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While at Apple, Mike Matas (@mike_matas) helped write the user interface for the iPhone and iPad. Now, co-founder of Push Pop Press (@pushpoppress), he's helping to rewrite the electronic book. In the above video he demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad – with clever, swipeable video and graphics, and some cool data visualizations to play with. The book is Our Choice, Al Gore’s sequel to An Inconvenient Truth.

See the video at TED.

Be sure to read the discussion started by David Wees (@davidwees) titled “What is this ‘ebook’ missing?”

I'd have to argue that this ebook is missing some of the most important features of the interactive Web.... [W]hat I see is interactivity with static content, which in my mind is a dead concept.

...Most importantly, how is this book integrated with social media? How can we comment on the book, annotate it, share passages of the book with other people? If I want to share the book, like we can do easily and all the time with print text, do I need to share my entire iPad? How do we tag content? How do we set multiple bookmarks, so we can go back and reread our favourite sections? Can I read the same book on my laptop? Is it possible to make edits to the book when I see errors or omissions, or just want to play with the text?

In today’s digital age, we should be very suspicious of any ebook which doesn't offer all of the features listed above.

Read this discussion in full.

Let Somersault help you publish meaningful enhanced ebooks.

According to Sympatico.ca News (@Sympatico), a plastic smartphone as thin and flexible as a credit card has been invented by researchers from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

Roel Vertegaal, director of the Human Media Lab at Queen's University, first came up with the idea of using “bend gestures” as a new way of interacting with computers. He envisioned a device that would feel and behave like a sheet of interactive paper, so he named it the PaperPhone.

He expects consumer devices similar to the PaperPhone to hit the market in 5 to 10 years.

Vertegaal will demonstrate the prototype - and the bend gestures used to control it - at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver May 10 (#chi2011).

Read this in full.

Read the BBC News story.

Read the news release at Human Media Lab.

What are you doing today to prepare for the continuous changes in publishing so that you’ll be ready for the new book formats of the future?

Alberto Vitale was running Bantam Books, the world leader in paperbacks, when the Newhouse family recruited him to become the COO of Random House (@atrandom). In that role, and later as the CEO of one of the world’s top publishing firms, Vitale oversaw huge changes in the publishing industry. In this interview with Stephen J. Kobrin, publisher and executive director of Wharton Digital Press and Knowledge@Wharton (@knowledgwharton), Vitale discusses the rise of digital publishing, the future of bookstores, and the globalization of copyright, among other issues. Among his statements:

Digital technology may allow a lot of individual authors to self-publish. That's the power of digital technology, of the Internet. But still, the role of the publisher will continue [to be] as strong as before. You still have to figure out which book you want to publish. And, how do you want to publish it? There are obvious synergies between paper and digital [media]....

Absolutely [bookstores will survive]. However, they're going to undergo major changes. Three [or] five years from now, up to 70% of the space in [big box bookstores, such as Barnes & Noble] may be dedicated to other products. It makes sense. You have the universe that is digitalized now. You don't need these huge stores anymore....

Everybody's online now. The access to information is tremendously enhanced. But remember, the publishing model will change. And the product will change. The prices of hard cover books are now still $27.95, $26.95, which I find ridiculous. They cannot possibly make ends meet with those prices. They are going to grow to $36.95, $46.95. But the reader will have a much better product to purchase. Better paper, better type, better binding. And so, you will have a book to cherish....

Read the transcript in full, listen to the audio, and watch the video.

Do you agree with his views? Post your comments below.

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (@chronicle) by Harvard professor and librarian Robert Darnton says, “The nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness.” He singles out 5 statements to dispute:

1. “The book is dead.”

2. “We have entered the information age.”

3. “All information is now available online.”

4. “Libraries are obsolete.”

5. “The future is digital.”

Regarding the last one, he says it may be not so much mythological as misleading.

In 10, 20, or 50 years, the information environment will be overwhelmingly digital, but the prevalence of electronic communication does not mean that printed material will cease to be important. Research in the relatively new discipline of book history has demonstrated that new modes of communication do not displace old ones, at least not in the short run. Manuscript publishing actually expanded after Gutenberg and continued to thrive for the next three centuries. Radio did not destroy the newspaper; television did not kill radio; and the Internet did not make TV extinct. In each case, the information environment became richer and more complex. That is what we are experiencing in this crucial phase of transition to a dominantly digital ecology

He says these misconceptions “stand in the way of understanding shifts in the information environment.”

They make the changes appear too dramatic. They present things ahistorically and in sharp contrasts — before and after, either/or, black and white. A more nuanced view would reject the common notion that old books and ebooks occupy opposite and antagonistic extremes on a technological spectrum. Old books and ebooks should be thought of as allies, not enemies.

Read this article in full.

Let Somersault help you see pbooks and ebooks as allies.

An article in The New York Times (@NYTimes) describes the solution for authors who want to sign their book on someone’s ereader.  Autography LLC is a media technology firm in St Petersburg, Florida with a patent-pending method for inserting an autograph or other salutation into an ebook. This personalization can take place at the time of purchase or any time afterwards.

Here’s how an Autography eBook “signing” will work: a reader poses with the author for a photograph, which can be taken with an iPad camera or an external camera. The image immediately appears on the author’s iPad (if it’s shot with an external camera, it’s sent to the iPad via Bluetooth). Then the author uses a stylus to scrawl a digital message below the photo. When finished, the author taps a button on the iPad that sends the fan an email with a link to the image, which can then be downloaded into the ebook....

[W]ithin the year consumers should expect to see a variety of advances in digital signing, including ebooks that are sold with blank pages for that purpose. Some devices already have their own solutions, like Sony’s Reader, which enables authors to use a stylus to sign a page on its screen.

Read the article in full.

This article in Advertising Age (@adage) by Jack Neff (@jackneff) begins, “If you thought of Generation Y as the digital generation, wait till you get a load of their kids.” This insightful research can help publishers prepare for the consumer who will be buying books 10 years from now, whatever those books will look like.

Pre-teen and even pre-school children are key drivers for adoption of the iPad and other tablet computers, and a substantial number of kids, including two in five 11 and 12 year olds, now regularly use social networks even though they're technically not allowed, according to the study LMX Family: A Window into the Media Life of the American Family (LMX stands for Longitudinal Media Experience) conducted in early February by Ipsos OTX (@ipsosnewspolls).

Ipsos also says pre-schoolers are adopting digital habits or being exposed to new devices even faster than tweens, a sign of the speed with which digital technology is reshaping media and marketing habits for the youngest children. Of households with preschoolers, 38% had handheld gaming devices vs. only 24% among those with children aged 6-12. Preschool households also held an edge in laptops (82% to 76%), gaming consoles (76% to 63%) and Internet-capable cellphones (69% to 65%).

The youngest children have the most exposure to digital technology because they’re more likely to have Gen Y parents shaping their expectations, says Donna Sabino, senior VP-kids and family insights for Ipsos OTX.

“People laugh when they see 3 and 4 year olds who are used to smartphones or tablet touch-screen devices going up to a laptop and touching the screen to make it move,” says Sabino. “When I see that, I think the technology is already obsolete for her. Her expectation is that all her interface with media is going to be intuitive, something she can touch. It's a history of the future right now — what are we teaching them to expect from us going forward?”

·         18% of parents will let their tween boys aged 9-12 play video games rated adult only, and 36% will let them play games rated mature, provided a parent is playing too.

·         20% of parents will let children 6-12 go with them to R-rated movies.

·         23% of children 6-12 regularly visit social networking sites and 41% of kids 11-12 do so, though membership in the sites is supposed to be limited to 13 and up.

·         By age 11, half of kids have cellphones. Half of the time it’s the parents’ idea.

·         Kids in the household are huge drivers of iPad penetration. 10% of households with children under 13 now have iPads, vs. only 3% in households without children 6-12.

·         35% of households with children 6-12 plan to purchase some brand of tablet computer in the next year.

·         Over half of parents say their children should be able to go online on their own by age 6.

Read this in full.

Also read our blogpost, "25% of Toddlers Have Used a Smartphone."

Dan Coates, president of Ypulse (@ypulse) says, “There's a fundamental shift in how media is being consumed, and Gen Y is at the epicenter of it all.”

·         In the prior week, nearly 1 in 4 members of Gen Y watched video content that was streamed to a computer, 1 in 7 downloaded video content to a computer, and 1 in 20 watched video content that was streamed to their mobile phones.

·         On average, Gen Y spends nearly 3 hours a week watching streamed TV programs, and an hour and a half a week watching downloaded TV programs.

·         Gen Y streams and downloads video from a variety of locations: they are nearly as likely to do so at home as they are at a friend's house.

·         Gen Y most commonly streams full-length, professionally produced videos, such as movies and TV shows, with music videos not far behind. College students watch a wider diversity of content than teens, with most checking out news clips, commercials, sports, and political videos in addition to long-form movies and TV shows.

He says, “The trend towards cloud-based, on-demand digital media shifts the locus of control from the producer to the consumer. Having grown up immersed in digital media, Gen Y will lead this shift.”

Read this in full.

What are the implications of these findings for publishers?

According to BtoB Media Business (@btobmagazine), “the users of iPads and other tablet devices are increasing their content consumption at a greater rate than individuals who don't own the devices, according to a survey released by L.E.K. Consulting (@LEK_Consulting).

The “Hidden Opportunities in New Media Survey” finds that 29% of tablet owners increased their use of magazines in the last year compared with just 4% of nontablet owners. Similarly, 26% of device owners said they increased their consumption of newspapers compared with just 6% of nontablet owners.

Read the study in full in pdf format.

E-Commerce Times says analyst firms are recalculating their 2011 PC sales projections after noticing a trend in which more consumers are passing on PC purchases in favor of tablets.

The above chart displays the results of the Google AdMob Network Survey.

What are the implications of the above study and analysis for publishers and other content creators? Write your comments below.

Happy Earth Day! In this New York Times (@nytimes) opinion article, Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris ask, “Which is more environmentally friendly: an e-reader or an ‘old-fashioned’ book?”

Bill Henderson, in his Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) column refers to The New York Times piece in saying,

Here's what an e-reader is: a battery-operated slab, about a pound, one-half inch thick, perhaps with an aluminum border, rubberized back, plastic, metal, silicon, a bit of gold, plus rare metals such as columbite-tantalite (Google it) ripped from the earth, often in war-torn Africa. To make one e-reader requires 33 pounds of minerals, plus 79 gallons of water to refine the minerals and produce the battery and printed writing. The production of other e-reading devices such as cellphones, iPads, and whatever new gizmo will pop up in the years ahead is similar. “The adverse health impacts [on the general public] from making one e-reader are estimated to be 70 times greater than those for making a single book,” says the Times.

Then you figure that the 100 million e-readers will be outmoded in short order, to be replaced by 100 million new and improved devices in the years ahead that will likewise be replaced by new models ad infinitum, and you realize an environmental disaster is at hand. We will have lost a chunk of our planet as we lose our minds to the digital juggernaut.

Here’s what it takes to make a book, which, if it is any good, will be shared by many readers and preserved and appreciated in personal, public, and university libraries that survive the gigantic digital book burning: recycled paper, a dash of minerals, and two gallons of water. Batteries not necessary. If trees are harvested, they can be replanted.

Goleman and Norris sum it up this way:

So, how many volumes do you need to read on your e-reader to break even? With respect to fossil fuels, water use and mineral consumption, the impact of one e-reader payback equals roughly 40 to 50 books. When it comes to global warming, though, it’s 100 books; with human health consequences, it’s somewhere in between.

You may also want to read MarketingDaily’s “Study: Green Gap Is Bigger Than Ever” and “Starbucks’ Green Goals: Cups Present Challenges.”

By the way, if you missed Earth Hour this year (Mar. 26), see the photos.

According to a study conducted in March by OnCampus Research (@CampusResearch), the research division of the National Association of College Stores, college students continue to increase their usage of e-readers, but most still prefer print textbooks. The survey of 655 students finds a 6% increase in ebook purchases in March compared to a study conducted in October, and more students are reading materials on dedicated reading devices while fewer are using laptops or netbooks. While only 15% of students say they own an e-reader, 39% report they use one, up from 19% in the October study. The number of students owning a dedicated reader in October was 8%.

Of those now owning a digital e-reader, the Amazon Kindle was the most popular, with 52% of college students owning one, compared to 32% five months ago. Other top e-reader devices included Barnes & Noble’s Nook (21%), Apple iPhone (17%), and Apple iPad (10%).

Students interested in purchasing a new e-reader are most interested in the iPad and Kindle (both 27%), followed by the Nook.

Print textbooks continue as the preferred media option among this demographic. Fully 75% of the college students in the March 2011 survey said that, if the choice was entirely theirs, they would select a print textbook. This is similar to the findings of the October 2010 e-reader survey, as well as one done in the fall of 2008.

Read the news release.