Scribd calls on publishers to use HTML5, not apps
mocoNews.net Free document-sharing platform Scribd is calling on publishers to skip the iPad apps and use its service to convert publications into an HTML5 format readable on a variety of mobile platforms.

Read more on Poynter Institute

Have you ever walked by a box in your local game store and wonder if what was inside was any good? There’s only so much you can learn from the outside of the box – the attractive illustration and a couple paragraphs of marketing copy. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone you trusted tell you what it was like to play? Alternatively, remember the last time you walked through a big box store’s toy aisle and spied a game from your youth? Maybe a smile came to your face as you picked up the package and looked at the pieces and tried to remember if it was the same as when you last played.

These two scenarios are played out by two new books from editor James Lowder. In Family Games, there are 100 short essays on everything from Strat-O-Matic Baseball to HeroClix. Family games are “togetherness in a box”, as Mike Gray says in the foreword. The book catalogs what Lowder and his immense panel of experts have deemed their top family games of the past 100 years. Read what Steve Jackson has to say about Monopoly (“In a way, Monopoly is roleplaying. You’re roleplaying a heartless, scheming capitalist, and it’s fun.”) or James Ernest’s thoughts on Candy Land (“Candy Land is a great educational game for kids and adults. It lets each generation pass along its own perspective about what a game is supposed to be.”). The assortment in Family Games isn’t all game shelf staples either. There are plenty of games you haven’t heard of … or maybe a few you just haven’t heard of in a while.

Hobby Games narrows its scope a little, examining RPG, card, miniatures and board games from the past 50 years. Here you can read about Gary Gygax reflecting on playtesting Metamorphosis Alpha or GeekDad favorite, John Kovalic, ponder why he likes Formula Dé so much – especially considering he is neither a fan of dice games, nor racing. When Richard Garfield writes about first discovering Dungeons & Dragons, you can almost see the groundwork being laid for a career that would lead to Magic: The Gathering. Because many sets in the Hobby Games book require a big time commitment to both learn and play, it’s a joy to read about some you may have looked at in the store, but have never played.

There are a lot of similarities between the two books. By their very nature, they are quite close. But what was fascinating was thumbing through the two volumes and reading the history of so many games and the complex theory behind games I had taken for granted because of their simplicity … and then getting excited to run down to my local game store and pick up a new game or two (or three).

If you’re into games, check these books out – they’re well worth the look.

View full post on GeekDad

Apple’s restrictive digital storefront are problematic for some publishers, notes Poynter. Some publishers are aiming to create a platform to sell content on digital tablets outside of Apple’s store. It would enable them to bypass Apple’s approval process, control of customer information, and the 30 percent royalty ding.

From the WS Journal:

‘We own that consumer. This is a critical part of our business model,’ said Philippe Guelton, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., which publishes Elle, Car and Driver and Woman’s Day magazines. Hachette doesn’t sell its magazines through iTunes.

Ovide and Adams also point out that some publishers believe easy access to the millions of Apple customers outweighs the risks:

Geoff Reiss, general manager of Newsweek’s digital unit, said it isn’t worth sacrificing the seamless iTunes payment system to gather data about a relatively small number of early iPad magazine buyers. ‘The idea of reintroducing all kinds of friction in order to get a bunch of information that may or may not be applicable, I don’t think serves either us or the consumer particularly well.’

The majority of magazines and newspapers for the iPad are downloaded through iTunes. But even as they polish up their iPad offerings, some publishers have been trying to band together to create their own payment systems and strategies to circumvent iTunes’ grip on sales of digital content.

Of course there’s Amazon’s Kindle store. If content is king, Amazon has over 450,000 Kindle books, newspapers and magazines, which can be delivered to the iPad.

But Kindle’s terms have been very unfavorable to publishers. Amazon.com keeps 70% of the subscriber revenue, publishers get only 30%. The ratio for the iPad is just the reverse.

However, Amazon recently instituted a a 70% Royalty Option. Amazon’s new program will enable Kindle authors and publishers to earn a 70 percent royalty option (less the cost of delivery).

The original royalty was only 35%, but the cost of delivery was free.
This new option will not replace the existing DTP standard royalty option on the Kindle Digital Text Platform. It will become available on June 30, 2010.

Delivery costs will be based on file size. Pricing will be $0.15/MB. At today’s median DTP file size of 368KB, delivery costs would be less than $0.06 per unit sold. This new program can thus enable authors and publishers to make more money on every sale. For example, if a book was listed for $9.99 and was about 1.4MB in size, then the seller should now get $6.69 instead of (about) $3.49. That wouldn’t be nearly as good a deal for a photo and graphic heavy daily or weekly subscription, however.

Then there’s the Android Marketplace, which may also be a strong alternative, especially as Android and Chrome tablets inevitably emerge.

Scribd calls itself a “social publishing company,” with about 50 million monthly visitors. Traffic is growing about 10 percent per month, said Tammy Nam, vice president of content and marketing.

Another San Francisco company, Zinio (above) sells electronic versions of magazines and books online, and last month released an iPhone and iTouch application, which quickly became the top free news app in the iTunes store. The company has an app for Android-based phones in beta.

Related Dailywireless stories include; Kindle Announces 70% Royalty Option, Self Publishing on the iPad, Kindle App for iPad, iPad Features Audio Dictation, Mobile News via Paid Apps, E-Textbooks: How Big?, Nozzl: Local News Streaming Live, The $99 Tablet, Tablet News, Mobile News via Paid Apps, Producing Olympic Multi-Media, HyperLocal: There’s an App for That, Neighborhood News: Big Time in Seattle, Coming Soon: Tablet Wars, Rental Bikes: Free with Location-based Apps?, Comix As Life, Tablets and Three Bears, Apple Launching Pad, NY Times Announces Pay Model, Apple Tablet: Change Agent?, Handmark: Mobile News R Us, Google’s Real Time News and Hulu for Publishers Announced.

View full post on dailywireless.org