Exact Editions Blog

There have been many informative follow-ups to the Rubin speech mentioned here 2 days ago. Surely the most insightful analysis comes from Danny Sullivan. If one follows some of the links in his posting one can see how amazingly thorough Danny is. The bravest posting was mildly critical of Microsoft from the Microsoft-employed blogger Don Dodge. Tim O’Reilly speaks eloquently in Google’s defence. He usually does on Book Search. So does Lawrence Lessig. Andrew Grabois’s … Keep Reading

Blogmosis denotes the tendency for business and management decisions to be implemented, presented and conducted in semi-public. BuzzMachine has a great example of blogmosis this morning. When Alan Rusbridger OK’ed Jeff Jarvis blogging this company-wide, strategic, pep-talk, did he realise that so much of what he was saying would ricochet around the blogosphere and presumably echo in all competing boardrooms? Probably not, but it really does not matter. Indeed, widespread interest may help in the process of change.

I was … Keep Reading

The PPA (Periodical Publishers Association) provides a fabulous amount of information about and for the magazine industry through its publications, web sites and member services. It also provides training courses for the industry. So it is good to see that it is now running a one day workshop on digital magazines. It is being run by John Weir who has a blog Digital Magazines which we find a useful source of news on developments. I have no … Keep Reading

Microsoft has usually beaten its chosen opponents. Google does not look like such a straightforward proposition. In this case most of my sympathies would lie with the upstart, however Microsoft has chosen its ground carefully. Microsoft will have plenty of allies in questioning Google’s attitude towards copyrights. Google has fights here with the Association of American Publishers, with a group of Belgian newspaper publishers, with many TV companies over YouTube, etc. Too many fights.

So Tom Rubin, Microsoft’s … Keep Reading

Mathewingram’s blog notes that HarperCollins and Random House have popped up with widgets on their home pages which allow one to browse and search quite a few of their in-print titles. If you want you can take the widget off and plant it in you own web page or blog. This is an interesting experiment and may help to sell a few more books, but it does not seem like an adequate response to the Google Book Search project. Do … Keep Reading