Chat: social networking style boost for online magazines?

Can group chat keep fickle web readers on this publisher's web pages? We suspect that it could work well, but the first implementation we've seen left a lot to be desired.

Powered by fast-growing web IM platform Meebo, these new chat widgets can be accompanied by multimedia that chat users can view together. In a world where the magazine industry has to be feeling some pain from sites like MySpace and Facebook, maybe magazines have to put a little MySpace on their own websites.

From ReadWriteWeb.

Here's one for Librarians Everywhere

Isn't this a potential privacy nightmare for libraries? Will Google compile personally identifiable information (via a login to Google Docs or some other service) of terminal users? Will Google collect search and usage data from these library terminals to "improve" searches? Will such data be open for study by the publishers? Scholars? How long will Google retain such data, if it compiles it at all?

Siva Vaidhyanathan from the "Googlization of Everything" blog looks at last week's Google Book Search Settlement.

Notes on Victoria Barnsley's LSE lecture

Harper Collins CEO, Victoria Barnsley spoke at the LSE last night. Some thoughts from a great publishing blog:

The coming change is driven by two things: (1) E-ink, (2) Publishers and retailers investing in digital distribution infrastructure. The ebook reading experience is getting better, in the form of the Kindle, Iliad and Sony Reader. The iPhone is a strong contender, as are all next-generation smartphones.

Kindle has the huge advantage of its wireless connection. Barnsley sees this as enabling the one thing that’s really changed books in the last decade: impulse shopping, as seen in Tesco’s and Asda, and in bookstores’ 3 for 2 offers. That’s the future. Imagine watching Cranford on the TV, and immediately downloading the complete works of Elizabeth Gaskell - “instant bedtime reading”. This impulse buying is the most significant development in bookselling.

Part of a blog by Apt about publishing, technology and design.

Future of the book project: collective readings in Doris Lessing

...for now, we believe books made of paper still have a substantial advantage over the screen for sustained reading of a linear narrative.

The Institute for the Future of the Book has organised for seven readers to work through Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, starting on November 10. The Lessing Seven will also "record their reactions to the process in a group blog". A public online forum for any of us reading along and following the conversation will also launch.


Buy The Golden Notebook here.

E-book revenues in the USA alone to beat $12 million for the second quarter of '08

From the International Digital Publishing Forum.

Tipping Point Day for Books Online?

The service invites comparison to the iTunes revolution, and was hailed by the internet search giant, the American Association of Publishers, and the Authors' Guild as a key moment in the evolution of electronic publishing.

Google's co-founder, Sergey Brin, called the $125m deal a "great leap". Paul Aiken, executive director of the guild, called it "the biggest book deal in US publishing history". Once approved by a federal court in Manhattan, the deal will offer access to a library of millions of titles.

From the Guardian