From email to . . . ?

I have to admit I really don't "get" social networking sites. I understand their purpose, but at this point they still feel like toys rather than tools in my hands.

MediaPost's Online Media Daily has a report from the Email Insider Summit, Habeas: Email Remains Primo Communication Method, that seems to suggest my views are still in the majority, even among younger users. Habeas' research shows that people still prefer email, and will for the foreseeable future, though the reporter mentions one college student who attended the conference would be content to use Facebook solely in his next (first?) job.

They're too intimate. I remember at least one anthropology instructor commenting on research predicting how many "intimates" (close friends and family) one could mentally keep track of, explaining relationships in the classic circles of a Venn diagram. Myspace and Facebook, in their current incarnations, seem to encourage "intimates" circles the size of the Assembly Hall across the street, with only token nods to physical and mental realities.

I have one work contact without an email account, and only a few more intimates offline. I think, for most small businesses (including publishing) email will continue to be a sufficient means of communication indefinately.

Web Page Highlighter

School Library Journal features awesomehighlighter.com in their Saved By the Bell: Sixty Second Tech Tip section. This could be an excellent resource for adults, too, saving all that printing and copying of web pages for meetings (such as our Web Committee meeting tomorrow morning).

LJ @ IDPF

Library Journal has a short item today on the International Digital Publishing Forum meeting last week.

I blogged about the announcement last month about Digital Book 2008 (the name of the conference). It turns out that the .epub is XML based, to support page-readers, but will reformat depending upon the reader. (Obviously we'll have to give up page numbers as a reference point.)

Today Wendy Davis blogged on MediaPost's OnlineExaminer that Napster is opening a DRM-free music store.

I still hold with my earlier comments that most publishers need to jump in to the eBook with little or no DRM. I think us small fishes could end up shelling out money for scalable walls that should go towards creating better, viable online content.

Lessig weighs in on Orphan Works, NYTimes

In today's article Lessig offers what I think is a clearer explanation of the new copyright laws than I remember from others--presuming that the "14-year" rule is true (and I expect that it is).

I agree with him that the law should be simple and cheap, and favor the copyright owner. I'm not sure if this replaced the 90's "Mickey Mouse" law, or if this is an addendum that will only help big companies that have their own in-house experts, anyway.

Artificial Work/Life Separation

Today I emailed a link to LibraryThing.com from my work email address to my home email address. I decided that's just stupid, and not working very well anymore. Why can't I blog small segments at work, and use Blogger or whatever tool I need to keep track of all the wonderful little (and sometimes big) doohickeys people are creating to keep myself informed and/or marginally organized?

This is a description of LibraryThing that I sent to a colleague:
"It’s a site where individuals can catalog their own personal libraries, with all the bells-and-whistles that communal (and corporate) distribution of effort can bring. They have different membership levels, from free through public libraries, and offer tagging and social-networking features. OCLC for the 21^st century."

I should have put it here first, then just pointed her here. In a vain attempt to keep my work and home life separate, I seem to be wasting time at both. It's not like I watch, or plan to watch, 30 Rock at work on Hulu, but maybe if I go ahead and blog all those pesky little, "Denise--see this!" notes at work, I'll have time to watch 30 Rock at home, or at least read my backlog of "Denise--see this!" notes.

Who makes a book? (Idealist version)

Yesterday I was a bit harsh in my evaluation of a couple of new models for writing, authoring, and publishing books. Today several other new ideas caught my attention that don't push my "bullshit" button.

Foreword This Week reported that The Wall Street Journal reported that HarperCollins has announced an as-yet-unnamed imprint that will not accept returns from buyers, nor will they pay authors advances. Okay, so this is just a bit late for rumor that smacks of a late April Fool's Day joke. Maybe the new imprint will be graphic novels, and will be eased by the existing no-returns, no-exchanges comic book sales model.

Forward also announced "Digital Book 2008." Wow, standards for digital books. One of the sponsors listed is Adobe, so maybe they can actually make this work. DRM in music is failing, and books cannot be performed live (most, anyway). What is the future of a true digital book? A DRM-based Kindle, or the ubiquitous PDF? Given the disposable nature of mass market paperbacks, an advertising-based model could work (chapter headers, rather than embedded, I hope). Long disquisitions won't be such an easy sell. But those might be worth paper, outside class use.

Boing Boing reports on We Tell Stories: web-native storytelling from Penguin. These look pretty good, and, if not exactly innovative, it is certainly innovative for a mainstream "classics" imprint to be making these available. I read the first "chapter" of "The 21 Steps" and will probably read the next. Slick.

And, Todd Bryant at Academic Commons announced Sophie 1.0, a "multimedia authoring tool released under a creative commons license." The comments indicate that the tool is definately a 1.0 version. Looks like something I might check out at 1.5 or 2.0. I hope it will last that long.

Goodnight

Cool looks, needs more substance

--Today the email experience council's [no link because the newsletter's link was broken] newsletter featured a link to Zinio's Digital Classics. I would love to sign up to use them, except I already have tons of email that I never get through. Plus, who needs another Publisher's Clearing House (without the Sweepstakes)? Looks great--much more visually appealing than Project Gutenberg, but not as big, or as *gack* noble.

--Mediapostpublications.com announced the launch of Prime Time Rewind. Again, a visually interesting, if clunky, interface with less? content, and much of the same content, as is already available on Hulu.com. Maybe it's the dorky librarian in me, but alphabetical by title is still a pretty easy way to find shows. Mediaposts's Wayne Friedman says the appeal of the new site is that it "uses the free video links of every available full-length network program and presents those shows in an easier format for consumers to access." Well, the link in their article was wrong, so maybe he was looking at a different site than I.

[--I found it a bit ironic that both of these email newsletters, from big-time professionals in the business, featured broken or incorrect links. If they only followed their own, very good, advice.]