Given my longstanding interest in copyright, I’ve been following the AP anti-fair-use story with some interest (e.g., see this by Jason Kintzler, or this by Julian Baldwin; there’s also an interesting discussion thread ongoing at the Linkedin Bloggers group on Yahoo! Groups).
All in Publishing
Social Networking and Elsevier's "Grand Challenge" for Knowledge Enhancement in the Life Sciences
Netherlands-based mega-publisher (and former employer) Elsevier BV has issued a grand challenge:
All it will take is one high-quality rebel to jump into digital textbook distribution. I studied the economics of that business last year for a client and saw the raw numbers of what you say. Someone’s going to come along and convince a large state to go with digital distribution, bundled with something like this new e-book. Talk about a saving in gasoline for shipping!
According to Wade Roush in Negroponte Unveils 2nd Generation OLPC Laptop: It’s an E-Book, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte said recently that “… The next generation laptop should be a book.” With two screens, Negroponte says, the device he revealed at a recent conference will cost $75 each.
What the Heck is "Social DRM"?
When I first heard the term “social DRM” in the context of e-book anti-piracy efforts — the link is to the RSS feed of my del.icio.us bookmarks tagged “socialDRM” — I thought it referred somehow to group peer pressure not to copy files without permission.
Is Mark Cuban a "Real Blogger"?
Mark Cuban’s Blogging and Newspapers, a Lesson in How Not to Brand and Market is deliberately provocative. It discusses the difference between “real journalists” and “bloggers.” I especially like his quote,
In Three effective uses of a blog for association magazines Ben Martin lists a fourth item from a conference he attended recently:
So you’re still reluctant to curl up with a nice, cute, cuddly electronic book? Does the Kindle leave you cold? Are your kids developing backaches while laboring under 50+ pounds of graphics-intensive textbooks in their school backpacks?
I'm listening to another one of Command Line's podcasts, this time Rant: Is Fair Use a Right? (Command Line produces one of my five favorite podcasts.)
Despite the logical nature of Command Line's thesis (he believes that copyright Fair Use is a "right," not just a legal defense) I'm still skeptical about being able to unambiguously explain to people what their "fair use" rights actually are.
A friend of mine is employed by a major international publisher of abstracting and indexing information and specialized research collections. His company targets the academic and library markets.
Dave Munger in The end of the RSS experiment presents the results of data collected to analyze what happened when his web site turned off partial RSS feeds and substituted full RSS feeds. A reduction in site page hits corresponded to the publishing of the full RSS feeds, presumably because feed reader users had no need to return to the web site -- where ads are visible.
Scholarly Communications and the Social Media Genie
Marketing, customer communications, and inside-the-firewall collaboration are not the only processes subject to "disruption" by social media and social networking. The worlds of research, scholarly communication, librarianship, and publishing are also being impacted, and not just by Google.
John P. Holden, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), President, The Woods Hole Research Center, and Teresa & John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy, Harvard University, delivered a lecture at the annual meeting of the AAAS on February 15, 2007, titled “Science and Technology for Sustainable Well-Being.”
How Involved Should the U.S. Government Be in the Scholarly Journal Publishing Business?
Wired News on March 14, 2007 posted a story about U.S. Senators John Cornyn’s and Joseph Liebermann’s announced decision to re-introduce last year’s Federal Research Public Access Act (S.2695, also called “FRPAA”).
Timothy Noah’s editorial I’m Being Wiki-Whacked in the Sunday, February 25, 2007 Washington Post (registration required) tells the sad tale of one author whose biographical entry in Wikipedia may be deleted because a Wikipedia editor has determined that it is not “notable” enough.
Using New Media To Sell Old Media
I ordered a book from Amazon today that I heard discussed on a recent podcast. I think this transaction is a good example of how challenging it can be to trace the influence different media can have on a purchasing decision.
I am reminded that at one time in the past the idea that EDI standards for electronic interchange of detailed product information was viewed as science fiction. Now modern industrial supply chains cannot operate without EDI. As we stumble towards a world where communications are tied into an interconnected semantic web, will we also see similar kinds of structure evolving in our personal and social communications?
This past week, instead of using PowerPoint, I used this blog to deliver a private presentation to a group of professional association executives to point out possible applications of “web 2.0” technology to enhance member services;
More Comparisons of Journal Peer Review and Blogging
My earlier blog post A Comparison of Blogging and Journal Peer Review compared and contrasted blogging with peer reviewed journals. Here I extend this comparison and suggest some additional examples of possible crossover between the two.