If you have been following Fran Toolan's blog Issues In Publishing, as I have, then you are certainly in tune with the real-life advances in ebook readership underway with the Amazon Kindle and very real potential with educational laptops like the XO from One-Laptop-Per-Child foundation. As a veteran of Book Expo, and technology junkie to boot, I have always enjoyed wandering the aisles and checking out the latest, flashy displays of ebook readers. I was an ebook reader on my Palm Pilot several years back, and enjoyed the portability, although I missed the turn-the-page experience. Yet, I am surprised that ebooks haven't gotten any real traction. Perhaps it was the lack of content, cumbersome delivery or devices that didn't satisfy.
It came to me the other day, however, that the opportunity may actually be real this time. Sometimes in life, there are simple coincidences which turn an opinion. For me, it was while researching a new client of ours - Triumph Learning which publishes the Coach test prep series for each state. In preparation for the project kickoff, I was reviewing the states programs that Coach publishes into and at the top of the list was the great state of Alabama. Having learned recently that Alabama had purchased 15,000 XO laptops, it seemed like a powerful incentive to implement a true 'digital strategy' to take advantage of just such an opportunity. Publishing the content of their test prep series as ebooks, or companion programs to supplement them, could bring real benefits to the Alabama adoption of XO's, and bolster a commercially viable ebook business, while supporting education across the US. Here is an informative link on Alabama's XO purcase.
Of course, in order to take advantage of these opportunities, publishers will need to be highly efficient in their business practices, and many of the larger publishers are doing just that - working feverishly to get their houses in order and 'digital strategy' defined. As an architect and integrator of our Title Management Software I have plenty of ideas on how to best accomplish this, but those ideas will have to wait for another post.
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Intel, the world’s largest manufacturer of computer processors, has cut ties with One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit that Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford wants to provide computers for Birmingham K-8 students. The split comes after Intel refused to discontinue its Classmate PC, a bare-bones laptop designed for students in developing countries. OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte has said that the Classmate competes with its XO laptop and that Intel is deliberately undermining the non-profit’s altruistic mission.
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