Tag Archives: O’Reilly

Condensing the Conferences, bit.ly-style

It was a busy week for mini-conferences: O’Reilly and PW’s TOC Executive Roundtable took place on Tuesday, May 22, and featured Hilary Mason, Chief Scientist at bit.ly, talking about what a service like bit.ly can glean from those who use it to shorten URLs – and it’s pretty amazing.  Calling the company “the largest engine for…Continue Reading

If You Can’t Put ‘Sex’ in a Title, Try ‘Startup’

Every publication tries to live up to its name and PublishingTrends.com is no exception: our focus is on industry trends.  In a recent People Magazine on what’s “In” and “Out,” we talked about how YA novels are moving from an obsession with vampires and werewolves, to one with angels and demons.  Over the years, we…Continue Reading

Watch This: O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Live Stream

The O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference kicks off today with expert panelists sharing insights into how digital technology is transforming the publishing industry. The conference runs from February 13-15 at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, but if you’re unable to make it to Manhattan, the conference will be live streaming keynotes…Continue Reading

What a Load of…Content

Google was getting worse. Complaints about its search results began to appear regularly online slightly over a year ago. In December 2009, venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky blogged about the difficulty of finding helpful dishwasher reviews online. He said the experience reminded him of the pre-Google era when search was “completely overwhelmed by spam and info-clutter.”…Continue Reading

TOC 2011: From Publisher to Reader, Direct

On the opening day of this year’s Tools of Change, O’Reilly VP Online, Allen Noren, kept the audience glued to their seats for two hours, revealing his secrets of “Building a Successful Direct Channel.” Noren began by explaining the need to ask a lot of questions before beginning to sell direct.  The answer to ‘What…Continue Reading

Lessons from O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing 2010

“If you don’t eat your own children, someone else will”: That’s how Michael Mace, Principal of the Silicon Valley–based Rubicon Consulting, began his presentation, “Check Out My Scars: Seven Lessons from the Failure of E-Books in 2000, and What They Mean to the Future of Electronic Publishing,” at the 2010 O’Reilly Tools of Change for…Continue Reading

App Attack: Mobile Reading

Though we’ve recently noticed a few more Kindles on the subway, mobile phones are infinitely more common. As more consumers choose to read e-books on their smartphones rather than purchase standalone e-reading devices, publishers are working to create apps and other iPhone-ready content. Flurry, a company that provides analytics to mobile phone application developers, found…Continue Reading

IDPF Digital Book 2009: Forget DRM

The afternoon panels and presentations at yesterday’s International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) Digital Book 2009 were filled with promises of impending hardware and software innovations. Sony Director of Business Development Bob Nell talked about the number of outlets that will be selling the Sony Reader next Christmas–6,000, which is double last year’s number–and hinted that…Continue Reading

Twitter Isn’t Stupid–But Publishers Need to Be Smart about Using It. Here’s How.

“Twitter is really the stupidest thing in the world,” Chris Brogan, blogger and social media expert, said in his Blogging and Social Media panel at the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishers conference in February. But he didn’t mean it. At first blush, Twitter does seem like a dumb idea. It describes itself as “a…Continue Reading

TOC: The Narrative Is Changing

On the final day of TOC, Tim O’Reilly gave his keynote, following on the heels of the inventive Nick Bilton from the NYT’s R&D labs. (Bilton created the interactive website for David Carr’s book.) Much of what he discussed was focused on the topic that was subsequently addressed at the next session, where a group…Continue Reading