AGI Training » publishing

Kindle will soon support library lending of e-books

Christopher Smith — Tue, 03 May 2011 15:34:55 +0000

Joining Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Sony’s Reader, later this year the Amazon Kindle will support the ability to borrow books from libraries. The books will be checked-out and accessible for a specific time period, and then unavailable after the … Continue reading →

Adobe InDesign CS 5.5 Review

AGI — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:30:12 +0000

InDesign is the one product in the Creative Suite 5.5 to offer some significant improvements. Adobe’s near monopoly in the desktop publishing market has left book publishers with few alternatives despite Adobe InDesign’s terrible ePub export capabilities. Publishers have had to create their own workflows that involve manually editing the contents and code of ePub files using text editors – an ugly and inefficient process. With InDesign CS 5.5 Adobe has reduced, but not eliminated, the need for book publishers to manipulate ePub files that are exported from InDesign. These ePub export improvements are long-overdue, and are essential for book publishers that create ePub files. Other features that were added to InDesign are designed to upsell users to Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite, a ridiculous platform where Adobe wants publishers to pay them a fee every time a reader views a digital file created using their tools and distributed using their platform. The Digital Publishing Suite is nothing short of Adobe using their monopoly power in the design software business to extract additional revenue from publishers that are already struggling to adapt to the changing face of publishing. While the idea of creating interactive documents from InDesign is cool, the need to distribute them through Adobe’s platform – and then pay a fee to Adobe for every reader– is simply absurd. Digital content producers are better served by creating content for print using InDesign and then exporting well-structured XML into layouts for online or interactive use. While the ePub enhancements are worthwhile, the Digital Publishing Suite is a case of Adobe putting their financial interest ahead of their customers’ needs. Our verdict for InDesign Users: If you are a book publisher that creates ePub files, you’ll want to upgrade to CS 5.5 but publishers should ignore the Digital Publishing Suite – they are better served by leveraging open standards like ePub and HTML5.

Adobe Flash CS 5.5 Review

AGI — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:32:59 +0000

Our review of Flash CS5.5 found that they’ve added more new features to Flash CS 5.5 than most of the other CS 5.5 products, but nothing worthy of a paid upgrade. For example, Adobe added auto-save capabilities to Flash CS 5.5. This is something that’s been available in much older print publishing software like QuarkXPress for 15 years – and Adobe is just now delivering this “feature” to their supposedly cutting-edge application? And Adobe wants customers to pay for the ability to recover from bugs in their software that cause crashes? It’s not that Flash CS 5.5 is without other new capabilities, though. They’ve added the ability to export to the latest AIR versions – which would be great if anyone actually used AIR. The ability to copy and paste layers is a nice addition, as is the ability to share symbols across files – but it’s ridiculous that you couldn’t do this previously. Adobe has also added some code snippets and the ability to preview the snippets, and made some changes to the Publish settings window.
The really crazy thing is that Adobe is still thinking that developers will use their Flash program to develop for mobile and then put apps through their meat-grinder to deliver to other platforms like iOS. They are also thinking that developers will create Flash apps targeting mobile – which isn’t going to happen. Our developer customers continue to reject this approach in favor of native development to target a specific platform. We believe this approach should continue, as Flash and AIR simply add an artificial layer between the device’s operating system and the user. Our verdict for Flash users: don’t bother upgrading to CS 5.5 unless you are using Flash CS 3 or earlier.

Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) Creative Suite 5.5 Review – AGI’s expert evaluation of Adobe CS 5.5

AGI — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:28:47 +0000

Soon Adobe Systems will start shipping Adobe Creative Suite 5.5, and we’ve been taking an early look at this group of Adobe CS products to review them and help AGI clients decide whether they should upgrade. Our conclusion after reviewing Adobe CS 5.5: most customers should take a pass on CS 5.5 and wait another 12 months until Adobe releases CS 6. The release of CS 5.5 is more of a business move by Adobe as they shift to a 12-month release cycle and now offer $1,200 per year annual subscription packages. But users that have already upgraded to CS 5 won’t find much value in this new version. Many of the products in the Adobe Creative Suite were not upgraded at all from Creative Suite 5, and only their name is changing. A few products received only minor updates, and only one product, InDesign, received updates that we feel are really valuable – and only for users that create electronic books using the ePub format. We feel this update should have been issued as CS 5.1 and as a free upgrade. Adobe may argue that they are now providing Acrobat X with the Creative Suite, but creating PDF files is already an integrated part of all the Adobe tools, and Acrobat version 9 is more than suitable for the needs of most creative users. With CS 5 we were already recommending that users of Creative Suite 3 and earlier upgrade to the current version, and we continue with that recommendation, but if you have CS5, you shouldn’t bother with this mid-cycle upgrade. The CS 5.5 upgrade isn’t worth the time, effort, and expense. Over the course of this week we’ll be issuing a new product review of each of the key Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 products every day, so check back each day for CS 5.5 reviews of Dreamweaver CS 5.5, Flash CS 5.5, InDesign CS 5.5 and reviews of the other Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 products, or subscribe to the RSS feed of the AGI Training blog.

E-books price pressure creates opportunity for publishers

Christopher Smith — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:32:09 +0000

The .99 cent songs exploded in popularity on iTunes, and a recent analysis of the best-selling e-book titles on Amazon.com by the Wall Street Journal shows that 15 of the top 50 titles are priced under $5. This leaves book publishers to consider whether they need to adopt a lower price point per unit with their e-book titles. While Amazon.com lets self-published titles share virtual shelf-space with big-name publishers, the real story for publishers shouldn’t be competition. Publishers
AGI publishes the Digital Classroom series of books with our partner Wiley. I’m seeing e-books as a chance to reach readers who might not need an entire book, and may prefer only some of our content – maybe they want some parts of our Photoshop books or pieces from our Dreamweaver books. E-books are allowing us to break-down larger books into smaller pieces with lower price-points, so users who don’t want an entire Microsoft Office 2010 book can simply buy the chapter on Excel 2010 or Word 2010. E-books let publishers create new products and if they are seeking higher prices and margins, they can create unique items, like enhanced e-books that include multimedia elements or extra content that couldn’t make it into the print version. The publishers that will thrive are those that leverage the digital platform, creating new and unique products that add value for readers.

E-reader and tablet sales continue to skyrocket

Christopher Smith — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:33:53 +0000

Readers are continuing to adopt e-reading devices. This week e-reader company Kobo indicated that they have 3.2 million users, adding 1 million new users in the past 90 days. They announced this number as they indicated that they have received an additional $50 million in funding. Separately, Apple announced that in the past quarter they sold 4.69 million iPads, a number which many analysts believe would have been higher if Apple didn’t have supply constraints.

Creative economy showing signs of stabilization

Christopher Smith — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:26:18 +0000

Headlines make it appear that the creative market is in a freefall. Layoffs at agencies, newspapers and magazines closing their doors, even online advertising has taken a hit. But digging a bit deeper, there are some reasons to be optimistic.
Publicis Groupe, the parent of many large agencies, reported this week a drop in profits that is close to 10%, and revenue for all businesses dropped from $6.5 Billion to $6.2 Billion – a $300 million drop. But the good news is that their CEO is indicating that their business is recovering, and that they expect to see revenue growth in 2010. The slowing rate of decline is being reported by their peers at Omnicom and Havas, and recent forecasts from Interpublic are pointing towards a recovery in ad spending later this year.
AOL, in the middle of a major rebranding and conversion to a media company, reported a decline in online advertising revenue last quarter that was only in the single digits – but they were profitable and made over $1M in profits after losing $1.96 Billion, with a B, in the same period last year. They’re still predicting declines in ad revenues through the end of the year, and – no surprise here – even larger losses of subscription revenue.
Ad pages placed in magazines are still declining, but it is now in the single digits. The good news is that nearly one-third of publications are seeing an increase in advertising pages, and those that are succeeding and profitable are implementing multi-platform strategies to reach their audiences via mobile, on-line, and in print.
Overall, the signs are looking more positive for the creative economy for 2010. While this may not lead to more hiring or more tech spending, it is showing a return towards normalcy.

eBook readers good for publishers

Christopher Smith — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:27:47 +0000

Earlier this week I wrote about the expanded use of e-readers. This growth is good news for publishers, authors, consumers, and the environment. Publishers will have more control over their digital content. Early digital books were often distributed in Adobe’s ebook format, which had many problems that limited the acceptance of ebooks. The user experience of reading on a desktop or laptop was one issue, but the biggest problem faced by publishers was Adobe’s lack of security and digital rights managements. It’s not that Adobe didn’t try to secure ebooks – but unfortunately their efforts weren’t good enough. Adobe’s e-reader format involves a modified PDF format with a “light” form of security. The security stopped technical neophytes from pirating books, but many publishers found that distributing books in the Adobe ebook format is the equivalent of posting your books on-line for free. This is because Adobe’s ebook security is quickly and easily bypassed or cracked by a user with even modest technical capabilities, and many books distributed in the ebook format end up posted on free streaming sites within days and sometimes only hours of being offered for sale on-line. Some cracked ebooks then get sold by pirates on sites like eBay, so the pirates profit and the publisher and author don’t receive anything for their efforts.
The new ereaders appear to provide more control over who can view a book, and they operate within a more controlled environment providing an additional level of security that Adobe never achieved with their ereader format. While Adobe has made some attempts to create proprietary readers for newspapers to help distribute the AIR player which competes with Microsoft’s Silverlight – but I view this as misguided, as reading is moving to devices and off the desktop and laptop. The winner in the eBook arena appears to be eInk, who is making the displays used by many of the readers.
Some of the new ereaders, like the Nook from Barnes & Noble, will allow users to share books –similar to what occurs with paper versions of books. If someone wants their own copy for extended use, they will purchase it. Increased sales and reduced piracy is good for authors as well, and consumers are able to obtain books instantly. The reduced cost of printing and distributing books likely won’t trickle-down to consumers right away, as companies recover their investment in these new technologies, but eventually this cost savings may find its way to consumers.
Who is at risk from ereaders? Printing companies, paper manufactures, and traditional print layout and production artists. I’ll write more on this in a future post.

Microsoft Mix: Thoughts and impressions for the creative, design, & marketing community

Christopher Smith — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:07:07 +0000

Microsoft has made some pretty significant announcement here in Las Vegas today that will impact the way you communicate on-line, develop Web and interactive content – and event how you think about what is on-line and what is a desktop application…

Silverlight 3 was announced here and has some technical features that are useful for developers -things like GPU acceleration and support for additional CODECs such as H.264, MPG 4, and AAC but the real mind-blowing things revolutionize the user experience:

Live streaming with full DVR-like controls – pause / slow motion / rewind for live streams. This puts Silverlight live streaming miles ahead of anything else. NBC announced they are renewing their use of Silverlight for all streaming of the next Olympics (Vancouver) using Silverlight.
HD streaming – you’ll see this at the next Olympics as they’ll be streaming all content in HD.
Out-of-browser experiences on Mac and Windows – not just a browser plug-in
Off-line support: Silverlight 3.0 applications can run as stand-alone applications. So they can consume services while connected, and then switch to an “off-line” mode when not connected.
Support for multi-touch – like the “pinch” – think Minority Report or iPhone

I’ll have more updates throughout the event… as I’m at a Microsoft-focused event, most of my posts will focus on their technology this week…