Stuart Brand’s Gift

In an interesting interview with John Markoff, author of “What the Dormouse Said,” Stuart Brand is described as having the uncanny ability of showing up at the right place and right time to influence major ideas. One of these cases […]

Book Digitization Will Continue

The recent announcement by Microsoft that it is canceling its Live Search Books and Live Search Academic doesn’t mean that book digitization initiatives are coming to a halt, states Joseph Esposito in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. […]

Live Entry 1: Crowds

The SSP Annual Meeting is going on in Boston, and attendance is amazing on this beautiful spring day in Boston. Alex Wright, author of “Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages,” gave this morning’s keynote. He did a nice job of […]

Watch Out, “Professionals”!

According to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, a new publishing entity called 8020 Publishing is showing that the wall between amateurs and professionals sometimes collapses when tested. While creating travel and photography magazines named, respectively, Everywhere and JPG, […]

25 Years of Cyber Love

It may seem impossible, but last month, the first couple to marry after meeting online celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune. It may seem odd these days, but this 1983 story was a […]

Short Attention Span Publishing

Are you ready for the era of “short attention span publishing“? As noted in a previous post, usability around “task completion” or “success rate” is the real measure of a Web site’s value, and this is only going to be […]

Microsoft Closes the Book on Live Search

Microsoft is closing Live Search Books and Live Search Academic, according to a project blog post. To its credit, the project is coughing up equipment and scanned assets (750,000 books) to participants. My experience with the service suggests that, again, […]

Nail That Presentation!

As the SSP’s Annual Meeting approaches, many people will be gearing up to make an important presentation, and audiences will enter hoping to be inspired, informed, and impressed. Scott Hanselman has a great post on how to give a great […]

Information Does(n’t) Want to Be Free

David Pogue just published a post on the New York Times that quotes at its heart the statement, “Information wants to be free.” In the post, he notes that he’s pretty conflicted over the issue, and takes solace in the […]

easY readiNG thanKS to XML

A fascinating article in Publishers Weekly details changes in large print books and magazines, enabled by the broad utilization of XML and more custom and e-publishing options. One of the groups profiled is ReadHowYouWant. Not only are new type sizes […]

We’re Still Digitally Divided

The digital divide, a term coined by President Clinton and Vice President Gore, is alive and well, according to a recent survey. Some eye-opening results: 30% of American heads-of-households have never created a document on a computer 21% of American […]

Volume Is Not Usability

Web metrics are often relied upon simultaneously for two things — commercialization of Web content (selling the page views and ad impressions, or selling site licenses) and analysis of usability issues or user preferences. Using traditional Web metrics for commercialization […]

Open Access Backlash

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a story about open access backlash among creative writing students. It’s interesting to see how the battle lines are drawn, and how the terms of a negotiated embargo period at the University of […]

The Conduit Metaphor

One of the most powerful ways to reimagine the status quo is to engage in lateral thinking. When you combine this practice with the insight that we think and speak in metaphors (even though this is difficult to recognize because […]