Monthly Archives: August 2007

Penguin Classics: blogapenguinclassic.com

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Eoin Purcell

Penguin Classics blog

This I like
Penguin updated their website. At first glance it looks good. By far the most exciting thing about it is their new Blog A Penguin Classic site. They gave me a free book. All I have to do in return is write a review on their blog. Way to a bibliophile’s heart:

Get involved with the biggest ever Classics blog, guaranteed to get the nation, and you, talking. Each of the 1,400 Penguin Classics is up for grabs and here’s how it works:

Sign-up, and if you’re quick enough, you’ll become one of the lucky people to receive a randomly chosen, FREE Penguin Classic in the post. Plus you’ll be the first to review it here, enabling the blog, and comments, to begin!

Each day, three new reviews will be posted, so keep an eye out for yours and don’t forget everyone can comment on a book once it has become active.

My book is The Waves by Virginia Woolf, a book I have yet to read so I am actually looking forward to it!

Watch out for the review
Eoin

Librarything and Booktour.com

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Eoin Purcell

I was a slow convert to the idea of LibraryThing using the collective data of all its users but in my conversion I think I may have veered towards zealotry. That may be why I think this is an excellent idea. From the Thonology blog post:

The product is called My Discoveries. Basically, it gives AquaBrowser a series of desirable social features, like tagging, list-making, ratings and reviews—and not in some half-assed way either. LibraryThing comes in as a way to kick off the tag data (a 21-million-tags kick) and to add recommendations to it. My Discovery customers who choose to go with LibraryThing data will be able to see both LibraryThing’s as well as their own patron’s efforts.

Putting tags and recommendations in AquaBrowser is a natural step. LibraryThing for Libraries is showing what LibraryThing can do to a library catalog and more generally the importance of having large amounts of data to help “social” features reach their full potential.

Sounds cool does it not? Links to AquabrowserLibrary and My Discoveries.

My LibraryThing zealotry might also be why I think of Booktour.com as an also ran or one trick pony. I said it before but there is just too little in this to hold my attention. Still I could be wrong,I have been often enough before that I’d almost bet against myself on it.

The Postal Service anyone? Yes please!
Eoin

Paid online content failing?

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Eoin Purcell

Publishing 2.0 points to news that TimesSelect is to come to an end. It is mostly an interesting piece that scares the hell out of the publisher for profit in me. Given the calls from other quarters to free our content on the web the idea that we cannot then capitalise on that content and are destined to be squeezed out is unsettling:

The new economics of media make charging for content nearly impossible because there is always someone else producing similar content for free — even if the free content isn’t “as good as” the paid content by some meaningful metric, it doesn’t matter because there’s so much content of at least proximate quality that the paid content provider has virtually no pricing power. As smart, talented, and insightful as the New York Times columnists behind the paid wall are, the are too many other smart, talented, insightful commentators publishing their thoughts on the web for free.

The WSJ.com remains the last great bastion of paid content on the web, and with the News Corp acquisition, the pressure to tear down the walls will likely be too great to resi[s]ts. Even if it’s true that the WSJ has the highest quality business content bar none, the web is so awash in good, great, and utterly crappy business content, all free, that WSJ is holding onto its paid subscribers through sheer brand strength alone.

I have to admit that it all seems odd because only back in March the Editor’s Weblog was telling me:

TimesSelect has a total of 639,000 subscribers, about two thirds of which receive it in complement to their home delivery subscriptions (about a third are online-only subscribers). Last December, TimesSelect had 609,000 subscribers.

This means that about 217,000 online-only subscribers at the end of February were bringing the Times a potential $10.8 million in subscription revenue.

That is my kind of money but can see how it is chump change for the NYT. Still if the New York Times cannot charge and the Wall Street Journal ought not to, then just how the hell will independents like Mercier make money online? Maybe reading Andrew Keen will help (on balance probably not)!

Thinking money & listening to Regin Spektor
Eoin

HMV buys the Fopp name and some stores

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HMV have bought six stores, the Fopp trading name and the fopp.co.uk (Nice RIP notice still in place) website. News reports here, here, here and here.

It is both an odd move and a wise one. It seems a shame somehow that this is how it ends though.

Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur finally arrived making me very happy but I’ll probably be angry after I read it.
Eoin

Snail-mail is E-mail/E-mail is Snail-mail

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Eoin Purcell

Postful
Now this is very, very cool
Read/WriteWeb pointed me in the direction of Postful today and I was impressed. The service allows users to send a real paper letter simply by writing and sending an e-mail to another e-mail address. From the site:

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Most of us know people who can’t receive e-mail. For me, it’s my grandparents. For others it’s a friend in the hospital or in the military. We’d like to write, but between stamps, envelopes, printing, and mailing, it doesn’t get done. With Postful, it’s as easy as sending an e-mail. You can even create unique e-mail addresses for frequent contacts so that you don’t have to type in their mailing address each time!

In business, you don’t have time to deal with letters. We put a corporate mailroom in your e-mail client. Postful is smarter, faster and more cost-effective than stocking stamps, envelopes, and letterhead (not to mention wasting your time stuffing letters). Whether in a busy office or on the go, Postful will change the way you work.

To my mind the service will almost certainly appeal more to the business world. And when you read these extra points in the features section of the site you will see why:

- Send PDF and Office documents. more

Just by attaching a PDF or an Office document (odt, doc, xls, txt) to your e-mail, you can send it as a letter. Whether you’re sending a legal filing, presentation, or loan application, Postful makes it easy to truly keep your office paperless.

- Keep records of all letters you send. more

Tracking mail is hard. You have to keep copies of letters and records of when each went out. In contrast, tracking e-mail is easy. We can always flip to our sent folder and see what went out. Now, it’s just that easy to track letters.

Companies with regulatory requirements to track outgoing communications can use their existing e-mail infrastructure to record information on outgoing letters. Rather than invest millions in a document tracking system, why not just use Postful?

Perhaps the only worry that I can foresee is privacy. But Postful have anticipated me there and they have a decent page devoted to the topic here. All in all this seems like an elegant service. And one I will probably look to use as a trial in the near future. What is more, if they set up a European print works I might even use it as a base for letter writing. What a joy that would be!

Enjoying short sleeved shirt weather.
Eoin