Go Read This | The Great App Bubble | Fast Company

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Eoin Purcell

A very wise young woman I know has been saying this for ever. Why spend on an app for the Apple devices when you can for much less, make your websites faster on EVERYONE’s mobile. I agree wholeheartedly.

Marketers are spending money on iDevice apps at the expense of improving their mobile Web sites that everyone with a smart phone can access. According to Ahonen and Moore, iDevice app development actually costs 10 times more and reach is 50 times worse. Sex appeal will only trump pragmatic reach for so long.

via The Great App Bubble | Fast Company.

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Go Read This | Print or Pixels? Publishers Strive to Advance Both – NYTimes.com

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Eoin Purcell

There is so much else here, but this stat just astounds me!

By the end of this year, 10.3 million people are expected to own e-readers in the United States, buying about 100 million e-books, the market research company Forrester predicts. This is up from 3.7 million e-readers and 30 million e-books sold last year.

via Print or Pixels? Publishers Strive to Advance Both – NYTimes.com.

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Go Read This | The Big Reveal Part II: How Many Copies of MOUSETRAPPED Have I Sold? « Catherine, Caffeinated

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Eoin Purcell

I didn’t think this, but fair enough! I’m impressed.

I know what you’re thinking. No, I really do. I can practically hear it through the screen. You’re thinking, 531 copies? Well that’s all well and good, but 348 of them were e-books, so she can’t say she really sold 531 books.

via The Big Reveal Part II: How Many Copies of MOUSETRAPPED Have I Sold? « Catherine, Caffeinated.

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Go Read This | A Question of Value | Booksquare

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Eoin Purcell

Great post by Kassia. She’s always on the money!

What is a book worth? Well, there’s list price created by the publisher. That seems to be the value referenced by publishers. Then there’s the price consumers actually pay. That gets more complicated, of course. You have to break it down to various levels including the price for the first sale and the price for the second sale. Library patrons pay a different price; we call that “property tax”.

Oh, and then there are the books acquired for free.

This is what I think about when I hear publishers talking about this, that, or the other devaluing the price of content. And by devaluing content, they really mean consumers paying far less than publishers would like. This is absolutely a valid concern.

via A Question of Value | Booksquare.

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Go Read This | Christopher Moore’s History News: HIstory of Technology

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Eoin Purcell

Smart AND simple!

But some of us write and read on computer screens. For that, it still makes sense to have text lines that are not too long for comprehension and to have screens that can show us quite a few lines of text at once. That is, our ideal screen would be something more like the shape of an 8×11 sheet of paper, taller than it is wide.

via Christopher Moore’s History News: HIstory of Technology.

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