Apple vs. Amazon eBook Reader Cage Match

Imagine an iPod Touch – that smart phone without the phone – sporting a 7-to-9 inch screen and a robust ebook reader app. Can you visualize the queue at the Apple Store the day it’s released? How about Jeff Bezos, shouting “Noooooo!” while clutching a suddently-less-cool Kindle? The grapevine reports that Apple Inc. is developing such a device.

The really big question: How would an Apple created or licensed DRM scheme compete with the Kindle model in a cage match for global dominance? Stay tuned for ebook Raw.

OverDrive: 10 Million Library Downloads in ’08

OverDrive Inc. announced today that library customers downloaded 10 million ebook, movies and music items last year.

Stats from the press release:

• 5,500 iPod®-, Mac®-, and iPhoneTM-compatible MP3 audiobooks made available to libraries for the first time
• 237 million website pages viewed by library patrons for download media (76 percent growth over 2007)
• Patron sessions exceeded 30 million (63 percent growth over 2007)
• Number of new users increased by 45 percent over 2007
• Over 1.5 million new installs of OverDrive Media Console for Windows and Mac (bringing total to 3.5 million)
• The OverDrive catalog grew to 150,000 titles with the addition of 50,000 eBooks, 10,000 audiobooks, and 5,000 music and video titles

MP3s are 3.66% of the collection and growing!

New School Meets Old Rules: The Long Tail Theory In Crisis

In his 2006 book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, author Chris Anderson defined the 98 Percent Rule: 98 percent of the inventory available online will sell at least one copy. Critics were skeptical at the time and new research further undermines the theory’s credibility.

As reported in this December 22, 2008 timesonline story, Will Page and Andrew Bud’s analysis of online music sales show that 77% of available tracks – 10 million of 13 million – didn’t sell a single copy. The figures are even worse for online sale of complete albums: 85% didn’t sell at all.

Anderson graciously said he’s waiting for Page and Bud to release their data before passing judgment, but the Long Tail theory is underachieving at best. Actual sales seems to conform to a model proposed by an American economist in 1956!

Maybe Anderson’s theory is legit but his choice of the online music sales as his model is misplaced; I’d love to see a similar analysis of book sales on Amazon to compare and contrast. I think we need a few more years of data to declare it a bust, but the Long Tail concept is a little less compelling than it was three years ago.

Harold Pinter R.I.P.

Harold Pinter, 2005 Nobel laureate and a towering figure in the theater world, passed away at age 78 on Christmas Eve. Pinter was one of the 20th century’s most influential playwrights as well as an actor, director and screenwriter.

I’ve been a fan of Sir Harold since my college theater days when I fell in love with his play “The Birthday Party”. I also loved the 1981 film The French Lieutenant’s Woman for which Pinter wrote the screenplay. It’s been running on one of the premium cable channels this month – catch it if you have the chance.

The End of VHS, Rocky Mountain Way

CML bids farewell to VHS at the end of 2008. At the Main Library we withdrew them as customers returned them, and the unfortunate tapes that weren’t checked out were yanked a shelf at a time. Unceremonious, but effective.

How does VHS end Big Rocky Style? Boulder Public Library sold their tapes to the public right off the shelves!. What a fun, cool idea! Kudos to their staff for their creative sunsetting technique.

BPL saved tons of staff time with their method – and time is money, and money is a scarce commodity in Ohio these days. Out-of-the-box thinking is what libraries are going to need as they struggle with funding during the recession.

Windowshop-ing At amazon.com

If you haven’t visited amazon.com’s Windowshop portal you just have to go there right this second! It’s a very cool, intuitive way to shop for books, music, movies and of course, the Kindle.


It’s reminiscent of iTune’s Cover Flow feature except you use your keyboard’s directional keys and space bar. Move left and right to change media, up and down to see more titles of the same media. Turn up your speakers for samples of music, spoken descriptions of books, and movie trailers. It’s a great multimedia experience.

Once again, amazon.com reinvents shopping on the Web.

Taking the Blowers Challenge

Helene Blowers, CML’s own digital goddess, challenged library staff to reveal 10 Random Things about themselves. OK, I’ll bite.

1. Best concert experience: King Crimson at the Columbus Agora in 1984. The video below is not the performance I saw but it is from the same tour. Clapton isn’t God – Robert Fripp is. (For the uninitiated: Robert’s the guy wearing the dark suit and tie.)
2. Ice hockey was the only sport I played in high school. I became a decent goalie but more importantly I won my only fistfight during a game. Mom was so proud.
3. My entire childhood was spent playing in the Adena Brook ravine that runs through Whetstone Park. It fostered a great love of the outdoors and resulted in multiple infections and stitches. Ah, the good old days.
4. I become enraged when customer service providers respond to my thank you with “no problem” instead of “you’re welcome”. Of course it’s not a problem! It’s your freakin’ job!
5. I know the whereabouts of my keys, cell phone and wallet every second of every day. I’m absolutely obsessive about it. Call it an illness.
6. I used to go by my middle name: Telford.
7. Do you remember the AV geek boy in junior high school – you know, the nerd that ran the filmstrip projector and made announcements over the PA system? That was me. Hard to believe, ain’t it?
8. The best day of my life, before I had kids: at age 16, climbing Mt. Whiteface in New Hampshire with three good friends and surveying the Sandwich Mountains from the summit. I have never felt so free.
9. In the early 70′s I had long hair down to mid-chest. It’s one of the few details of my misspent youth I shared with my oldest son that he didn’t emulate – whew!
10. For two holiday seasons I played the Talking Tree at the Lazarus department store in downtown Columbus. Mr. Tree love children. But Mr. Tree hate when naughty children yank his tongue (my arm)… and now you know why Mr. Tree not a children’s librarian.

OverDrive and MP3s: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Yoy and double yoy! My major Midwest library got the word today: iTunes and OverDrive just don’t play nicely together. iTune’s auto synch function must be disabled to successfully download MP3s onto an iPod.

Now I face a stark decision: do I manually synch my iPod from this day forward, or do I give up on my library’s creamy MP3 goodness? It’s the most important decision in my lifetime… with the possible exception of Obama v. McCain. But I gotta play around with it for a while so I can explain it clearly to customers.

Thing #23: Closing Arguments

Learn & Play has been quite a ride!

• It was fun. Thing #5 Flickr was the #1 cool Thing, followed by Thing #10, online image generators (I can see myself playing around with those a lot .
• It was educational. I’ve gained a new appreciation for the depth and variety of Web 2.0 technologies.
• It changed me. As I watched the election analysis on CNN this week, much was made of Obama’s brilliant strategy to involve young voters via the social Web. Obama’s Web site was more than a place to share his values and raise money – it opened opportunities for supporters to meet and get involved. Visitors organized their own meetings and events online. It struck me that’s exactly what Web 2.0 is all about: empowering people to communicate and connect. I’m rethinking all the Things I thought I’d never use. Maybe I absolutely have to use them.

Learn & Play was well conceived and executed IMHO, although the idea that we could do it all in 20 minutes a week was off by wide margin. Not to worry, we all took as much time as necessary.

Thanks to Digital Services, Organization Development, and everyone everywhere (as Vocera says) who made this possible or participated. It was great! When does the next discovery exercise begin?

Public Libraries: Bargain Beacons of Democracy

How much would you pay for all human knowledge? But wait – don’t answer yet!

I ran across this wonderful blog post by Tom Barlow at WalletPop about the value of public libraries and the awesome educational/entertainment bang we get for our buck. For $31 a year, the price of dinner and a movie – or a movie, anyway – every American has unlimited access to the universe of ideas. It’s the democratic ideal made real.

To quote novelist E.L. Doctorow:

The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.

Damn straight.