Microsoft Corp.

Dishing Content on Multiple Platforms
March 1, 2007

The staff of Zagat Survey LLC consisted of just Tim and Nina Zagat when the pair first set off in 1979 to compile restaurant reviews contributed by their friends to help create the first of their popular restaurant guides. The book series since has become virtually synonymous with dining, and the staff consists of 110 full-time employees, plus local editors in more than 70 cities around the globe. Tim Zagat, the CEO of Zagat Survey, faces the same challenges that other publishers do as his company prepares to face the opportunities and challenges that digital content delivery creates. What are the biggest challenges you

The Media Services Group Buys the Cat’s Pajamas
January 28, 2007

The Media Services Group (MSGL), a leading provider of integrated publishing and event management software, has acquired The Cat’s Pajamas, developer of the Cat’s Pajamas book publishing system. Terms of the acquisition, which closed on Jan. 24, provide for the maintenance of The Cat’s Pajamas offices and staff in Burlington, Wash. as a division of MSGL. MSGL currently owns, sells and supports two other book publishing software applications, BookWorks and CISPUB. “To be number one in this market you need to have great software, great customers, great support and great people,” said Jeff Shine, president and CEO of The Media Services Group. “The Cats acquisition

Yahoo Becomes Second to Deny Google Data
December 1, 2006

Google suffered another setback in its efforts to defend its digital book library when rival Yahoo declined to provide information to assist with an upcoming copyright infringement lawsuit revolving around its digital-book scanning program. Yahoo responded to a Google subpoena and objected to providing information for two upcoming court battles Google will face against the Author’s Guild and McGraw-Hill Companies. The plaintiffs accuse Google of digitizing material without prior consent from the copyright holder. Google had hoped to gain information about how its competitors had undertaken similar projects. Yahoo said in its Nov. 20 filling to the United States District Court in the Northern District of

Frankfurt Book Fair Draws Record Numbers
November 1, 2006

If you like books, attending the Frankfurt Book Fair is like being a kid in an unimaginably enormous candy store. It is the publishing industry’s largest annual book fair—and this year’s event, held Oct. 4-8 in Frankfurt, Germany, showcased 382,000 titles, including 112,000 new publications. And even if you’re used to walking, wearing comfortable shoes is a must. Aisle after aisle filled 13 exhibition halls, showing the products of more than 7,200 exhibitors. Fair organizers say the event, which is in its 58th year, attracted the largest number of exhibitors ever. Fortunately, shuttle buses that ran from hall to hall helped ease the burden

Get Your Multimedia House in Order
November 1, 2006

Following typical protocol, Ayun Halliday went on tour to promote her latest title, “Dirty Sugar Cookies.” Only, it wasn’t a 30-city tour, it was a 30-blog tour. These days, blog tours are all the rage thanks to the high-speed, seemingly infinite cyberspace connections they create. After interviewing with bloggers who either posted Halliday’s comments online or recorded her on a downloadable audio podcast file, the author’s “appearance” was suddenly linked to other blogs, which linked to more blogs, ad infinitum. Buzz like this is priceless and, interestingly, Halliday’s publisher, Seal Press—an imprint of Avalon Publishing, New York—didn’t have to make too many adjustments

Amazon Says “No” to Google
October 27, 2006

Amazon.com balked at rival Google Inc.’s request for book scanning data, when it responded this week that it would not provide information the search engine giant had requested via subpoena earlier this month. According to published reports by the Associated Press, Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, filed its objections Monday to the subpoena it was served on Oct. 6. Claiming that revealing the information would expose trade secrets, Amazon was not willing to cooperate. The Seattle-based online book retailer offers “Search Inside,” a feature that offers customers the ability to search inside of select books that publishers have agreed to show potential purchasers. Google

Google Subpoenas Rivals on Book Scanning
October 13, 2006

Another chapter in the battle for book search dominance was written last week as Google issued additional subpoenas to other major book search players in a bid for information the company believes could be used in its future legal battles. According to published reports this week by Bloomberg, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company filed paper on Oct. 5 in U.S. District Court to seek information from Amazon.com, Microsoft and Yahoo about each of the rival book searches for future use in several lawsuits Google faces. The world’s largest online retailer (Amazon), largest software producer (Microsoft) and most-popular U.S. Web site (Yahoo) have all announced or

Google Book Search Makes Debut, Offers Printable Downloads
September 15, 2006

After nearly two years of debate and speculation, the world’s top search engine site has launched its much-talked about and highly controversial book search. Google finally rolled out its Book Search on August 30 despite the protests of many in the book industry, who have raised issue with the search’s display of portions of copyright-protected works without prior approval since the concept was introduced in October 2004. The Mountain View,Calif-based company contends the search constitutes fair use and offers publishers the opportunity to request how and if their content will be used. According to Google, the company does “not enable downloading of any books under copyright.

Industry Outlook Bright
August 1, 2006

Despite the predictions of gray skies that have become increasingly prevalent in forecasts for the book publishing industry, a recent survey conducted by Book Business shows that the large majority of industry executives still cast an optimistic eye toward the future. In addition, most respondents foresee a lucrative long-term future for their companies and appear unconcerned that digital-format books will eventually replace print. Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed replied they feel “optimistic” about the industry’s future and another 10 percent are “very optimistic.” Just 16 percent consider themselves to be “pessimistic.” Furthermore, these executives appear to, for the most part, have high hopes

Tools for Easy Content Management and Repurposing
June 1, 2006

Content is still king in book publishing. The challenge to publishers today is to move, manage, exchange and manipulate that content in the most efficient and profitable ways. In the age of new media, publishers must be able to accept content from external sources, traffic it through all the pre-publishing phases and then be agile in the way they output it, so that it’s cost-effective but also meaningful to readers. As with any new technology, publishers should evaluate software solutions with these basic considerations in mind: Functionality: What solutions out there have the types of capabilities your company needs? Once the field has