The company will hold an “important press conference in New York at the Morgan Library on the morning of February 9. Their last NY press event was the launch of Kindle in late 2007.AllThingsD
eNews
Wikipedia Book Has a New Twist on Free
O’Reilly Media’s guide book Wikipedia: The Missing Manual is now available for free online as a Wikipedia entry itself–and open to editing and updating like any other posting on the online encyclopedia. Editor Peter Meyers says “the book is going to reside in the site’s Help area, naturally, since the book is all about helping people edit and navigate their way around Wikipedia…. Our hope is that the Wikipedia community will flock to the book and ‘curate’ it by adding tips, tricks, and by updating the material to reflect changes to Wikipedia since we’ve published the original edition. Down the […]
Bowker Parent Takes Stake In LibraryThing
LibraryThing has sold a minority interest in the enterprise to Cambridge Information Group, which owns Bowker (as well as AquaBrowser, ProQuest, Serials Solutions and RefWorks). LT’s Tim Spalding writes on his blog that a key factor was “moola.” He notes, “LibraryThing has been profitable for a while, but we didn’t have much of a cushion. It was a nail-biter. We needed servers and new employees, but what if we had a few down months? And did I mention the economy is sick? (Cut to Tim worrying.) The CIG deal frees us from worry and gives us room to grow. While […]
Follett to Drop Adobe, Launch Own Reader
Follett is launching their own ereader software for downloadable versions of books for K-12 users which, depending upon on how you look at it, is a great or terrible idea. Martyn Daniels, for example, approves: “Follet are now taking control of their digital business and channel.” But TeleRead is appalled at the introduction of yet another reader, particularly since it doesn’t seem to work with the ePub standard. Follett is giving their customers between February 9 and March 2 to “download and install the new Follett Digital Reader on all the computers in your system that patrons can use.” And […]
More Announcements: Perseus Goes Mobile, Awards, Personnel
Perseus Books Group has partnered with mobile technology company Incelligence to launch a handful of book-based reference products for mobile phones: The Wine Enthusiast Pocket Guide to Spirits; Quit: Read This Book And Stop Smoking; and Your Pregnancy Week by Week, in both English and Spanish versions. Incelligence’s distribution network includes such major carriers such as AT&T, Orange, SouthernLINC, T-Mobile, and Kajeet. They have a library of over 100 mobile apps. In awards, the Jerusalem Book Fair prize will be given to Haruki Murakami. French playwright Timothee de Fombelle’s TOBY ALONE won the UK’s Marsh award for children’s literature in […]
Mossberg on Shortcovers
The WSJ columnist has been testing Indigo’s new iPhone ereading offering, Shortcovers: “At Shortcovers is the more ambitious and creative of the two. launch, it expects to have 200,000 shortcovers — chapters or other free excerpts — available. About 50,000 of these also will be available for purchase as full digital titles; the rest can be ordered as physical books. Of the digital titles, roughly 15,000 to 20,000 will be older or public-domain books, and the rest commercial books. Typical book prices will be between $10 and $20. If you want to buy paid shortcovers — say a chapter of […]