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More homeowners are designing libraries and reading rooms in their homes. See the above video by The Wall Street Journal (@WSJVideo) (although note: the Encyclopædia Britannica (@Britannica) has not gone out of business as the reporter says around 1:15 into the video; it has ceased print publication and is concentrating on digital editions — see our blogpost "Encyclopædia Britannica Stops the Presses").

If you’re a book lover like we (@smrsault) are, bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

MarketingVox (@marketingvox) reports, “The 74 million estimated tablet users in the USA are not just playing around online. Half are getting weather information, more than a third are getting national news, and just under a third read newspaper and magazine content.”

The Online Publishers Association (@OPA_PamHoran) collaborated with Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc. to evaluate attitudes and behaviors of media and entertainment consumers. The OPA surveyed 2,540 Internet users between the ages of 8 and 64 for a one-week period (March 19 through March 26, 2012) and released the results in its report A Portrait of Today's Tablet User – Wave II.

·         94% of tablet users access content and information weekly (41% consume local news, 37% consume national news)

·         72% of tablet owners have paid for apps

·         67% go online

·         66% check email

·         54% watch video

·         53% access social networks

·         39% of readers have bought a single issue or digital subscription for their tablets

·         35% have bought an ebook

·         15% have bought a digital newspaper subscription

Read this in full at:

·         Tablet Users Want Content & Information Over Fun & Games

·         OPA: What Content Do Tablet Owners Buy?

·         A Portrait of Today’s Tablet User, Part I of III: Introduction & Overall Tablet Audience

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market content for tablet users.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Family Christian Stores (@FCstores) is the world’s largest Christian-focused retail chain with nearly 300 stores nationwide. Along with its books, Bibles, gifts, and music, it now is selling its own exclusive e-reader, edifi.

Based on a chart comparing edifi with the Nook Color, Nook Tablet, and Kindle Fire, edifi is comparable but a bit smaller (although same screen size), has less resolution and pixel density, runs on Android 2.3.5, comes with its own stand, and is less expensive. It’s uniquely pre-installed with family-friendly features and free apps including Safe Search Wi-Fi Web browsing, 27 Bible translations, and Christian Internet radio. With edifi, users are able to check email, access social networks, watch movies, display photos, and download ebooks and read them with the included FC Reader app.

Read our previous blogposts on the subject of tablets.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish your content for ebooks, pbooks, and audiobooks.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

At a media event today in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced its new tablet, Surface (@surface) (#Surface), which, when it debuts (a release date was not announced) will feature a 10.6-inch wide display with Gorilla Glass, its own kickstand, Bluetooth, front & rear camera, a full-size USB port, dual Wi-Fi antennae, a multitouch full-size keyboard, a stylus which writes freehand on the screen, a trackpad, and presumably Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) — and yet is only about a half-inch thick. Models will come with either 64 gigabytes or 128 GB of storage.

Its capacity as an e-reading device was left unexplained. Microsoft has invested $300 million investment in Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader, though B&N was not part of today’s announcement.

Read coverage by USA TODAY, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, VentureBeat, and The Verge.

Somersault (@smrsault) helps you stay abreast of new technology and its impact on publishing.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

The above film, EPILOGUE: the future of print (@EPILOGUEdoc) (vimeo channel) by Hanah Ryu Chung, is a documentary that explores the world of print books, scratching the surface of its future. Chung says:

The act of reading a “tangible tome” has evolved, devolved, and changed many times over, especially in recent years. I hope for the film to stir thought and elicit discussion about the immersive reading experience and the lost craft of the book arts, from the people who are still passionate about reading on paper as well as those who are not.

Also see our previous blogposts:

• "Paper is Stronger than Tech and Now its Aroma Comes Bottled"
• "Home Libraries Despite the Ebook Era"
• "Birth of a Book: The Handmade Bookbinding Process"
• "Book Seller Believes in Video's Marketing Power"
• "A Video About a Poster Masks a Bookstore's Promotion"
• "Video: What Books Do After Hours"
• "The Technology of Storytelling"
• "Photos: The 20 Coolest Bookstores in the World"
• "Introducing the New Book"
• "Even E-reader Owners Still Like Printed Books, Survey Finds"
• "In a Flood Tide of Digital Data, an Ark Full of Books"
• "The 'End' of Print and TV."

If you love books like we (@smrsault) do, we invite you to make our SomersaultNOW online dashboard your personal computer homepage (see instructions).

New data from Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ (@PwC_LLP & @pwc_press) Global Entertainment and Media Outlook predicts ebooks will constitute 50% of the US trade book market by 2016.

Reporter Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) writes in paidContent (@paidContent) that PwC expects total book spending in North America to remain relatively flat; “1.1% compound annual rate” of increase between 2011 and 2016.

PwC thinks that while total spending on print trade books will decline, the ebook market will be growing fast enough by 2013 to offset those declines. In the US, the company estimates that “around 30% of adults had at least one portable reading device [an e-reader or tablet] in the first quarter of 2012.”

By 2016, PwC expects, “ebooks will account for half of total spending on consumer books” in the US and the total US consumer book market (print + digital) will be worth $21 billion, up from $19.5 billion in 2011.

Read this in full.

According to PwC’s blog, the E&M Outlook says 3 behavioral changes are driving global shifts in industry structure and value:

1.    From print to digital: Electronic books’ share of total global spending on consumer and educational books will rise from 5% in 2011 to 18% by 2016.

2.    From fixed to mobile consumption: Global mobile Internet access increased from 26% of total Internet access spending in 2007 to 40% in 2011 – and will grow to 46% by 2016.

3.    From West to East, and North to South: Total revenue growth to 2016 in Central and Eastern Europe/Asia Pacific will be almost double that of North America/Western Europe. And growth in the southern Latin America/Middle East/Africa market will average more than twice that of North America/Europe by 2016.

Read the news release.

In the video below, Marcel Fenez, Global Leader, Entertainment & Media at PwC, explains how PwC sees this time period as being “the end of the digital beginning.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you take advantage of publishing’s digital growth for your content.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Digital Book World’s (@DigiBookWorld) editorial director, Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid) says, “For the first time ever, more than half of Americans 65 and older are on the Internet, according to a new report — and this could mean a whole new growing market for ebook publishers and retailers.”

According to the study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project (@pewinternet), 53% of American adults age 65 or older use the Internet or email, up from about 40% less than a year ago. By comparison, 82% of all adults say they use the Internet or email at least occasionally.

Readers in that age group are among the most prolific book buyers, according to the Codex Group, a New York-based book-focused research firm. Book buyers 65 and older buy more books a month than those in the 18-to-24, 25-to-34, and 35-to-44 age groups. Book-buying peaks in the 45-to-54 and 55-to-64 age groups and drops off at 65 and up, possibly due to less disposable income to spend on books.

...“Seniors that read ebooks like the ability to change the type size and appreciate that they can get them at home without having to leave,” says Pew research specialist and report co-author Kathryn Zickuhr (@kzickuhr), referring to an upcoming study from Pew that will discuss libraries and ebooks, and contains feedback from older adults on how they got started reading ebooks and what they like and don’t like about them.

Read this in full.

Read the Pew report in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you effectively communicate your brand’s content in this digital age.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

At the 21st Annual Minitex ILL Conference in Minnesota, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project (@pewinternet), Lee Rainie (@lrainie), gave the keynote presentation on "Learning in the Digital Age: Where Libraries Fit In."

He discussed the way people use ebook readers and tablet computers, and how those devices are fitting into users' digital lives. His presentation below describes how 3 revolutions in digital technology – in broadband, mobile connectivity, and social media – have created a new social operating system that he calls "networked individualism." And he used the Project's latest findings to help describe how librarians can serve the new educational needs of networked individuals.

How does this new way of learning among your consumers impact your publishing agenda? Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you sort it all out.

And be sure to bookmark, use daily, and tell others about the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Consumers who own tablets are adopting new communications habits, but are also making fewer visits to stores, according to multimarket research.

InMobi (@inmobi), the mobile advertising network, and Mobext (@mobext), the agency run by Havas, polled 8,400 people in India, France, South Korea, the UK, and US, finding 69% of tablet owners shopped via the devices in the 30 days before the survey.

·         Over 20% of tablet early adopters claim to have made less trips to brick-and-mortar stores after obtaining the device. A third of people yet to own such an appliance hope to buy one in the next 6 months.

·         61% of the existing tablet community says this channel plays a key role in building brand awareness when used at home, as do 58% for "active evaluation," and 63% for completing transactions.

·         58% of people with an iPad or similar offering access content - and especially rich media - in short bursts throughout the day, as do 56% of their smartphone counterparts.

·         72% watch TV and use their slate simultaneously; 20% spend more time in front of the television having bought a tablet.

·         51% of tablet owners say using it fills "dead time;" 49% share it with family members.

·         44% "would not want to be separated" from their tablet.

·         42% say tablets have "revolutionized" the way they communicate with friends and colleagues.

·         Tablet users shop more on their device than PC and smartphone users.

Read this in full.

Read the news release.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish your content for tablets.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

According to an analysis by Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) editorial director Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid) of a new study from the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), some 25% of all people who read ebooks are now reading on tablets (as opposed to dedicated e-readers), up from under 20% at the end of 2011.

An industry insider says, as tablets put pressure on sales of dedicated e-readers, prices of the e-ink devices could drop until they hit zero.

Read this in full.