30/05/06

In brief, May 2006

The Times on whether or not an ebook is a good idea, or spells the death of the paperback.

Some numbers about the publishing industry:

Today, at BookExpo America, the Book Industry Study Group unveiled Book Industry Trends 2006, a view of the industry�s dollar and unit sales in the United States. Net revenues, according to the report, reached $34.59 billion, a 5.9 percent increase over the $28.6 billion from 2004. Unit sales increased 3.8 percent to a little less than 3.1 billion books sold in 2005.

Aha, the design directory.

Medialoper on the Safari bookshelf. I’ve linked to that because, clearly, Tim OReilly is a smart guy who knows about such things, and his model is to give all the content away on teh site, albeit in annoying little chunks. I guess we may see some similar approaches soon – but then again, Safari has been around for a while.

And the proof from Tim OReilly on the long tail and Google Print.

Why we sell code with bugs in it.

The nuanced differences in social networking sites.

Smoking dope with Tom Pynchon.

Morning News awards for sites (keep for later)

The scam of paid-for marketing in bookshops. From 2001.

Posted by Peter Collingridge in Design, Future of the book, Google print, Publishing.