We Are Living in the Future: August 2009

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

ALA | New book censorship map reveals national problem

ALA | New book censorship map reveals national problem

Now this is a shock! Both left and right want to censor. Too bad Ray Bradbury is gone. If you click on the balloons you see that these challenges come from left as well as right. The only thing they have in common is that they don't believe that people can think for themselves, and hence need supervision by the group that puts forth the challenge.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Mixed-polymer recycling: The plastic sausage machine | The Economist

Mixed-polymer recycling: The plastic sausage machine | The Economist

Disposal of plastics and the difficulties involved in recycling them has been a major environmental problem for decades. Now a British firm has developed a method and put into production a factory for recycling mixed plastics of any kind into something similar to plywood.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

June 2009 eBook sales stats -- 136% increase over June 2008

(These are the official stats from the IDPA, which is the part of the AAP for digital publishers, as released this morning. These are US-only figures and represent wholesale rather than retail, so the retail figures could be twice as high.)

eBook sales statistics for June 2009 have been released from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) who collects these statistics in conjunction with the IDPF.

Trade eBook sales were $14,000,000 for June, a 136.2% increase over June 2008 ($5,900,000).

Calendar Year to Date sales are up + 149.3%

Q2 2009 wholesale trade sales were $37,600,000

A couple of observations indicating the growth we are seeing.

First two quarters of 2009 have already surpassed total of all 2008 wholesale trade sales.
June 2009 wholesale trade sales were $14,000,000 which is highest single month thus far. April 2009 wholesale trade was previous high at $12,100,000
Q1 2009 set the previous bar for trade wholesale for the 12 – 15 trade publishers at $25,800,000, which has been surpassed by Q2 09.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Technological Evolution Stirs a Publishing Revolution - Knowledge@Wharton

Technological Evolution Stirs a Publishing Revolution - Knowledge@Wharton

Quite an interesting high level analysis of the Kindle and the Espresso Book Machine, and of how they fit into the overall economics of publishing.

State of the Art - Amazon’s E-Book Rival, Barnes and Noble, a Paper Tiger, for Now - NYTimes.com

State of the Art - Amazon’s E-Book Rival, Barnes and Noble, a Paper Tiger, for Now - NYTimes.com

This is an excellent critique, not only of the differences between Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's e-book business and technology models, but also of the current state of e-books compared with print books.