Bookraft

The Web and now mobile phones have not been kind to news publishers - both magazines and newspapers. Google and other search engines have stolen significant chunks of their general ad revenues. Craigslist, Kajiji and others have siphoned off big pieces of newspapers classified ad revenues. Yelp and others are setting up better city/community rating services for local small businesses like restaurants, specialty shops and and other services. And the Web's info/news sites have much better breaking news immediacy.

The newspapers and magazine media have moved to the Web; but their initial forays lacked good Web design and development savvy. At the same time the Web made demands on the new newspaper websites. The Press found that unless they offer free readership, they could not compete with Web incumbents like Yahoo, MSN and dozens of other website and thousands of specialty blogs like Bookraft here.

But the tides are starting to change for newspapers and magazines.Over the past two years the NYTimes has been a good example of what is possible when a newspaper starts to master Web technology and business practices. For example, the NYTimes is showing an increasing amounty of Web 2.0 savvy. Like many of its large newspaper cohorts, the NYTimes is using such Web 2.0 fixtures as tabs, scrollers and accordions to make quick access to multiple stories on a single page. Its photo galleries use nifty Flash-enabled slideshow viewers.

But of late the NYTimes is stepping well beyond the "newspaper norm" and has been incorporating ever more sophisticated Web components and designs in the presentation of its news. The Business section:

"Puzzles and strategy games are the mind's exercisers" - are the vaunted words of one my professors. At the time it seemed a bit absurd in a business school class. But with the advent of Sudoku , KenKen, and various Hangman Variants plus advancing age and leaky memory; it is easier to understand Professor Piper's tune. Here are the above games:
starting with KenKen

Followed by my bustime favorite, Sudoku...

Issuu.com is more than a website for publishing your PDFs - it takes displaying Adobes PDF's to anew level. And it shows how to display PDFs with the greatest panache:

Now as Honourable Father would say - "How do you like them marbles??"
Not to shabby and very popular on smartphones and netbooks.

By the way this will not work on the new Apple iPad because of
the ugly Apple vs Adobe fight.

Takethe5th, my Political Finance website, is now available in 25 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, Hebrew, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Welsh and Yiddish among others. And I say among others because Google has added two new languages in the past few weeks.

So you can enjoy Takethe5th commentary in your native tongue - and if the translation is a bit shaky readers can see the original English by just hovering over the paragraph with their mouse and the original English pops up as shown in the screen shot. Please enjoy responsibly!

The second reason that I mention this bit of Google Free Goodness is because this is a)ridiculously easy to program [ just go to Google Code to see how easy it is] to add translations to your website and b)the cost is zero, nada, rien, nicht. The third and most important reason is because Google is working triple overtime this year to establish an ever-expanding number of "free" Google APIs as the defacto standards for the Web. In effect, Google is trying to make its APIs as essential as the Microsoft Windows APIs are to desktop programmers and developers[a 95% desktop PC OS monopoly certainly makes the Windows API a defacto standard for many programmers]. But the fourth and most important reason is because Google's APIs are becoming essential in the publishing and media business.

Lets take a quick look at some of the Google APIs and actions and see how pervasively important they are becoming in the Writing and Publishing:
First, Google just bought MobileAd - which means they will be bring Google ads to mobile telephones. Many of the 100,000 Apple iPhone apps are really lead-in ads for service by companies savvy enough to program the the "apps".
Google Search API - is used on many websites as default search engine; however many popular blogs/CMS systems like Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpress have their own search engines so Google is having mixed results here.
Google Adsense API - is used as the dominant Web ad source. I have seen Google Adsense ads appear on sites as diverse as the NYTimes and The Atlantic. Given,te economic times, publishers cannot ignore Google Adsense.
Google Ajax APIs - sets the ground work for using other Google APIs, gaining in popularity.
Google Maps API - this is the competitive advantage API for the new Android smartphones and many retail outlets. Google Maps are pervasive.
And there are 50 more APIs! In short, trying to keep up with all the new and/or improved Google APIs has become a major task. Google still does not have for all these APIsthe "must-have" pervasiveness of the Windows APIs; but like Google's new Go programming language, Google's APIs certainly have Web developers and users attention. And likewise, writers and publishers will have to pay attention as well.

The Serpents Tale by Ariana Franklin presents a reader's quandry. On one hand I love the historical setting - so well researched that readers are taken back nearly 1000 years to Henry II's England during the formative years of England and lots of fascinating minutiae of the countryside. This is 80 years after the 1066 conquering of England by Henry's grandfather, William of Normandy. It is a world of Europe just emerging from the sleep of the Dark Ages and the still prevailing power of the Church vs Feudal Lords. It is a world where our heroine, Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar, medica of the renowned School of Medicine in Salerno Italy has been brought by royal request to England.

Adelia is trusted not only for medical and forensic skills but also her analytic intelligence and thus is at the Henry II's beck and call. Yes, this historical oddity and the characters it brings to the stories: Mansur, Adelia's Eunuch Arab manservant; Gyltha her lady from the Fens; Bishop Rowley of St. Albans, her star crossed lover - they are most intriguing. This is the positive side of the ledger.

On the negative side - is a percolating feminist anger that constantly bubbles up as "damn damn damn this or that masculine injustice or these centuries of patrimonial inspired anarchy" when the 7 cardinal sins seem more relevant. And in this book Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine proves to be the counter argument to all the "damns" before. Also there is inevitably one or two villains whose criminal bestiality teeters on some run amok sexual inadequacy changing cardboard villains into repetitious gargoyles. Finally, the plot twists at times depend on the common folk being to the right of dumber and dumbest.

There is a third book upcoming in the series - is the history and world of ideas going to have to deal with a Law and Order: Special Victims Unit plodding plot? This time I will read the reviews before chomping on what otherwise is a feast of history as mystery [and hopefully not yet again bestial misery incarnate].

Google has been promising to open its book store in 2009 - but now it is scheduled for June 2010 and will have 500,000 to 600,000 books available at start up. First and foremost, Google Editions books will be device independent and any-browser based PC, laptop, mobile phone, or other connected device will be able to buy and then store locally a "Google" book. Even more important for the Book and publishing industry Google will support 3 purchase options:
1)Direct from book publisher - 63% to book publisher/37% to Google
2)Through book retailer - 45% to book publisher / 55% to be split between book retailer and Google
3) Through a link to to the book publisher - no distribution has been settled
Here is the reaction of the magazine, newspaper and general writing community to the announcement:
Computerworld - a good cross section of writers and editors comments
Channel Web - looks at the technical and business model implications
Christian Science Monitor - sees strong play into Book markets
NYTimes - an outline of what was announced by Google today
Forbes - looks at the implications for Amazon and other book players
ZDnet - catches the audacity and pluck of the Google play
This reviewer tends to agree with the ZDnet point of view - Google editions, by not aligning itself with any one electronic device but rather embracing any browser, offline access and operation to a purchased book, and courting any/all book publishers stands to be a major power in book, media and idea distribution businesses. Because it will be browser based, Google Editions will come out ahead of Kindle and other eBook readers because a)it will deliver color and programmability, b)the Store will be searchable, c)Book and media publishers will set the prices, and d)the "books" will be accessible anywhere a browser can run. So far a very sharp business model.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie read by Bernard Wong


Can you imagine a story set in China during the height of the Cultural Revolution would be funny? This was the period in the early 1970's [not so long ago]when hundreds of thousands of "enemies of Mao" and the state were sent to the countryside for "re-education". The narrator and his friend, Luo, are sent to Phoenix mountain, near the border with Tibet to work in the fields because their parents - a Dentist , Luo's father, and Doctors in the case of the narrator - were deemed bourgeois and so their offspring needed "re-education" for 2 years or maybe 5 or forever.

But it is how the two survive among the peasantry which provides the humour. Also, the pluck of the two heros who discover access to forbidden fruits - Western books, is a continuing plot twisting . As for the the Little Chinese Seamstress - suffice it to say that her beauty and character is like honey to our heroes. And how she turns is another small parable in one filled with characters, insights, and "yams hot and tasty from the coals". Again the reading - or should I say the performance by Bernard Wong adds much to the delight of the story.

Saturn is the fifth book in Ben Bova's Grand Tour series of science fiction novels about each one of the planets in the solar system. Now Ben Bova is one of the most laureled writers of science fiction with multiple Hugo, Nebula and Honors - so my expectations were pretty high. But the book got off to a weak start with the heroine and anti-heros respectively. The first, Holly Lane, a resurrected Med-zombie Holly Lane who comes on board the Goddard, a 40kilometer spinning cylinder World that is waiting outside the moon for a 4 year trip to Saturn. Space has already been settled out to Jupiter and the Asteroid Belt - and so the next step is to Saturn.

The anti-hero, is Malcolm Eberly from Austria whose defiance of authority has gotten him "permanently incarcerated" in a Vienna world jail by the Holy Disciple [a religous fundamentalist movement that dominates the World's governments]. Now Ben Bova is a master of deft characterization - depicting in a few paragraphs, conversations, and soliloquys, the nature of a character. However, this time the sketching was way too quick. For example, Holly lane has been "brought up" for a second time after being revived from a cyrogenic freeze and operated on for the cancer that was going to kill her 20 or so years before. This reborn phenomenon is obviously a science fiction novel in itself - particularly the psychological and social aspects. Unfortunately, none of these matter other than the restoration of an eidetic memory for Holly.

In a similar fashion, Malcolm Eberly, has suggestions of fellow Austrian Adolf Hitler's Will to Power and demagogic skills. But the preliminary sketching scenes of his choice to join the Goddard mission, the reasoning behind his choice by the Holy Disciples is tenuous at best,. So readers have to hold their sense of disbelief in check from the outset. This is unfortunate because there is a glaring science fact that Ben Bova does not resolve - Cosmic rays that penetrate almost any material present a serious cancer risk for long term space exploration.

So the story starts out with three big "unbelievables'. This incredulity is further stressed by the romantic entanglement of Holly and Malcolm Fortunately, Ben Bova has not lost his touch for creating a world of fascinating secondary characters [my favorites are Nanobiologist Kris Cardenas, dour Navigator Timoshenko, and Space Stuntman Manuel Gaeta]and fascinating science facts that help to carry the story. Fortunately, the reading in the audiobook is topnotch. But readers will have to be patient and wait until about half way through the story for the excitement , magical science revelations and breakneck plotting to come through and carry Saturn off.

Many people have written off magazines and newspaper publishers as ante-diluvian and Waiting for Godot. Watch it. There is more to publishing on the Web than the technology - it also call for great editorial skills and a feel for good stories or story telling - a business that newspapers and magazines have been in for an awful longtime and have gotten very good at.

Some current examples of print publishers that are doing interesting things on the Web are Business Week [be sure to see the Business Exchange], the Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker among others. But the best example of an old line newspaper or magazine taking to the new Web 2.0 technology is the New York Times which lately has been proving that the Old Lady can truly sing with the best of the Online Websites.

"How so?" some readers will say if they go to the NYTimes Home page as linked here. At first glance there appears to be nothing on the page that a good website could not use easily. But take another look. There are Web 2 widgets like tabbed panels, carousel displays, drop down menus, video players, accordion widgets and links every where["All the Links fit to Click" is the new NYTimes motto?]. And the Times has taken to blogging big time - these are WordPress MU blogs that range from BitsBlog thru Intransit to TierneyLab. Finally for a bit of the spectacular take a look at the following chart of trends in the stock market here - wow!

NYTimes Wow Widgets

The Stock Trends chart is not the only widget used in the news paper. Here are two more examples.

The following is taken from the Finance pages where the NYTimes Business section is now putting even Google or such business heavyweights as Morningstar to shame for the prowess of its Financial Stock tracking tools. These tools are so good that I do most of my investing investigations at the NYTimes and not at my online brokers website [okay, TDWaterhouse].

The next example shows how the Times is taking advanatge of the Google's ever widening APIs:

This Google spreadsheet is taken from the Bats blog in the NYTimes Sports section. The discussion is about what National League teams have the best pro-forma record for wining entry into the 2009 World Series. The story is proof once agian that Statistics love Baseball ... or is that vice versa. But of even more important impact is the NYTimes is taking advanatge of the newly enriched Google Apps API very early - this is the first time I have seen an embedded Google APP on a major website.

Summary

A lot of people are saying that printed media are in for a Googling. Not so. The magazines and newspapers are fighting back by giving their online sites all the trappings of Web 2.0 and as noted above out-Googling the masters in some critical widget and display technologies. Leading that parade is the NYTimes. In short the "have-not-a-chance" printed media are becoming great information and entertainment franchises themeselves with the advertising revenues that enables.

Switchword is another of those very addictive word plus strategy games:

It is easy to learn but demands word crafting. I really like the strategy aspect; how you can reverse another's word by surrounding it or crossing diagonally. But you must pay attention because words can be created right-to-left as well as the normal left-to-right - ditto for up as well as down. If you get my drift - this is truly a word-thinking game.