The Network Garden - Mark Sigal's Blog

Mobile 'native' publishing: Why our concept of content must evolve in the post-PC era (O'Reilly @TOC)

One reason that industry disruptions prove so vexing to market leaders is that disruptive waves simultaneously barrel through assumptions about customer needs, industry economics and operational best practices.

Consider the case of the motion picture business, an industry that was disrupted when the “talkie” — once derided as a costly gimmick — subsumed the silent picture in the 1920s.

The takeaway from the film industry’s transition is instructive. The talkie not only changed how movies were made and the economics of the business itself, but critically, it changed our concept of what a movie could be.

In doing so, it transformed the medium forever (The Speed of Sound by Scott Eyman is an excellent book on this topic).

Disrupted by digital

As we move toward a post-PC universe of 10 billion mobile devices, a similar disruption is playing out in the publishing business.

Print media is patient zero in the ongoing saga of “disrupted by digital,” an unstoppable force that has decimated one time toll road businesses like newspapers, and is threatening to squeeze out the last breaths of magazine and book publishers.

That this occurs at a time when physical bookstores are also under assault is hardly a coincidence given the tight links between publishers and bookstores on book distribution, discovery and monetization. The brutal reality is that when an industry is disrupted, the entire ecosystem feels the pain.

The rise of dynamic content services

So if publishing must evolve, what does this mean for publishers?

Most basically, it suggests that whereas static text and pictures define our current concept of publishing, in the mobile era, we need to think about what is being “published” as a native app that re-configures itself based upon the content being served. Logically, this type of system autonomously generates data.

This has significant ramifications for how such content is made, what it can do, and the underlying systems required for delivering and receiving the same.

Read the full piece at O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing by clicking HERE.

Related:

1. You say you want a revolution? It’s called post-PC computing (O'Reilly Radar)
2. Rebooting the Book: One iPad at a Time (O'Reilly Radar)
3. Anatomy of an eBook App: Lessons learned building a Top 20 eBook App (O'Reilly Radar)

 

Number Skills (Age 5+) is the latest app launched in 'Play and Learn with Wallace'

Number Skills (Age 5+) is the latest app launched in the 'Play and Learn with Wallace' early learning series, and it is now available in the App Store.

This app teaches children the essentials for learning simple math with activities about adding and subtracting numbers between 1 and 10. It includes six different games - Problem Train, Card Problems, Button Numbers, Raining Numbers, Bus Math and Math Class. 

Like all games in Play and Learn with Wallace, Number Skills integrates with our Personalized Profile and Rewards Chart system, so kids can feel great about their progress.

Also, the content in the apps loads in randomly so kids don't get bored.

When you purchase two or more apps, the apps can be Super Shuffled together, giving kids the benefit of a blended learning experience. Learning professionals will tell you that blended learning is one of the best ways for kids to learn rapidly and retain more deeply.

As always, the full-featured trial is FREE.

To find our more about the system, watch the video below, read my original post on the topic, or better yet, download the software on your iPad.

To celebrate the launch, Number Skills is $1.99 for a limited time only (it's usually $3.99).

The series was recently cited by Today's Parent Magazine as one of the coolest apps for kids.

Chatopic 2013 Book Series Announced

Since 2003, Chatopic (which I co-founded with Steve Lee) has been a place where you can: A) read a great book; B) beat the topic into the ground at a meetup with a good group of people, and then; C) grab grub afterwards.

Our topics have ranged from Organized Religion, Animal Rights and Marketing, to Futurism, Philosophy and Design. Each Chatopic series is comprised of 6-9 books, chosen by popular vote, and we meet every eight weeks or so. If this sounds interesting to you, give me a holler.

Here is our latest series of books:

1. How Will You Measure Your Life - by Clayton M. Christensen (240 Pages)
2. Thinking, Fast and Slow - by Daniel Kahneman (511 Pages)
3. Makers: The New Industrial Revolution - by Chris Anderson (272 Pages)
4. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking - by Susan Cain (300 Pages)
5. Drift: the Unmooring of American Military Power - by Rachael Maddow (288 Pages)
6. Design Thinking + A Whole New Mind - by Daniel Pink (288 Pages)
7. Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill - by Daniel Imhoff (356 Pages)
8. Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality - by Patricia Churchland (288 Pages)
9. Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell - by Phil Lapsley (416 Pages)

You can access any of the books by clicking the items labeled as 'CHATOPIC 2013 BOOK SERIES' on the side panel at the left.