First, there is a new iBooks app for iOS devices. It looks slick with video, sound and other rich media embedded in the books. It’s inline with where ePub3 and HTML5 are going. But it’s still not available on the desktop, just iOS. I was dissappointed in this. I do have a few reference books that I like to look things up in. If I am working on the desktop it is sooooo much easier to just open the Kindle reader or Nook reader apps and find what I need, rather than having my iPad next to me. And isn’t this what textbooks are used for? Reference? Looking things up? Multi-tasking and note taking aren’t strong points of having a tablet. So rather than have the one device we’re back to two devices. Not cool.

Second, there is the partnership with textbook publishers coupled with the efforts to make textbooks available at the $15 price point. That sounds good to me. If anyone needs a price break, it’s students. My fear here is that it could be a “Netflix-like” situation, where if a publisher doesn’t like the revenue flow situation or wants to renegotiate terms and Apple digs its heels in… where does that leave all the students, their notes, school libraries, etc.? Which brings us to the third takeaway…

the new iBooks authoring tool. It sounds pretty easy to use and the seamless integration is cool, but there are so many other limits and ramifications. Liz Castro did a good list on the concerns around the authoring tool. My big concern is that whatever you make in this tool Apple will not let you sell anywhere else. I was so excited when Apple embraced the ePub format with the rest of the world. But now it seems they have taken a page from Amazon’s playbook (or maybe the iTunes .m4a strategy) and will start building their own walled .ibook garden. It’s a shame. Because these strategies are not about creating the best user experience (which I do believe has been a driving force at Apple), but it’s about controlling parts of the supply between content creation and the reader.

So go check out the tracks and sign up, I’d love to meet some of you out there. Saturday takes place at the BJCC and teh Sunday line-up is at Samford. The WordPress faithful here in Birmingham really is a neat crew. I’m thankful for these annual events where I can soak in some new things.

Also, during the year, they have some WordPress meet-ups with most updates going out with #wpbham on Twitter. I haven’t been able to make one in a loooooooong time, but they always sound like fun. So check those out too.

Hope to see you in a week!

You start off dodging butlers and tipsy partiers as Nick Carraway. Your goal is to simply “find Gatsby”. I admit that I have not played very much of the game and have no idea where it goes with the story or characters. I just thought its was neat that even way back when NES was the coolest, someone thought it worth while to make a game out of a book.

Want to know a character’s favorite recipe? Small Demons will eventually be the place to go. There is also a “My Library” tab, that is not yet active and I’m not sure how deep the social component will go. I’ve only been in for a day.

The “Books Mentioned in Other Books” is quite a big rabbit hole to start down. It goes on and on and on, but it’s fun to see what books, genres and author share certain things. As fun as it is, Small Demon’s bookshelf is still small, so all of the results feel a little truncated. There are many many books that will be added and indexed.

It’s one of those things that could only happen (and scale) thanks to the internet. It’s on the same track as LibraryThing (one of the most awesome services the internet has birthed). Here’s a quick under-two-minute video they produced to promo the new search/relationship/discovery engine:

But yesterday, Sony has jumped in with both feet and announced a device that meets readers’ needs.

Available in October, the PRS-T1:

• sports a 6″ eInk screen that is full TOUCHSCREEN (works with both fingers and stylus)
• wi-fi enabled
• weighs less than 6 ounces (making it barely lighter than Nook and Kindle)
• costs only $149
• has native support for checking out library books from Jefferson County libraries

That’s a pretty impressive list of specs for a company that’s been lagging behind. And it is about time. One thing Sony knows how to do is make things. They should have done this years ago. I’m just glad they did. Competition is a good thing and will keep Amazon, Apple, etc. honest and customer-focused. Which is where Sony has to focus now. Their Harry Potter deal is interesting, but not the overhaul that’s needed. I started e-reading on a PRS-505 and Sony lost me as a customer years ago. Everything was just too hard to do. I know it was early in the industry and I tried to cit them some slack. But Amazon and others just blew past them and I jumped ship. They seem to have come a long way since then.

Of course, we still have to wait on some real-world testing. I wonder if the screen really can work as advertised. But I’m anxious to see how the reading public responds to the $149 price-point and what Sony does to try and keep their readers coming back to buy books.

I took these screen shots today and stopped halfway through Page 2 of the recommendations. Now, none of these are offensive (Netflix once recommended Teeth to us, based on VeggieTales and Strawberry Shortcake) , but I’m not sure which one of these programs my Dora-loving 2-year-old would want to watch.

To be fair, Netflix-bot has gotten better over the past year. We really enjoy the service. But they are a looooooong ways away from being “a better librarian.” I do hope you all read Godin’s post, he does end up highlighting the need for people to curate and determine selections. Even if he does over reach with his esteem for bot-driven recommendation engines. People are still better.

make your inventory public and accessible from mobile devices.

I use a few bard code scanning app. Currently, Red Laser is my favorite. I was in a big-box home improvement store the other day pricing closet organization systems. Up by the registers, I picked up a $17 book on closet makeovers. It seemed to be just what I needed. I was curious what else was out there, so I scanned it. Here are the results:

See that? There at the bottom? It should list everywhere that I could pick up this book locally. I only see some big-box chain stores and… my wonderful local library system. They understand what’s happening. You need to also.

These things aren’t too hard to learn and don’t cost tons of cash to implement. Bookstores of all sizes need to follow and study folks like LibraryThing (local books app and libanywhere app) and the scanning apps. Just doing that much is the surest way to remain relevant.

It’s a pretty straight forward process. I get pretty detailed in my steps, so please don’t let the number of steps deter you from trying this. Here is how you check out and read the library eBooks on your iOS device:

1. Download the free BlueFire Reader app (iTunes link) to your device and create an account.
2. Download the free Adobe Digital Editions desktop reader and create an account. This puts the Adobe Digital Editions program on your computer, which will act as “home base” and authenticate your ebooks.
3. Launch the BlueFire Reader app, on your device, tap on “info” and authorize your app with your Adobe Digital Editions password.

Now, that you are all legit you are ready to check out a book!

1. Go to the JCLC site (or your library’s downloadable site) and sign in.
2. Check out a book. An .acm “key” file will download to your computer. Use your Adobe Digital Editions program to open this file, this will download the .epub (the actual book) file to your computer. You can now read that book on your computer.
3. From your computer, send yourself an email, with that .epub file as an attachment.
4. Now check your email on your iOS device. The attachment will appear with the BlueFire Reader logo.
5. Tap and hold on that icon until the fly-out menu appears saying “Open with BlueFire Reader”, which you will select.
6. BlueFire Reader app will now launch and you can start reading! Once your “checkout period” has expired the file will deactivate from your iOS device and your computer desktop.

I’ve also heard of people using free services like DropBox to get the book file on their device, but I haven’t tried it. The BlueFire folks are on Twitter and have been really responsive to all of my support questions. The OverDrive team is on Twitter too. I know that OverDrive and Sony have both promised Adobe DE-friendly apps soon, so BlueFire won’t be the only option. But as of right now, it’s certainly the best.

Let me know what you think and if you read anything good!

The next item in my feed yesterday was coverage of this week’s Books in Browsers 2010 summit, where the Internet Archive showed off what they have dubbed the Reading Desk 2.0. Basically, it’s an antique church reading desk hacked together with a massive touchscreen eBook reader display.

I guess technically the video isn’t focusing so much on the features of a desk as it is the functions of a desk, but it’s interesting how integrated displays, etc. never came up in the discussions, in what they see as being needed from a desk, to help accomplish our reading, tasks, work, etc.

The discussion and tidbits being passed along on Twitter, via the #bib10 hashtag is worth following all day today and worth going back and reading yesterday’s feed. It sounds like it’s been a GREAT event dolling out plenty of practical experience and numbers for those in publishing to consider.

This week the JCLC system turned on its Overdrive-powered eBook network. So far it’s very very cool. The only complaints I have are tied to the CRAZY complicated hoops Adobe Digital Editions (which you will have to download) has in place. But that’s no fault of the library system and is required by most publishers anyway. But once you get the Adobe Digital Editions set up right, it’s great.

Via my JCLC account, I have “checked out” an eBook and am reading it on both my laptop and on my desktop. I have not tried to put it on my Sony eReader yet, as it needs a new battery and won’t hold a charge (yeah yeah, I know. That’s not a problem people reading print books have, but hey… did I mention, I just checked out a book at 11pm!) Anyway….

Here is the one tip I can offer: Once you download your eBook file (it has a .acm extension), “right click” (or ctrl-click) and choose “Open With…” and navigate to Adobe Digital Editions. The permission drm-wrapped file that is downloaded is not a straight up ePub and this seems to work better than opening Adobe Digital Editions and trying to import the .acm file into the library.

Cool factoids of the new system:

• You get to choose your “check out period”. You elect 7 days, 14 days or 21 days at checkout.
• You can checkout up to 5 titles at a time
• Every digital file has icons showing which platforms/devices that book can be read on
• So far there are 477 fiction books and 435 non-fiction books listed

The eBooks are not Kindle-friendly nor iDevice-friendly, but here is a list of all compatible devices. I’m going to take a look at checking out books to the Sony Reader and various iDevices.

Kudos to the JCLC System in bringing another great service to us. You guys really are something Birmingham can brag about.