December 18, 2007

Call for Papers: Gilbane San Francisco 2008

They are now accepting proposals for panel participation and presentations for Gilbane San Francisco 2008, to be held at the Westin Market Hotel, San Francisco, June 17 - 19, 2008.

Join the content and information technology's leading analysts, IT strategists, and technologists at the industry's most popular and important conference this coming Spring. Share your expertise and experience, and network with the forward-thinking implementers and thought leaders.

How to be a speaker

Choose a topic area from the list below and see how to submit a proposal. The deadline is January 15, 2008. Topics to be covered in-depth include:

If you've never been to one of the Gilbane events and want see what we have been covering in our conferences, check-out the programs from the recent hugely successful Gilbane Boston 2007 and Gilbane San Francisco 2007.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:14 AM | Comments (1)

November 28, 2007

So You Want to be an Author?

Chris Webb, executive editor at Wiley Publishing, has written and has now assembled some terrific advice on developing a book proposal. Chris has been writing these over time, and has now pulled them together. As he notes, Chris does work in technology publishing, so some of these will be specific to computer book publishing, but much of what he has written is useful for any type of non-fiction book.

Oh, did I mention Chris was the editor for an excellent book on Digital Rights Management?

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:37 AM

October 24, 2007

"We're thrilled with the early results from customers"

Jeff Bezos says Amazon's customers like DRM-free music. Not a word about eBooks though. David Rothman from TeleRead has some thoughts about the eBook angle.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:26 PM

Docmetrics Trial: Free $250 Credit

I've mentioned protectedpdf from Vitrium Systems in the past. I saw a demo and was impressed. They now have a companion technology, docmetrics, which allows you to measure reader behavior. They have a free docmetrics trial if you are interested.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:12 PM

June 7, 2007

Steal this Laptop!

Abbie Hoffman would be proud. Ironically, Abbie's book is flagged as Copyright Protected on Google Books.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:14 AM | Comments (1)

April 5, 2007

DRM-Free EMI: Microsoft Joins Apple

Over at DRMWatch, Bill Rosenblatt weighs in on DRM-Free music, EMI, Microsoft, and Apple.

As far as EMI is concerned, the deal was shortsighted, risky, and possibly irresponsible to the company's shareholders. EMI is the smallest of the four majors, enjoys no synergies with corporate siblings, and is undergoing financial hard times. This move with Apple was a lunge for near-term revenue, at the quite possible expense of longer term revenue for EMI and the rest of the industry. EMI gets a cash advance of US $5 Million from Apple. It should enjoy a short-term revenue spurt as some consumers respond to the hype and purchase DRM-free tracks for $1.29 (in the US market).

Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:23 PM

March 19, 2007

The Power of the Pocketbook

Also known as MIT and DRM:

It seems like a small thing - MIT Libraries announced that they would not carry material by the Society of Automotive Engineers - but it has pretty big implications.

SAE's database of technical papers apparently comes girded with a layer of DRM. The library website states:

SAE's DRM technology severely limits use of SAE papers and imposes unnecessary burdens on readers. With this technology, users must download a DRM plugin, Adobe's "FileOpen," in order to read SAE papers. This plugin limits use to on-screen viewing and making a single printed copy, and does not work on Linux or Unix platforms.

Many of MIT's faculty are fellows of the Society, which does not pay its members for the papers it publishes...and yet which restricts access to these papers via that "severe" DRM technology and a subscription fee - in fact, it restricts the mention of these papers in other databases as well...

I should note that FileOpen is not an Adobe product, but a separate company that makes DRM technology.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:06 PM

February 9, 2007

Steve Jobs Speaks Out Against DRM for Music

But over at DRM Watch, Bill Rosenblatt is sure that Apple's latest "DRM strategy" is pure PR.

Speaking of DRM, there happens to be a very good book out there on the topic.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:43 PM

January 28, 2007

File this Under "Not Exactly News"

Dear Author has seen the Vision of the eBook Future via Google and Random House and It Stinks

In 2004, Google announced its plan to scan every book printed. They began working with university libraries such as Harvard, University of Michigan, and Oxford. This caused the publishing industry some great consternation because an author’s work …

Posted by Bill Trippe at 12:56 PM

November 10, 2006

Digitization at HarperCollins

If you are curious what HarperCollins is doing in terms of digitizing its content, this presentation (PDF) from the Frankfurt Book Fair spells it out some. HarperCollins is being aggressive with this. They cited the costs of digitization as an element in their recent disappointing quarterly profit, and clearly are committed to the efforts.

In addition to lower sales, [HarperCollins CEO Jane] Friedman attributed the drop in profits to continued investment in digital and global projects. HC has now digitized 12,000 titles as part of its digital warehouse, and during the quarter it converted 125 books to its new Browse Inside feature, which enables consumers to search HC books from the company's Web site. Friedman estimated HC will be adding 200 to 500 titles a week to the Browse feature. The company's Digital Media Café also launched in the period. "I remain excited by the digital world," Friedman said. HC's China initiatives also ate into profits in the period.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:33 PM

October 24, 2006

Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe announced Digital Editions today (press release here). Digital Editions is billed as a rich internet application for digital publishing, enabling users to acquire, read, and manage a variety of digital content. There is an obvious match here for eBooks, but the platform also has significance for digital editions of magazines, for example, and other content that would benefit from digital rights management (DRM) support.

Ryan Stewart already has a close look at ZDNet, and considers it "extremely compelling for both content providers and users on a number of fronts." Alan Safford has some more thoughts at PC World. David Utter of Webpronews.com discusses some of the hosting and distribution issues, and highlights that Digital Editions is the first Adobe product based on Flex 2 (a point Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch also mentioned this morning).

UPDATE: Publishers Weekly has more, focusing on the reader interface.

I saw it today, and it looked good. It is a Beta, but the interface is attractive and the performance is terrific. I didn't dig in too much, but what I saw was a set of books with an attractive point-and-click navigation and very quick retrieval and display of the titles in Acrobat and in XHTML. You can download it here. I did, and it installs very quickly and easily.

FURTHER UPDATE: Don Fluckinger has a great overview at PDFZone.com.

AND YET ONE MORE: Bill Rosenblatt has some thoughts on the DRM implications of the new offering.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:40 PM | Comments (1)

September 27, 2006

Sony Reader Roundup

TeleRead has a good roundup of reviews on the Sony eReader.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:24 PM

August 24, 2006

DRM Vendor Market Consolidates, but Deployments Seem to Be on Rise

Writing for DRM Watch, Brett Sheppard has a brief roundup of recent Enteprise DRM deployments.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 5:45 PM

August 16, 2006

Cracking PDF

Over at PDFZone, Don Fluckinger has a great piece about the re-emergence of ElcomSoft as one of the good guys--or not.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 7:50 AM

August 10, 2006

protectedpdf

On behalf of a client, I sat through a demo yesterday of a DRM technology, protectedpdf, from Vitrium Systems. I was impressed. It embeds the client right in the PDF file, eliminating the requirement for a separate plug-in or client download. It also showed an impressive flexibility about the types of business and use models you could implement. For example, one use showed a marketing white paper where you could view the first few pages of the PDF, but then had to enter personal information (name, address, email, etc) in order to view the rest of the white paper. I didn't dig in too much, but I liked what I saw.

Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:18 PM

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