Technology Category Archives
с картой по жизни
27 July 2010 | Geography, Literature, Technology | No Comments
а вот и логичное явление предсказанного — литературные маршруты для Google Earth:
This site is an experiment in teaching great literature in a very different way. Using Google Earth, students discover where in the world the greatest road trip stories of all time took place… and so much more!
состояние, впрочем, пока зачаточное (и бэджик Made on Mac не делает сайт удобнее), однако, направление движения, безусловно, верное — кто бы не хотел проследить “Одиссею” пальцем на карте? разве что остается добавить еще и сами карты былых времен — ведь и тот же “Портрет художника в юности” странно выглядит на фоне современных улиц, а что уж говорить обо всем остальном.
по следам
3 July 2010 | Copyright, Economics, Technology | No Comments
и в самом деле, сколько можно повторять:
Apparently nobody in the book business is aware of what happened to the music business over the last decade and they are determined to make all the same mistakes.
<..>
Making smart decisions about book publishing has the chance to make books more useful than every before. Unlike the music industry in 2002, book publishers should be focusing on their customers and how to make books better now.
там все по пунктам, четко и ясно.
искра
2 June 2010 | Literature, Technology | No Comments
если кто-то не знал, то Википедию уже давно можно издавать — и результаты получаются замечательные.
самиздат
23 May 2010 | Technology | No Comments
плюс, еще немного из той же статьи — о собственно издании:
Amazon seems to believe that in the digital world it might not need publishers at all. In December, the Simon & Schuster author Stephen Covey sold Amazon the exclusive digital rights to two of his best-sellers, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “Principle-Centered Leadership.” The books were sold on Amazon by RosettaBooks, and Covey got more than half the net proceeds. One publisher said, “What it did for us was confirm that Amazon sees itself as much as a competitor as a retailer. They have aspirations to be a publisher.”
и ниже:
Asked to describe her foremost concern, Carolyn Reidy, of Simon & Schuster, said, “In the digital world, it is possible for authors to publish without publishers. It is therefore incumbent on us to prove our worth to authors every day.” But publishers have been slow to take up new technologies that might help authors.
ага, имейте ввиду.
будущие Гутенберги
23 May 2010 | Apple, Technology | 2 Comments
замечательная статья Кена Аулетта в “Нью-Йоркере” о реалиях и перспективах книгоиздания. первые, кстати, для печатников выглядят устрашающе:
E-books are booming. Although they account for only an estimated three to five per cent of the market, their sales increased a hundred and seventy-seven per cent in 2009, and it was projected that they would eventually account for between twenty-five and fifty per cent of all books sold. But publishers were concerned that lower prices would decimate their profits.
там же много интересного про Амазон, его соперничество с Эппл, ценообразование, связи издателей со своими читателями (и магазинами) и книжные рынки вообще.
но вот немного о другом:
According to Grandinetti, publishers are asking the wrong questions. “The real competition here is not, in our view, between the hardcover book and the e-book,” he says. “TV, movies, Web browsing, video games are all competing for people’s valuable time. And if the book doesn’t compete we think that over time the industry will suffer.
и дальше:
In Grandinetti’s view, book publishers—like executives in other media—are making the same mistake the railroad companies made more than a century ago: thinking they were in the train business rather than the transportation business. To thrive, he believes, publishers have to reimagine the book as multimedia entertainment. David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, says that his company is racing “to embed audio and video and other value-added features in e-books. It could be an author discussing his book, or a clip from a movie that touches on the book’s topic.” The other major publishers are working on similar projects, experimenting with music, video from news clips, and animation. Publishers hope that consumers will be willing to pay more for the added features. The iPad, Rosenthal says, “has opened up the possibility that we are no longer dealing with a static book. You have tremendous possibilities.”
новые возможности
22 May 2010 | Technology | No Comments
а вот немного мыслей о ремесле от Марка Пилгрима:
I’m a three-time (soon to be four-time) published author. When aspiring authors learn this, they invariably ask what word processor I use. It doesn’t fucking matter! I happen to write in Emacs. I also code in Emacs, which is a nice bonus. Other people write and code in vi. Other people write in Microsoft Word and code in TextMate+ or TextEdit or some fancy web-based collaborative editor like EtherPad or Google Wave. Whatever. Picking the right text editor will not make you a better writer. Writing will make you a better writer. Writing, and editing, and publishing, and listening — really listening — to what people say about your writing. This is the golden age for aspiring writers. We have a worldwide communications and distribution network where you can publish anything you want and — if you can manage to get anybody’s attention — get near-instant feedback. Writers just 20 years ago would have killed for that kind of feedback loop. Killed! And you’re asking me what word processor I use? Just fucking write, then publish, then write some more. One day your writing will get featured on a site like Reddit and you’ll go from 5 readers to 5000 in a matter of hours, and they’ll all tell you how much your writing sucks. And most of them will be right! Learn how to respond to constructive criticism and filter out the trolls, and you can write the next great American novel in edlin.
учебники по футурологии
6 May 2010 | Literature, Technology | No Comments
да, и, разумеется, Стивенсон (в очередной раз) это все давно уже предсказал[1].
–
[1] — про литературные связи с реальностью было чуть раньше.
необъятные рынки
6 May 2010 | Apple, Facebook, Internet, Technology | No Comments
то есть, очевидно, что используя, например, свежепредставленный Open Graph (или — при достаточной смелости и амбициозности — некий собственный пока еще не существующий механизм), этот книжный клуб может, во-первых, дать Apple значительное преимущество в противостоянии с Amazon, а во-вторых, вывести обыденную продажу книг на качественно другой уровень (где пока все складывается в пользу, наоборот, бесплатных книг, из запасников проекта “Гуттенберг”).
однако, судя по-всему, Apple сегодня это просто не нужно:
They have great social graph assets in the form of user address books, email stores, and instant messaging friend networks, but they show little sign of understanding how to turn those assets into next generation applications or services. But most strikingly, they don’t really seem to understand some key aspects of the game that is afoot.
If they did, MobileMe would be free to every user, not a $99 add-on. Web 2.0 companies know that systems that get better the more people use them are the key to marketplace dominance in the network era. The social graph is one such system, for which Facebook is currently the market leader. Companies that want to dominate the Internet Operating System either need to make a deal with Facebook to integrate their platforms, or have a compelling strategy for building out their own social graph assets. Unless Apple is planning a deal with Facebook, their current MobileMe strategy seems only to indicate that they don’t understand the stakes.
ну да, у них, конечно, другие задачи:
It’s like a country club. Apple isn’t saying you can’t play golf with your pit-stained t-shirt and denim cutoffs. They’re just saying you can’t do it at their club. Apple wants to run the most profitable country club in the world, with millions of members, but they don’t want everybody.
и все же такой союз с Facebook мог бы существенно изменить мир — а судя по востребованности подобного работающего сервиса — скорее всего, даже к лучшему. более того, где одно, там и другое: музыка и фильмы из iTunes Store, приложения из App Store, и так далее, и тому подобное. настоящие молочные реки — для тех, кто знает, куда они текут.
книжный клуб
5 May 2010 | Technology | 3 Comments
замечательная мысль, кстати:
A connected book, on the other hand, whether it be a textbook, a storybook, a reference book, or a novel, is a medium through which people interact. The shape of that interaction begins to emerge in conversations about shared underlines and margin notes and dog-ears and real-time chats about the plot twist in chapter 8, and things that make “book club” implicit in the book itself.
и в самом деле, что может закономернее, чем обсудить с кем-нибудь читаемую сейчас книгу? а если устройство для чтения само найдет собеседников? обозначит, как далеко они продвинулись в тексте? покажет те книги, что они читали раньше? не где-то в другом месте, через сколько-то минут-часов-дней, а моментально и тут же.
не какие-нибудь, то есть, нежизнеспособные модели, а просто быть сообща, без каких-либо условностей, границ и надуманных метафор:
Somehow, connected texts will help us leverage our collective intelligence. Somehow, they will help provoke learning and expertise building at the level of individuals and communities. Somehow, they will support both broad exploration and deep dives and continue to evolve as the boundaries between the book and the community that engage with it start to blur.
иными словами:
My iPad is connected, via Wi-Fi or 3G, almost anywhere I go. Why aren’t the books?
почему книги не окружают нас естественной социальной сетью? почему до сих пор во время чтения мы не говорим друг с другом? почему книги не общаются с нами и вместе с нами?
потому что важно не только и дальше продавать плоские бумажные копии, но уже в электронном виде, — а, наоборот, перейти в другое измерение, натуральным способом объединив все существующие.
центр тяжести
4 May 2010 | Apple, Technology | No Comments
а вот, пожалуйста, раз уж речь зашла, и цифры:
Apple makes $3B of profit from its iPhone while HP takes in a mere $500M on its PCs—that’s a 6x difference. The Center of Money has shifted.
как и говорил, ага:
для большинства новорожденных завтра, очевидно, первым компьютером будет телевизор или мобильный телефон.