The folks over at the O’Reilly RADAR blog crunched some numbers and churned out some graphs. With the iPhone Apps store about to sell its one billionth app download, the “books” category is by far and wide the largest mover and shaker. It saw 279% growth over the past week and while sporting only 11% of the Apps Store’s total offerings. Granted it’s not as popular as the Games and Entertainment categories and the growth probably has a lot to do with the Kindle App, but with all of the geo-synching-motion-controlling-gesture-detecting-music-blasting features that the iPhone can do… look what all those iPhone owners are wanting to explore on their gadgets… books.
This holiday has been around since 1923. But for some reason, it’s never really caught on here in the states. Not sure why. These days it’s organized by UNESCO and seems like a good idea. This older Wolrd Book Day originates in Spain and is different than England’s World Book Day (which they celebrate on March 5th) which was founded in 1998. So, anyway…
Happy World book Day (for the second time in 2009)!
then you’ve probably read the three books highlighted in this graphic that appeared in Wired and on Chris Anderson’s site. I needed this today (as do many editorial AQ folks). Too funny!
The weather could not have been any better down in Montgomery for the Alabama Book Festival this year. There was even a small 2 minute light rain, just to make sure no one overheated. There was plenty to do, as usual and some of the old favorites were there. APTV sponsored the children’s area, so there were lots of costumed characters, stickers and free books making making the rounds. I mean FREE books! It’s worth the trip right there.
My only regret is not getting to make my way to the New South Books open house. I hope they do it again for next year’s festival. There are a few (I was a photo slacker this year) more pics (including Rick Bragg and Frank Stitt) after the jump.
