Keynotes @ day one of TOCCON 2010 and what they mean for m4Lit

Day one at O’Reilly’s Publishing Tools of Change (TOC) conference in New York kicked off with a few great keynotes. Some snippets and thoughts:

Enhancing the ebook
Peter Collingridge, Enhanced Editions
One of his previous projects is www.bookseer.com — a book recommendation service.

• How can digital innovation provide premium reading experiences?
• The future of publishing can be summed up in one word: change.
• Questions: What will the publishing value chain look like in 2013? What skills will be needed? What will you do about it today?

Law is not a business solution
William Patry, Google Inc.

• People say that you can’t compete with free. Wrong way to think. Provide something of value to people and they will pay for it.

Are ebooks dead?
David Skip Prichard, CEO of Ingram Content Group

• USA teens aged 8-18 spend 7.5 hours / day in front of an electronic device. How will publishers engage this generation?
• Simplify: know what your business value add is and focus on it (differentiate). Limit the variables. (More options does not translate to increased sales.)

Publishing is dead: Long live publishing!
Ariana Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post

• Books don’t end in print. They’re conversation starters. Reviews are conversation enders. What people want are conversation starters.
• The medium is definitely not the message.
• We have entered the golden age of engagement. Publishing needs to combine best of old and new worlds.

How does this apply to the m4Lit project?

• We want reading to be social (community) and engaging (interactivity) (see our m-novel Kontax). Enhanced Editions has affirmed this approach.
• We’re reaching teens where they are — on their mobile phones.
• m4Lit should focus on one thing: bringing books to teens in developing countries through mobile phones (NOT including iPhones). Our differentiator is a user experience that is low-end device specific and cognisant of price (keeping data traffic to a minimum).