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Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) is covering the Tools of Change 2011 (@toc) conference in NYC. It concludes today. PW’s articles include “Old Pros, New Tools and the Future of Publishing,” “At Morning Keynote, Margaret Atwood Reminds Attendees Change Can Be Bad,” and “Technology Wars Never End.”

Tuesday’s TOC program closed with a keynote presentation by publishing consultant Brian O’Leary (@brianoleary) called “Context First: A Unified Field Theory of Publishing.” ... [H]e tried to outline the need for a publisher shift from a “container-first model,” i.e., an industry geared to focus on physical books, to a “context-first” digitally-focused model, a model that by its very nature will produce content prominently tagged and coded for easy and immediate discovery online, unlike the physical book. It’s a model O’Leary expects to dominate the newly emerging era of the “born-digital”—both the new generation of digital consumers and the digital-first ventures launched to serve their needs.

Read the full PW coverage of the TOC conference.

Wally Metts (@wmetts) is director of graduate studies in communication at Spring Arbor University. He’s also a consultant, teacher, and journalist. He writes the blog “the daysman.” In a recent post he reviews the current state of affairs in bookselling and concludes, “It’s the end of the bookstore as we know it. Wait, didn’t I see that in You’ve Got Mail? The Shop Around the Corner? But now it’s the big chains and not the independents that are struggling.” He identifies two new developments contributing to the current situation:

First, the Kindle got page numbers. The text book industry in particular must have experienced a collective shudder. And second, a new service, Lendle, now makes it possible to loan your Kindle book to a friend for 14 days. This too is big.

I’m not saying the Kindle is the biggest or the best ebook service. I’m just saying that the rate of innovation in ebooks generally is rapid and irreversible. And cost and convenience will win in the end.

He says it’s not the end of the book, just a new chapter.

Read this in full.

TIME magazine (@TIME) features futurist Raymond Kurzweil’s (see his website) “radical vision for humanity’s immortal future.” It has seismic implications for those of us in book publishing. Book formats morphing into digital entities may not be the only sea change occurring in this century. Here are a few excerpts:

Creating a work of art is one of those activities we reserve for humans and humans only. It’s an act of self-expression; you're not supposed to be able to do it if you don’t have a self. To see creativity, the exclusive domain of humans, usurped by a computer ... is to watch a line blur that cannot be unblurred, the line between organic intelligence and artificial intelligence.

Kurzweil (@KurzweilAINews) believes we're approaching [the Singularity,] a moment when computers will become intelligent, and not just intelligent but more intelligent than humans. When that happens, humanity — our bodies, our minds, our civilization — will be completely and irreversibly transformed. He believes that this moment is not only inevitable but imminent. According to his calculations, the end of human civilization as we know it is about 35 years away.

So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness — not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties.

Read this in full.

News Corp. debuted The Daily (@daily) today, a "digital newspaper" designed specifically for the 14.8 million iPads sold since last April and the millions more expected yet to sell. Joined by Apple executive Eddy Cue, the company's Internet division chief, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch unveiled the publication to which his company has committed around 100 staffers and an investment of $30 million.

"No paper. No multi-million dollar presses. No trucks," Murdoch said. "We're passing on these savings to the reader, which is why we can offer The Daily for just 14 cents a day." It represents an opportunity to "make the business of editing and news gathering viable again," he said.

Read this CNN Money article in full.

For a critical review, read “The Daily - stunning but too slow.”

For an alternate review, see “Why The Daily’s Detractors Are Missing The Point.” 

More than 1,200 publishing professionals gathered at Digital Book World 2011 (@DigiBookWorld) in NYC last week for 3 days of forecasting the future of publishing. A quick roundup of news coverage, tweets, PowerPoint slides, and reactions to Digital Book World 2011 (#dbw11) is located on the DBW website. For example, from the Los Angeles Times

In 2010, ebook sales rose by around 400% and pulled in almost $1 billion in sales. Madeline McIntosh, Random House’s president of sales, operations and digital, said her company is working on the belief that by 2015, half the books readers buy will be ebooks.

And from Eric Hellman

“Fear no ebooks” was the message of the conference, and it was a welcome message to many of the participants that I talked to. “I’m just trying to learn about ebooks” and “we’re trying to decide what to do” were phrases I heard more than once.

Read this in full.

Meet Nelson, Coupland, and Alice — the faces of tomorrow’s book. Watch global design and innovation consultancy IDEO’s (@ideo) vision for the future of the book. It explores the new experiences that might be created by linking diverse discussions; the additional value that could be created by connecting readers to one another; and the innovative ways that might be used to tell favorite stories and build community around books. Watch the video.

In 2010 ereader prices fell close to $100 and 10.5 million people in the US own a dedicated ereader. New reading form factors were introduced. Tablets in about 10 million US hands right now – primarily the iPad. A third of the people who own an iPad own a Kindle. Nearly $1 billion was spent on ebooks in the US alone.

In 2011 20+ million people will read ebooks on a reader or tablet. $1.3 billion will be spent on ebooks at the bare minimum. They can’t even forecast the impact on non-traditional eformats.

Are publishers ready? Surveyed publishing execs to find out. 89% optimistic about digital transition; 74% say readers will be better off; 66% say people will read more; 83% say their companies can manage digital transition; 63% say have a digital plan in place; 80% believe their company needs significant retraining.

Read this in full.

 A variety of pundits predict 2011 will be the year of the cable TV cord cutter, the year of the computer tablet, even the year of the vegetable. What were the early sparks through the centuries that ignited the fire for today’s stunning advancements?

We, Somersault Group (http://somersau.lt) - the international publishing strategy and services agency founded by five former Zondervan marketing and editorial executives - see 2011 as a year to recognize and celebrate the significant and life-changing milestones achieved over time in the areas of publishing, technology, and innovation.

To that end, we’ve created the interactive pdf Infographic (that’s even printable) that honors 22 landmark anniversaries this year, such as the King James Version of the Bible (400th), the transcontinental telegraph system in the USA (150th), MTV (30th), the first website (20th), and the iPod (10th).

Somersault Infographic 2011

The Infographic (designed by Scott Schermer, student at Kendall College of Art & Design) is located online at scribd.com/doc/46895274/Somersault-Infographic-2011. If you like it, please blog about it, tweet it, email your friends, tell others about it, and post your comments below. To receive an interactive PDF version (with links to each anniversary’s Web information) by return email attachment, send a request to hello@somersaultgroup.com.

Somersault believes the unprecedented changes occurring in the publishing world aren’t a crisis; they’re a playground of possibilities. We help publishers, agents, ministry partners, and authors adapt to these changes with dexterity.

Our services include brand counseling, editorial direction, research capabilities, marketing strategy, Internet and social media presence, and a comprehensive portfolio of publishing assistance.

Our mission is to change lives by connecting inspirational content creators with readers using exceptional creativity, right-now technology, and old-fashioned personal care.

We look forward to hearing how we can be of service to you. Be sure to follow this blog (http://somersault.posterous.com) and our Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault). And please “Like” us on Facebook (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup).

Happy Innovative Year!

This article in the Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) takes a unique look at the role of e-readers in the expression of one’s faith. Here’s an excerpt:

Many observant Jews do not operate lights, computers, mobile phones, or other electrical appliances from sundown on Friday until three stars appear in the night sky on Saturday. They abstain from these activities because, over the last century, rabbinic authorities have compared electricity use to various forms of work prohibited on the Sabbath by the Bible and post-biblical rabbinic literature, including lighting a fire and building. The difficulty of interpreting the Bible's original intent and applying it to modern technology has rendered electricity use on the Sabbath one of the more contentious topics in Jewish law.

E-readers are problematic not only because they are electronic but also because some rabbis consider turning pages on the device - which causes words to dissolve and then resurface - an act of writing, also forbidden on the Sabbath.

Read this article in full.