Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The ISO Survey for 2007 shows decline in the USA and UK for ISO 9000 certificates. I have done a story on this for OhmyNews.

My impression is that quality theory is moving with manufacturing outside where the business schools have been. There will be another story for OhmyNews next year but meanwhile there is plenty of scope for speculation and anecdotes. The survey is based on info from a year ago so things may be different already.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Financial Times at Online Information

So far as I can tell the Financial Times will not be at Online Information as they were last year.

All will become clear at the real event but meanwhile please add a comment if I have looked in the wrong place or they will appear with another name.

My impression is that the Web is getting more viable but particular information offers may not be. No other newspaper appears at Online Information. Would they gain much in cover price sales? Is advertising the main prospect for newsprint?

Last year I had a discussion about the Chinese version of the FT, almost entirely a Web operation. Limited print but mostly to promote the Web. Hope to find out more about this.
ePUB at Online Information

At the publishing panel on Thursday I hope to find out more about the ePUB format. There is more interest in e-books this year with a conference at the start. The ePUB format is supported in both the Adobe Digital Editions Reader and the Sony Reader. there could be more announcements from publishers with new titles.

So far there has not been much publicity for the open source aspect. There could be more public domain or creative commons content. Creating an ePUB file is not impossible but could be easier. Maybe the bookselling industry is unlikley to promote the fact that there is so much free stuff available but the cost of a Sony Reader is a bit of a block for many people so the whole cost structure needs to be explained.

Adobe seem to prefer ePUB to PDF for reflow on small screens. Also Stanza have a reader for the iPhone. Some numbers suggest that the downloads of Stanza compare with sales for e-reader hardware. So do people read texts on an iPhone for any length of time?

Feedbooks can create ePUB from a blog or RSS feed. So is this a book?

There will be probably be more on this in a story for OhmyNews after Online Information. Any text, links etc. welcome.