan to Twitter frequently throughout the conference, so be sure to follow me here (or @jwikert if you're already on Twitter).  Loads of other attendees are already Twittering and you can follow them via the #etech hashtag.

I've also been asked to do some very short, one-question follow-up video interviews with some of the speakers.  I thought it would be cool to let my Twitter followers send me questions for the speakers as well. So as you see me tweet about the session I'm in and you've got a question for that speaker, send it my way.  I can't promise your question will be selected, but I will promise that I'll look at every one I receive!

O'Reilly's Tools of Change (TOC) Conference Starts Tomorrow

I've been counting down the days for this one and tomorrow it will finally be here.  I'm talking about O'Reilly's TOC conference, which starts bright and early tomorrow in NY with a series of tutorials.  I'm heading there tomorrow afternoon and plan to attend a conference-related Tweetup that's scheduled for later in the evening.  Then it's two full days packed with great sessions from morning till evening.

I've been tipped off to several exciting product announcements that will be made at TOC this week, two of which that have really caught my eye.  I can't say anything more about them just yet, but stay tuned for upcoming blog posts and Twitter tweets over the next 3 days.  Actually, I'll probably spend more time Twittering than blogging, so look for more of the former and not so much of the latter.  I also have a search panel set up in my TweetDeck feed, searching for #toc entries; there are already a lot of tweets piling up there, so if you can't make it, be sure to watch the stream from attendees.  And, if you see me tweet from within a session and have a question you'd like to ask the speaker, send me a direct message and I'll do my best to get an answer.

Finally, I'm already keeping an eye out for some of you, but if you're a Publishing 2020 reader and would like to say hi at TOC, be sure to pull me aside between sessions.

Two Great New O'Reilly Titles

I've been on the road a lot lately and came home to a pleasant surprise: a box full of some of our latest books was waiting for me.  I was particularly impressed by two of these.  First up is Designing Web Interfaces, by Bill Scott and Theresa Neil.  When you think of four-color books you probably don't immediately think of O'Reilly, but this one offers a full color view of the best way to build a great web app interface.  You may have even noticed the image on the cover is in color, which is a nice touch that helps set this one off from our one-color animal books.  This is a terrific book that I plan to spend time with and recommend to anyone doing UI work.

The other new publication I wanted to call attention to is Beautiful Architecture, which was written by more than a dozen contributors and edited by Diomidis Spinellis and Georgios Gousios.  It's the latest title in our Theory In Practice series and comes with an endorsement from Grady Booch.  It's also worth noting that all the author royalties on this one are being donated to Doctors Without Borders.  Very cool.

I also wanted to give a quick plug to a book we're about to publish but I haven't received a copy of yet.  It's called iPhone SDK Application Development, by Jonathan Zdziarski and it's been rocketing up the charts all weekend.  I've seen it as high as #20 on Amazon's Computers & Internet bestseller list, and it doesn't even officially publish till Tuesday, 2/3!  The iPhone is clearly a red hot development platform.

Scoble's Interview with Tim O'Reilly

Robert Scoble recently sat down with Tim O'Reilly to talk about technology, books, conferences and several other things currently on Tim's radar.  I've embedded the first part of the interview below and here's a link to the second part.

Both segments provide a behind-the-scenes look at what we feel is important at O'Reilly Media and how these tools, technologies and trends are guiding our future business plans.  While the entire interview is well worth watching, I found the last portion of the first segment particularly fascinating.  That's when Tim talks about "personal CRM" and the functionality he describes is pretty darned compelling.  In fact, I wonder why LinkedIn hasn't extended their platform in that direction.  Also in the first segment, Scoble talks about how we need a better rating system to flag blog comments posted by highly-credentialed visitors so that they'll stand out from all the other comments.  Great idea.

Web 2.0 Summit Videos on YouTube

I flew to San Francisco last week to attend the Web 2.0 Summit but now you can watch many of the sessions from the comfort of your home/office via YouTube.  OK, you probably don't have the time to watch all the videos, so here's a quick list of some of my favorite sessions:

Elon Musk

Lawrence Lessig

John Doerr

Mark Zuckerberg

P.S. -- Here's to hoping that more conference providers will post session videos like this.  It's a great way to extend the conference's community reach.

The Apple Convert

I never thought I'd say this, but I just bought an iPhone 3G.  This is my first Apple purchase since I bought an original Macintosh way back in 1984.  I can't wait to see what great stuff Steve Jobs & Co. have to offer when I'm ready for my next Apple buy in 2032.

A few weeks ago I bought a Blackberry Curve for my new job at O'Reilly.  I seemed to be the only Blackberry user there and I quickly developed iPhone envy.  That's when you see too many of your colleagues doing really cool iPhone things, the kind of stuff you simply can't do on a Blackberry.

Another factor also came into play last week.  While attending the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco I got to hear famed venture capitalist John Doerr talk about his passion for the iPhone.  At one point, he held his iPhone up and said he believes this platform will ultimately become more important and influential than the PC platform.

Read that last sentence again and let it sink in.  Doerr wasn't saying the PC platform is dying out and the iPhone will one day be more important than it.  He's saying that as revolutionary as the original PC marketplace was (and has been), the iPhone platform is poised to have even more of an impact.

The impact Doerr is referring to isn't just limited to the device being a good phone, of course.  It's about how the iPhone is (and will become even more of) a multifunction device, including serving as an enabler to all forms of content.

Do I want to read an entire book on this tiny screen?  Probably not, but I can honestly say I would have been less inclined to buy a Kindle if I already had an iPhone.  (Sorry Amazon.)

Stay tuned for more iPhone reports in future posts.  And my thanks to the local AT&T reps who pointed out that, within 30 days of my original purchase, if I was willing to pay a $20 restocking fee I could swap out my Blackberry.  Imagine how thrilled I was to find out I was on day 27 of the initial 30.  That may turn out to be the best $20 I've ever spent!

P.S. -- As I've said about the Kindle, if you're in the publishing business you owe it to yourself to personally experience new technologies like the iPhone.  You can't really gauge its impact if you're not using one yourself.  I think Doerr is right.  The iPhone will continue to be a disruptive factor for a lot of industries, including publishing.