Day: August 8, 2007

Freakonomics now a New York Times blog

~ Eoin Purcell ~ Leave a comment

Eoin Purcell

How Strange
The Freakonomics blog moved yesterday from its own dedicated site to a new home at the New York Times. Stephen Dubner has a long post explaining the reasons here.

I guess we should not be too surprised. The value of a site and community like Freakonomics is very clear. The monetizing potential must be high. Sites like it are the model most publishers think of when they think of online communities built around books and authors.

All in all I think this is both a good day for digital content publishers (and book publishers in general) but a bad day I should think for the actual publisher of Freakonomics, William Morrow. Surely they must be reluctant to see such a property go to another publisher, even one as powerful as the NYT. They are left with a much less attractive site to promote the book itself? Was there a deal done int he background?

Perplexed
Eoin

Penguin Classics: blogapenguinclassic.com

~ Eoin Purcell ~ 4 Comments

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