Thursday, April 11, 2013
At New York Magazine, the great journalist Mark Danner talks at length with The New York Review of Books’ Robert Silvers. Here’s one bit about online publishing and social media, which strikes me not as fuddy-duddy, but very considered: To tweet or not to tweet. And not to tweet is to …Thursday, April 11, 2013
Excited to try this new online writing and editing environment, built by a few all-stars.Wednesday, April 3, 2013
From Folio’s “FT Relaunches Web App”: One of the biggest changes is offering readers both a static version of the morning paper along with a dynamically updated version that automatically updates throughout the day. “The big learning for us with the first app is how important the concept of a finite …Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Andrew Piper, writing in Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times: Books will always be there. That is what they are by definition: there. Whether in the classroom, the library, the archive, the bookstore, the warehouse, or online, it is our choice, however, where books will be. It is time …Tuesday, January 1, 2013
The Frank Lloyd Wright house in Ebsworth Park, which we visited in February This post is part of my “Annual Favorites” list I’ve been keeping for the past decade-plus. Favorite Books (Goodreads profile) The German Genius, by Peter Watson (choice passages) Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count …Sunday, December 9, 2012
I’m still at work editing The Ear’s Mouth Must Move: The Essential Interviews of William H. Gass. While I’d love for this to be published in a gloriously beautiful print version, I haven’t yet found an interested publisher. So it’s likely that, as with Abstractions Arrive, I will publish it myself …Sunday, December 9, 2012
An important and insightful essay. I hope Mod writes a part two that looks a bit more at how exactly (to continue his metaphor) the small vehicles would get made. Related: Mod’s round-up of coverage of his essay. This Jim Ray piece from the Mule blog isn’t on there, but I think …Thursday, November 15, 2012
The subtitle of this Slate piece is way too glib, but the essay from Piper — a literature professor at McGill — is worth reading. Thoughtful and thought-provoking. It’s excerpted from Piper’s book, Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times.Thursday, October 11, 2012
Really looking forward to checking out this new iOS magazine from Marco Arment. From his announcement: But just as the App Store has given software developers a great new option for accepting direct payment, Newsstand has given publishers an even bigger opportunity with subscription billing and …Friday, September 21, 2012
From Co.Design: The New Yorker has seen success with its relatively straightforward digital edition, but there’s nothing that really differentiates it from the print version, except maybe that it’ll save you the embarrassment of having a tower of unread issues on your nightstand. Aside from …Friday, August 17, 2012
Hey, there’s The New York Times covering Abstractions Arrive! The piece, written by David Streitfeld, includes a new interview with Gass about books and technology. Thanks for the nod, Paper of Record!Tuesday, July 31, 2012
At the TOKY Blog, I offer five key take-aways from attending the National Museum Publishing Seminar last June.Friday, July 27, 2012
Great email from BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti to his troops about why the site’s succeeding right now.Tuesday, May 29, 2012
As ever, Mod offers smart, forward-looking thoughts on books and publishing. His central question: [I]f so much of what book cover design has evolved into is largely a brick-and-mortar marketing tool, then what place does a ‘cover’ hold in digital books? Especially after you purchase it? But, more …Tuesday, April 10, 2012
At NYMag.com: First, to understand this deal it’s important to understand Facebook. Unfortunately everything about Facebook defies logic. In terms of user experience (insider jargon: “UX”), Facebook is like an NYPD police van crashing into an IKEA, forever — a chaotic mess of products designed to …Thursday, March 29, 2012
As thoughtful and personal as his previous pieces.Thursday, March 22, 2012
I was actually in the early stages of writing a post about this same subject — that, contrary to what intelligent people like Jonathan Franzen and Tyler Brûlé have been saying or implying about Twitter (which they don’t use, and therefore don’t really know), it’s often not a …Sunday, March 18, 2012
Great piece in The New York Times, with clear-eyed (and entertaining) commentary from a writer and book critic about how technology has improved his reading life. This bit comes from his section on the smartphone: Keep an audio book or two on your iPhone. Periodically I take the largest of my …Thursday, March 8, 2012
Brilliant.Monday, February 27, 2012
Really like this post: Iteration in public is a principle of nearly all good product design; you release a version, then see how people use it, then revise and release again. With tangible products (hardware, furniture, appliances, etc.), that release cycle is long, just as with books. But when the …Monday, February 20, 2012
At the New York Review of Books blog, a refreshingly contrarian post: The e-book, by eliminating all variations in the appearance and weight of the material object we hold in our hand and by discouraging anything but our focus on where we are in the sequence of words (the page once read disappears, …Thursday, February 16, 2012
Apple’s next OS — highly informed by iOS — introduced to Gruber in a private briefing by Phil Schiller himself.Sunday, February 5, 2012
An interesting piece published in today’s NYT: As the popular technology blogger Robert Scoble explained in a recent post defending frictionless sharing, “The new world is you just open up Facebook and everything you care about will be streaming down the screen.” This is the very stance that is …Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Kind of. Readers today are forced to choose between buying a physical book or an ebook, but a lot of them would really like to have both on hand - so they’d be able, for instance, to curl up with the print edition while at home (and keep it on their shelves) but also be able to load the ebook …Monday, January 30, 2012
Jonathan Franzen, regretting the rise (and, it seems, existence) of e-books: Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change …