TAKEAWAY: It is one of the final weekends of summer and a good opportunity to catch up with our reading. Today, five entries to update you with interesting links of the past week.
Five links of interest
1) Wired’s story, “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet,” has been widely discussed in the last few days. Essentially, Chris Anderson suggests that we are switching from using the open web browser to closed, proprietary systems, such as apps. There is a nice take on it at Nieman Lab:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/08/the-web-dies-the-hype-lives-what-wired-left-out-of-its-eulogy/.
2) People magazine just launched its iPad app using WoodWing, and it’s definitely one of the most interactive around, with lots of scrollable items, movies, slideshows, and web links. Erik Schut, WW president, has a good description of it on the WoodWing blog: http://woodwing.com/en/blog/article/people-magazine-sets-new-standard-ipad-magazines.
It seems like its release was delayed by the paparazzi wanting more money for their photos: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i8f8572de75e9b83312e6d81419ecd9f0?pn=1.
3) The Conde Nast / Hearst / Meredith / News Corp. / Time Inc. collaborative, Next Issue Media, sponsored a white paper from Oliver Wyman on the potential for interactive publications: http://nextissuemedia.com/docs/NIM_research.pdf. It predicts that interactive publications will be a huge source of revenue in a few years. Some highlights from the paper are available here:
http://www.foliomag.com/2010/survey-publishers-could-see-much-3-billion-interactive-periodicals-subs.
4) After Ready-Media and Nomad Editions / Treesaver, Roger Black launched the third of his recent venture’s, Webtype: http://www.webtype.com/.
Now you can use many Font Bureau typefaces on the web, specially designed for display at small, medium, or large sizes. For example, see Antenna Medium (www.webtype.com/font/antenna-medium-family/), optimized for larger sizes, and Benton Sans Reading Edge (www.webtype.com/font/bentonsansre-family/), optimized for body text. There are already major efforts for using type on the web (notably Typekit: http://typekit.com/), but these fonts, particularly the Font Bureau Reading Edge ones, are as good as you can find.
5) Textbooks and the iPad: It is back to school time, and the idea of reading that textbook on the iPad is now a soon-to-come reality. A tech start-up, Inkling, is introducing its first four full-length interactive college textbooks using its software platform, which is designed specifically for Apple’s iPad—a marked departure from e-textbooks that are almost entirely just text that has been digitized.
I imagine that reading history and geography books is about to become a more exciting and interactive experience.
Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791804575439522126865254.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs#articleTabs=article
TheMarioBlog post #615