What’s The Cost Per Reader?

I’m one of the few people who is absolutely fascinated by ABC’s Shark Tank. I don’t know why other people aren’t. It has everything in it: ambition, greed, ideas, pitching, money, business, and more.

It’s instructive as all hell and I’ve argued in Comments at another site that Mark Burnett should turn it into an entire cable TV channel because a one-hour show is just too compact and I’m frustrated by not being able to connect all the dots.

It returned two weeks ago and since I hardly watch any TV at all, I didn’t find out it was back until this week.

I caught up with its first return episode and the final minutes got me to thinking about both traditional print publishing and especially about DIY direct publishing.

Shockingly Brain-Dead Stupid: Creating An iTunes LP

How-To: Create Your Own iTunes LP

Really, absolutely none of this is something a writer would want to deal with to create a digital book for the iSlate.

Dealing with metadata and the like in iWork’s Pages had better be masked with a nice sensible form to fill in. Hand-editing XML is a curse.

Previously here:

iWork Is Apple’s Thermonuclear Bomb
2010 In Review
Oh Give It Up. Steve Jobs Wins.
One Step Closer To Apple Digital Books
The 7 Principles Of Apple
The Fine Print = Apple iTablet WIN!
Hybrid iPhone/Print Book Glimpse Of The Future
Apple Will Break Open The Digital Book Floodgates
The iPod Decade And The Steve Jobs Effect
Disney + Pixar + Marvel + Apple + iTablet
Steve Jobs Sees The Future Of eBooks
Apple’s Absolutely Brilliant eBook Strategy
How Steve Jobs Wins, Part Two
What REALLY Delayed The Apple Tablet

Book Funding Drive

Coming & Crying: real stories about sex from the other side of the bed

The lack of good storytelling about sex in print feels ridiculous, bizarre. And now that we have on-demand publishers, Kickstarter, and an internet community of contributors and supporters and potential audience looking to fill the very same void, there is no longer any excuse.

— via Warren Ellis

Asus Provides Peek Of Its Atomic Bomb eBook Reader

Get ready for the newsstand in your hand

Asus, the Taiwanese manufacturer that pioneered the netbook concept, has given InGear exclusive details of its DR-570 reader, to be released by the end of the year. Asus says it has developed a 6in, high-brightness, OLED colour screen that should run for a whopping 122 hours on one battery charge — and that’s not just when displaying text but under real-world conditions, such as running Flash video over its built-in wi-fi or 3G. If that claim stands up, it would make this game-changing device nearly as energy-efficient as today’s monochrome readers.

OK, now this is exactly what I meant about Asus upping the ante.

If that is true — including the bit about running Flash — this would be very, very interesting.

Why?

The Vook web versions of their digital books are powered by Flash and cannot be seen on a Flash-less iSlate (something I hope they will be able to fix by ditching Flash and going all-JavaScript and HTML5).

There are many other magazine sites that are powered by Flash too.

Also, since this is color and will allegedly run Flash, it puts yet another nail into the coffin of the eCrap Axis of E: eInk, ePub, eBook — in favor of digital books.

And that Elle magazine? Currently the digital edition uses Zinio Reader. Which is also available as an iPhone app.

So, has Asus signed a deal with Zinio for content?

— via Twitter from mobileread

Previously here:

CES, The Death Of eInk, And The Asus Factor
Enough eInk/ePaper/eCrap eBook Devices!
Barnes & Noble’s Incompatible Non-Universal ePub
Multi eInk eBook Device Fondle Report
IDPF Screws Up ePub eBook Covers For Everyone!
How Book Publishing Will Lose: eBooks Vs. Smart Digital Books
ePub For Seniors
Apple Will Break Open The Digital Book Floodgates
eBook Trademarks: Asus, Warner Brothers, And ViewSonic
The eBook Bubble: Save Your Money!
Moriah Jovan’s Asus eReading Flirtation
Why Digital Books Will Win
Smart Digital Books Vs. The ePub FAIL Model
How The Axis Of E Is Killing Publishing
Asus Atomic Bomb eBook Reader?
The Axis Of E Book Holocaust
Why eInk, ePub, And eBooks Will Fail
Dumb eBooks Must Die, Smart eBooks Must Live

Disney + Apple + RFID = BIG!

Disney’s ‘NextGen’ may heighten visitors’ enjoyment

The Walt Disney Co.’s theme-park division is quietly working on a major technology initiative that boosters hope could radically transform the theme-park experience.

Details of the project, dubbed within Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as “next generation experience” or “NextGen,” are being closely guarded. But there is widespread speculation among former Disney executives and bloggers who follow the company that at least part of the project involves wireless-communication technology that could be used in concepts ranging from keyless hotel-room doors to rides and shows in which the experience varies based on an individual guest’s preferences.

And:

The secrecy, of course, hasn’t stopped speculation. Though the “NextGen” work has multiple components, several Disney bloggers, including Crawford, have reported that a key part involves the development of radio-frequency identification microchips that could be implanted into park passes or wristbands. Guests would supply personal information ahead of their arrival — from their names and credit-card numbers to their favorite Disney characters — that would be downloaded onto the RFID microchips, which would then interact with sensors deployed throughout Disney’s resorts.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

Others would expound on this with a few thousand words of their own. All of them pompous and boring.

All you need to know is to keep an eye on Disney if you want hints of what Apple is up to. Steve Jobs is majority shareholder of Disney. He wants to protect that investment and will push Disney into the 21st century bit by bit.

And all of it will tie into Apple too.

He’s already been involved in redesigning Disney Stores.

Why not Disneyland and Disney World too?

Now we wait to see what sort of RFID/NFC capability the new iPod Touch, iSlate, and iPhone will have.

Additional:

Apple testing RFID-enabled iPhone?

Previously here:

The iPod Decade And The Steve Jobs Effect
Disney + Pixar + Marvel + Apple + iTablet