"In the end, who holds the content that you value?” B&N's Strategy Is Questioned as Holiday Nook Sales Decline. From @NYTimes

 

For Barnes & Noble, the digital future is not what it used to be.

After a year spent signaling its commitment to build its business through its Nook division, Barnes & Noble on Thursday announced disappointing holiday sales figures, with steep declines that underscored the challenge it faces in transforming from its traditional retail format.

Retail sales from the company’s bookstores and its Web site, BN.com, decreased 10.9 percent from the comparable nine-week holiday period a year earlier, to $1.2 billion, the company reported. More worrisome for the long-term future of the company, sales in the Nook unit that includes e-readers, tablets, digital content and accessories decreased 12.6 percent over the same period, to $311 million.

“They are not selling the devices, they are not selling books and traffic is down,” said Mike Shatzkin, the founder and chief executive of Idea Logical, a consultant to publishers. “I’m looking for an optimistic sign and not seeing one. It is concerning.”

The results, covering a period that ended Dec. 29, are a sobering development for the nation’s largest bookstore chain. The declines occurred during what is supposed to be peak buying season. And the Nook unit’s sagging fortunes came despite a 13 percent increase in sales of digital content, suggesting that it is the tepid demand for Nook devices that is dragging down the unit’s performance.

Read on here....http://wtr.mn/UoTjYG

Over 1 Billion Cameras Shipped in Smartphones and Tablets during 2012

London, United Kingdom - 03 Jan 2013

Almost every smartphone shipped today has an embedded rear camera and one in three smartphones have a front-facing camera. The number of media tablets with two cameras is even greater. Purchasers expect to be able to take photos with their devices and the popularity of video calling is driving the integration of front-facing cameras. ABI Research projects one billion cameras were shipped in smartphones and tablets in 2012.

Apart from Nokia’s PureView 808, the majority of smartphone releases this year have kept camera resolution around 8 megapixel. Instead, mobile OEMs have looked into new features such as autofocus, rapid capture mode, best picture, and better image captures for low light environments. “Advancements in imaging technology are opening new doors for smartphones and media tablets,” says senior analyst Josh Flood. “Mobile device cameras are becoming more than just a digital camera for taking snapshots of your kids and pet. New services like augmented reality and gesture recognition are now easily conceivable in mobile devices.” Furthermore, these new features in imaging technologies are driving new services for mobile device users. Additionally, the general advancements of imaging technologies or more specifically image processors are now enabling mobile devices to interpret gestures.

According to ABI Research’s latest study on imaging technology in mobile devices, 2.7 billion cameras in mobile devices are predicted to ship in 2018. Smartphones account for the majority of camera shipments, at 80% of the volume. More smartphones are anticipated to include front-facing cameras as video calling becomes more commonplace and the implementation of LTE network infrastructure in countries will further strengthen the demand of smartphones with these front-facing cameras. “Two hundred and thirty million smartphones are projected to be shipped with gesture recognition in 2015,” adds Flood.

The new study “More Than a Digital Camera” analyzes imaging technology and new services enabled by cameras in mobile devices. It forms part of ABI Research’s Mobile Device Technologies Research Service.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 70+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com , or call +1.516.624.2500 .

Photo Finishing Your Memories Old and New. From @RWW

The New Year often reminds us of things we have meant to do all year. Many New Year's resolutions often fail, but setting one revolving around a digital solution can sometimes work its way into your routine with less pain than a daily trip to the health club. Organizing our family's photos is one of the things that became part of my routine after making a resolution a few years ago.

If your parents are still alive, you could be faced with shoe boxes full of old photos to add to your own collections. Such pictures might be important peeks into your family's history and are worth preserving. If you add to those boxes your own collection of pictures and the digital photos that are scattered over your various devices, you can be looking at a huge challenge.

The best solution is a routine that takes care of the present and starts nibbling away at the past. With a history of storing photos in the cloud for years, I have put a lot of thought into organizing and protecting our photos. Others might have different ideas, but this is what works for me.

Read on here.....http://wtr.mn/UqT5MS

VIDEO: Can Print and E-Books Coexist? From @joshabla and @PBS

Tis the season for reading -- both print and e-books. But can the two really coexist? For this video report, I checked in with three bookstores in Chapel Hill and Durham, N.C., and asked store managers and customers whether they preferred print or e-books.

Some of their answers were expected, such as people's love of the smell of print books, and how they enjoyed having a break from staring into a screen. E-book users praised their devices for their portability, and enjoyed being able to carry multiple books with them without being weighed down.




What interested me most, though, were people who used both print and e-books. One person I spoke with said he would often have the same book on both formats, a print version for inside his home, and a digital version for when he was on the go. Other print book lovers praised e-readers for bringing back digital copies of hard-to-find and out-of-print books.

Original article here......http://wtr.mn/UVMkC0

More from Guy: Some Self-Publishing Advice from Guy Kawasaki. From @ChicagoLiterati

GUY KAWASAKI'S TOP 10 REASONS TO SELF-PUBLISH
Palo Alto, CA— Self-publishing is on the rise. The number of self-published books produced annually in the U.S. has nearly tripled, growing 287 percent since 2006. Established authors are abandoning traditional publishers to self-publish. The “Big 6” are scrambling to keep up by launching their own self-publishing arms, but traditional publishers’ mentalities and sensibilities are incompatible with self-publishing.
“The publishing industry is in upheaval, and it’s time to shift power to writers,” said Guy Kawasaki, author of APE: Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book, which was released today. “Self-publishing takes the opposite approach to traditional publishing, democratizing publishing so that unproven authors can rise to the top because of the quality of their writing and their moxie.”
Guy recommends the following reasons why authors should self-publish their books.
1.     Content and design control. Self-publishers can control what’s in a book, how long it is, and how it looks. They only answer to themselves for most aspects of their books.
2.     Time to market. Self-publishers can get their book to market in less than a week once it’s copyedited. Traditional publishers take six to nine months to get a printed book to market, and they will not release the ebook version earlier than the printed version.
3.     Longevity. Self-publishers can keep their book in print forever—or at least as long as it takes for readers to discover it. Traditional publishers stop marketing a book once sales decline.
4.     Revisions. Self-publishers can revise books immediately with online ebook resellers and printers that are working “on demand.” Traditional publishers can take months to fix errors because they print revisions after they’ve sold off current inventory.
5.     Higher royalty. Self-publishers can make more money. Amazon pays a 35 percent or 70 percent royalty to ebook self-publishers. On a $2.99 ebook, most authors make approximately $2.00.
6.     Price control. Self-publishers can change the price of their book at will. For example, they can set a lower price to try to sell more copies or set a higher price to communicate higher quality.
7.     Global distribution. Self-publishers can achieve global distribution of their ebook on day one. For example, Kindle Direct Publishing will list an ebook in one hundred countries. Apple’s iBookstore reaches fifty countries.
8.     Control of foreign rights. Self-publishers determine who buys foreign rights and for how much. They can make more money because they are not sharing foreign-rights revenues with a traditional publisher.
9.     Analytics. Self-publishers can receive real-time or near real-time sales results. Traditional publishers provide twice-a-year royalty statements—imagine running a business with two sales reports a year.
10. Deal flexibility. Self-publishers can cut any kind of deal with any kind of organization. Traditional publishers only sell to resellers except for bulk sales of printed books to large organizations.

Original post here.... http://wtr.mn/ZF4qha

RIP e-book readers? Rise of tablets drives e-reader drop. From @cnet

The rapid rise of tablets is driving the e-book reader market to an equally rapid fall, according to a new study.

IHS iSuppli said that after "spectacular" growth during the past few years, the e-book reader market is now on an "alarmingly precipitous decline," all thanks to the growing popularity of tablets.
How alarming? Well, the firm predicts that shipments of e-book readers will tumble 36 percent this year to 14.9 million units and then drop another "drastic" 27 percent next year to 10.9 million units. By 2016, IHS iSuppli predicts, the e-book reader market will total just 7.1 million units, equal to a loss of more than two-thirds from its peak volume in 2011.

According to Jordan Selburn, senior principal analyst for consumer platforms at IHS iSuppli:

The rapid growth -- followed by the immediate collapse -- of the ebook reader market is virtually unheard of, even in the volatile consumer electronics space, where products have notoriously short life cycles. The stunning rise and then blazing flameout of ebooks perfectly encapsulate what has become an axiomatic truth in the industry: Single-task devices like the ebook reader are being replaced without remorse in the lives of consumers by their multifunction equivalents, in this case by media tablets.

Read on here....http://wtr.mn/Sbuqyl

From "APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book" by Guy Kawasaki: Traditional Publishing and False Rejection