The State of Sourcing

Commented a respondent of our survey on ‘The Current State of Digital Content’. So,  how are things shaping up for digital formats, does everyone in the publishing industry feel the same way? Read on.

Changing the ‘format’ of content

The publishing industry has progressively been going digital. While selling digital content is recent, publishers have used digital production techniques/processes that are reliable, stable and efficient. Such processes, however, ended mostly in the creation of PDFs – that doubled as print ready files and/or a product that was to be sold digitally.

Continue reading ‘Device specific formats are horrible to support, and I hope they die!’ »

So I played devil’s advocate, while the rest of the learning world appreciated the leap forward with the Apple iPad. Having carefully evaluated the bad and the ugly (thanks to everyone on Linkedin/this blog who shared), there is definitely a need to look at everything good that’s coming out of the tablet industry, of relevance to the learning community.

A market-ready foolproof device the iPad still is not, but there are plenty of interesting ways it may be leveraged for learning at the workplace / university (or actually, outside of those places). In this post, I want to the cover the actual implementations being made by educators (I’ll cover corporate initiatives in my next post).  A great example is Rutgers University’s iPad marketing course that I blogged about earlier. There’s a lot of talk of how the iPad is a game changer, but how many universities are putting their money where their mouths are, and investing right away?

Continue reading ‘Top 5 University iPad initiatives’ »

For an industry that has been questioning the way it has been functioning for the past decade, the publishing industry seems to be rejuvenated with the potential of the digital market. While publishers look to overcome the decline of print by developing digital market as a revenue source, it becomes even more important to have the right vision while addressing it.  Venturing into potentially unchartered waters, require the publishers to adopt a steep learning curve that means not only operating like a Net company but also creating a strong value proposition.

A significant section of publishers addressing the digital market have relied on partners. Right from producing books, adapting them to various devices or distributing them to readers, publishers have seen the merits of depending on partners. Take for example the Apple iPad. Publishers look at this piece of gadgetry with the same glee that the music industry did when the iPod was released. Some have gone to the extent of proclaiming the iPad as the backlit beacon of hope for the publishing industry. I do not think so!

Continue reading ‘Will the iPad help the publishing industry?’ »