Last April, I posted a blog entry about the New York Times’ paywall and how it was doomed to fail. The Times’ paywall had just gone up, and page views had gone down by 11 to 30 percent. I suggested that a more practical way for readers (and publishers) to charge for content would be
Category: Digital media
Four types of content for winning e-newsletters
Many companies and organizations send out a regular electronic newsletter via e-mail. Whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly or as the mood strikes, it can be difficult to know what types of information to include. What interests your newsletter recipients? Are they customers, potential customers, or both? Here are four type of content that are usually
Tablets, touch screens and e-readers, oh my!
The death of the e-reader—a small, handheld device dedicated to reading electronic books—has been predicted ever since it was introduced by Amazon.com five years ago. “Who will want to read books on a tiny computer that costs hundreds of dollars, when they can read them for free from the library?” the doubters asked. Then it
New NOOK and Kobo—Kindle killers?
Even though some pundits were tossing dirt on the coffins on the NOOK, Kobo and even the Kindle recently, the darn things just keep on selling. Barnes & Noble and Kobo (which is affiliated with troubled Borders books) just released new versions of their e-readers that PC World calls “a solid Kindle competitor if not
The New York Times’ paywall is doomed to fail
The New York Times has just implemented its infamous “paywall” on its website. Readers can now view 20 articles a month for free, or pay $15 every four weeks for unlimited access. To quote Star Wars, “I have a bad feeling about this.” The New York Times is betting that its content will be good
Put Your Content onto Kindle Singles and NOOK
In my last post, I shared two exciting new offerings from the field of e-books: Amazon.com’s new Kindle Singles, aimed at works too long for magazines or too short for a traditional novel, but perfect for the e-marketplace (where size doesn’t matter), and Barnes & Noble’s new NOOKColor e-reader, which offers a tremendous variety of
Kindle, NOOK put more media in front of consumers
Recent news from two leading e-reader manufacturers shows why businesses seeking press exposure need to consider both traditional print sources as well as emerging online media. Amazon.com announced that it will begin offering “Kindle singles,” works that have traditionally been too long for feature magazine articles (less than 10,000 words) but too short for full-length
Let them eat cake?
Let them eat cake! A recent article in the Wall Street Journal on the impact of ebooks on writers, publishers and agents mixed genuine concern for the little guy with a lot of misplaced sympathy for industry fat cats. The article describes how major publishers are signing fewer authors and offering smaller advances due to
E-readers gaining a foothold, survey shows
A new Harris survey on Americans’ use of electronic book readers, or “e-readers,” reveals some interesting trends with impact for anyone who writes or publishes for a living. Overall, just eight percent of the 2,775 adults polled use an e-reader such as the Kindle or nook to read books. However, those polled who do use
New York Times Publisher: Halt the Presses?
Emma Heald writes on editorsweblog.org that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman and publisher of the New York Times, says the paper will stop making a print version—some day. She quotes him as saying “we will stop printing the New York Times some time in the future, date TBD.” This is another story in the ongoing shift
eBooks: overtaking paper siblings?
“The paperless society” has been promised for decades, but until recently, the technologies have not existed that would make dropping pencil and paper practical. That may be changing, however. The signs are everywhere—the precipitous drop in postal mail usage, high school graduates that never learned to write in cursive…and the sudden rise in popularity of
Ebooks, simplified
It used to be so simple—just pick up a paperback and read. Of course, in the digital age, things are more complicated than that. I’ve talked about the trends in digital media, including the iPad, the extremely cool yet expensive tablet from Apple that has set the standard for innovation in media consumption. However, you
Great ways to post documents online
There are many ways to store, share and even let others edit documents that your company produces or content you would like to make available for the public, clients or others. Ranging from basic HTML to the .pdf to newer platforms like Google Docs, sharing documents online is easy and is a far better way
Cisco introduces an iPad competitor?
Continuing our iPad analysis here at Trade Secrets, I found it interesting that networking giant Cisco has introduced an iPad clone. However, Cisco was quick to say its pad, the Cius (“see us”), is not a competitor to the iPad, but rather, a pad for the business market. The device will be out in 2011.
The iPad is coming, part II
In my last post, I talked about the hype surrounding the release of the iPad and the challenges to the iPad fulfilling its potential. As I said in that post, the Internet has come to mean free and unlimited access to information. The most popular websites—Facebook, YouTube, Flickr—are all free. This, of course, runs counter
The iPad is coming! The iPad is coming!
The internet is abuzz with articles about the iPad and how it will revolutionize media, about how four million people will own one in the next year, about how the iPad will save magazines and newspapers and much more. But there are a few things about the iPad that give me reason to think that
