somersault

It appears iPad users are marking content during the day and consuming it later when they can lean back and actually read. According to Read it Later (@readitlater), from a study of 100 million articles saved using its service, people use browsing and bookmarking to time-shift the consumption of content to whatever would be prime time for them (typically 6am breakfast, 9am commute, 5-6pm commute, or 8-10pm couch time, the latter being the most prevalent).

When a reader is given a choice about how to consume their content, a major shift in behavior occurs. They no longer consume the majority of their content during the day, on their computer. Instead they shift that content to prime time and onto a device better suited for consumption.

Initially, it appears that the devices users prefer for reading are mobile devices, most notably the iPad. It’s the iPad leading the jailbreak from consuming content in our desk chairs.

Read the article in full.

Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) is celebrating the 40th anniversary of ebooks with the 1st annual Publishing Innovation Awards. The aim is to encourage the creation and distribution of the next phase in ebooks and book apps.

See the nominated titles and publishers for this award.

Fast Company (@fastcompany) reports that “one out of every five Americans plans to own a tablet by 2014,” according to a Harris poll. Most want to use it to browse the Web, followed by accessing their email, reading, social networking, watching TV or movies, conducting business, and playing games. The “reading” category grabs Somersault’s attention: 53% predict they’re going to add devices like the iPad to their schedule of absorbing everyday content. Another reason for publishers to be serious about digitizing their material in innovative ways. Read the full report.

Bill Moggridge, designer of the first laptop, co-founder of IDEO (@ideo), and director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, talks with Fast Company's Co.Design (@fastcodesign) about the leading thinkers he spoke with for his new book, Designing Media.

Moggridge takes the troubled world of media, both old and new, and looks at it as a series of design problems. How do you design news as a social platform? Or newspapers at a time when everyone’s reading websites? Yet, he says paper is not going away:

It's all to do with the nature of the experience. I think of electronic books and online book content as being good news for book designers. Because what it means is: If you just want the content in a text form, then why would you ever buy a physical book, because you can read it so successfully on an e-reader. However, if you want to enjoy a book, you buy it because it's beautifully designed -- the paper is wonderful, the color is delicious, you can smell it, you can thumb through it, you can pick it up and feel heft the way you can’t with an e-reader. So if you’re going to stick with the physical book, then let's make sure the design of the physical book really engages you and makes you want to luxuriate in it.

You'll want to read this extensive interview and watch the videos.

Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) reports on the much eagerly awaited debut of Google eBooks. Here’s an excerpt:

After months of anticipation, Google today launched its long-awaited cloud-based ebook program, Google eBooks. Rebranded from its original moniker, Google Editions, Google eBooks overnight becomes the largest ebook provider in the world, at least in terms of its offerings, launching with nearly three million books available for purchase or download, including “hundreds of thousands of ebooks” available for purchase and over two million public domain titles available for free.

The launch includes a redesigned Google Books page, featuring both a store where consumers can find and buy ebooks, and a research option for those who wish to search and use the repository. It also includes a Google Web reader, and apps for both Apple and Android devices, which are available for free. Google's cloud-based ebooks can be accessed and read anywhere, on any device with a modern, HTML5-enabled browser, whether desktop computers, laptops, netbooks, tablets, or via apps for iPhones, iPads, and Android-powered smartphones. Because it is an open platform, Google eBooks will also be accessible on any e-reader that is based on an open platform, like ePub, including, the Sony Reader and the B&N Nook. Announced over two years ago, the program launches just in time for the 2010 holiday season, with roughly 4,000 participating publishers. Although it is currently limited to the US, Google will roll out international editions of Google eBooks beginning in early 2011.

Read the article in full here.

Flipboard is a new free iPad App “inspired by the beauty and ease of print media.” Flipboardʼs mission is to fundamentally improve how people discover, view, and share content across their social networks. This looks like a game-changer. Watch the video and see for yourself:

Through our blog postings, Somersault's recognition of the wide-ranging set of changes in the publishing world is reflected, along with our particular attitude of embracing the future in response to those changes. We're creating a service firm for the publishing world that will lead the way in responding creatively and aggressively to the new parameters of publishing. We invite your interaction with us in this blog, so that we all learn from one another and move forward with confidence.

You can see what publications Somersault is following on our own alltop page at http://my.alltop.com/somersault

HA! So that's why! David Frum quotes a literary friend in Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish in The Atlantic:

It's summer, and publishers take the summer off, starting about April 15 and resuming shortly after Labor Day. They work hard through early September until the Jewish holidays, which they observe for the full three weeks from Rosh Hashonah to Shemini Atzeret. Columbus Day and Thanksgiving pretty much wipe out October and November, and December is of course gone to Christmas. Their offices are open at greatest length for a couple of weeks in each of January, February and March before they shut down again for the summer, as noted, in April.

In this New York Times article, ereaders are predicted to soon be as flexible as today's print newspapers -- and as socially shared. Here's an excerpt:

Clive Thompson, a science and technology writer and columnist for Wired magazine, said that if “publishers are smart — and readers lucky” the content of the ebooks of the future will be more open and collaborative.

“You’ll be able to cut, paste and exchange your favorite passages, using them in the same promiscuous way we now use online text and video to argue, think, or express how we’re feeling,” Mr. Thompson said.

In other words, ebooks will become social experiences, with sharing among readers and even the ability to see the most popular passages as other readers highlight and comment in real time. “Ebooks will display their social and informational life,” Mr. Thompson said.

We wonder if print books will eventually take on the same charm currently reserved for antiques!

 This New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/fashion/11AuthorVideos.html?ref=media) explores what it means for reclusive authors to have to go before the unblinking eye of the camera in search of readers. Here's an excerpt:

In the streaming video era, with the publishing industry under relentless threat, the trailer is fast becoming an essential component of online marketing. Asked to draw on often nonexistent acting skills, authors are holding forth for anything from 30 seconds to 6 minutes, frequently to the tune of stock guitar strumming, soulful violin or klezmer music. And now, those who once worried about no one reading their books can worry about no one watching their trailers.

Yet...authors recognize the necessity — even the opportunity — of technologically upgrading their marketing efforts. “Any way we can reach out to readers is worth trying,” [says one author].

The Mobys are awards for book videos. This year, Dennis Cass won best performance by an author for his satirical look of "the groveling expected of modern writers." Very funny!