johnwilker.com

Looking Forward, Looking Back

It’s been an interesting year. More so than normal years. It’s also the end of a decade, so I’ve got some thoughts on that too. Fair warning. This is a longy.

Decade first:

in 2000 I worked for a company that was basically an IT Staffing firm that decided to get into software. I worked internally on a web app that would (in their terms) revolutionize staffing. I bailed, they failed, it was 2000, that happened a lot to a lot of people and companies.

I spent most of the 2000′s as a programmer, first doing ColdFusion, then moving to Flex. It never occurred to me to try out M$ tools, or any other. I liked Macromedia (Now Adobe) offerings and stuck with them.

Sony Ditching Proprietary eBook Format! Huzza!

I’m really glad there’s some consolidation shaking out (finally). I’m really shocked it was Sony of all company’s that backed down on proprietary. I mean, it’s Sony, I don’t think they’ve ever released hardware that didn’t have an accompanying proprietary memory stick, or file format. ATRAC anyone?

This is big. ePub is a great format, i’ve not complaints about it. I’d love to see Amazon put their pipe down long enough to see the forest for the trees. The Kindle is (sadly because I own one) approaching flash in the pan status. Amazon’s own practices are going to marginalize it as a device.

eBook creation on the Mac – SUCKS

Since Tom and I launched 360|Whisperings, it’s been a massive learning curve. Technologically speaking primarily.

It turns out that eBook creation on a Mac is something of a… well it doesn’t seem to happen much, so the tools either aren’t there, or suck.

When we started down the road to becoming eBook publishers, I had no idea the levels of hell it was to create the myriad formats that most common eBook readers, read.

Why eContent should NEVER cost the same as printed

Beyond the ridiculously obvious “you get nothing physical” there’s a lot of reasons why an eBook shouldn’t cost as much as any printed version.

Let’s look at what goes into the price of a printed book vs. an eBook.

Writing: well yeah that happens for both, kinda a requirement.

editing: ditto, even Steven King has a type-O from time to time.

marketing: sure, though it’s value is varied, depending on your outlook.

printing: not for eBooks.

distribution: only for the dead tree versions.

shelf space, depreciation, discount selling: eBooks don’t suffer that.

Kindle Owner Meetup June 6th

So this will either be a really cool meetup like I used to go to with my B5, or it’ll be a mug fest for an enterprising theif. I came across this on the latest Kindle Chronicles.

You can get more info here from Kindleboards.

The Kindle needs an iTunes app

kindle.amazon.com comes close, allowing you to manage your Kindle library (except you can only see it, not control/change anything) and see your annotations… on purchased content only. Content you’ve put on the device is notably missing. Meaning annotations you’ve placed on ebooks you loaded yourself are still tricky to retrieve/make use of and only available on the Kindle itself.

360Flex Indy, done

It was nice for Tom and I to share that InsideRIA, InsideMobile, and 360|iDev are in full force effort mode, coming in rapid succession this summer, starting in July. We’ve partnered with O’Reilly for the first two, and that’s crazy exciting. Tom and I have been working with our Pal Steve at O’Reilly on this idea since mmm well it probably started on the Ebay Town hall patio at the first 360|Flex, yeah it’s been a while in the making. The partnership should really open some door’s for O’Reilly and 360|Conferences.