App Development

Ebook App Applies Gaming Ecommerce Model to Mobile Reading
April 13, 2016 at 2:47 pm

San Francisco–based Tapas Media, founded in 2012 by Chang Kim, offers bite-size content through an online mobile platform. Its first venture, Tapastic, a webcomics site providing access to more than 16,000 creators and 270,000 individual comics, is the leading online publishing platform and community for comics. Tapastic counts one million active readers, primarily in North…

Litsy Is a Book-Focused Social Network that Goes Beyond Reviews
April 8, 2016 at 2:03 pm

If you’re a book lover, Litsy might be the social app for you. The startup was founded by Todd Lawton and Jeff LeBlanc, who previously launched the book-themed clothing company Out of Print. Lawton told me the idea for Litsy came from connecting with Out of Print fans at events like book festivals and comic…

Audible, Long Known Only for Audiobooks, Is Branching Out into Podcasts — and News
April 8, 2016 at 1:55 pm

If you’ve been reading Hot Pod here on Nieman Lab or podcast news more generally, you’ll know that Audible has been staffing up with audio talent — notably from public radio — to build out original content. And you know that the podcast/audio world has been awaiting what Audible — part of giant Amazon —…

Pigeonhole to Launch 'Disappearing Book'
April 6, 2016 at 1:30 pm

Online publishing platform The Pigeonhole is launching its first "disappearing book" with new Scandi crime thriller Victim Without a Face by Stefan Ahnhem (Head of Zeus). Subscribers will be sent one "stave" every day starting from 18th April which will consist of a few chapters. Readers will then have just 24 hours to read each…

Content + Curation + Community = Recipe for a New Apple Books
March 29, 2016 at 2:27 pm

Apple is missing the boat on ebooks. And there’s billions of dollars at stake. PWC estimates the 2018 US e-book market at $9B, FutureBook estimates the UK market at £381.5m. Apple gets 10%. That’s abysmal, considering the ubiquity of Apple devices. The Amazon/Hachette fiasco revealed that many in the book world don’t really like Amazon.…

Ebooks Are Not the Answer to a Literacy Crisis
March 28, 2016 at 1:13 pm

When librarian Jennifer Nelson arrives at the tiny library at Crewe Primary School each morning, she is confronted with a cart of first-generation iPads. The detritus of attempts to infuse technology into one of the poorest and most rural schools in Virginia, the tablets are hopelessly obsolete, worth little more than the cart on which…

What Amazon's OER Platform Means for Education Publishers
March 28, 2016 at 10:33 am

One topic of discussion at Digital Book World earlier this month was the degree to which the “Big 4” technology companies -- Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google -- are setting the agenda for what happens in the publishing industry. In the K-12 sector of the industry, however, it has seemed -- until recently -- that…

On Spanish Poetry Publishers in the Digital Era
February 25, 2016 at 12:11 pm

The Spanish publishing industry is facing radical changes in the digital era, but poetry is often overlooked in discussions about these changes. Has it been disregarded because it is a minor genre? What kind of experimentation is happening in Spanish poetry publishing today? Thanks to new technology, many new Spanish poetry publishers have launched and…

HarperCollins Italia Buys 20lines
February 22, 2016 at 12:40 pm

The Italian division of HarperCollins, HarperCollins Italia, has acquired 20lines, an app for iPhone and Android that allows to people write, read and share short-format stories. The publisher, which announced the news on its Italian website, said 20lines has more than 220,000 registered users, who create more then 15,000 new stories every month.

Google Quietly Shutters Play For Education
February 18, 2016 at 2:18 pm

Back in 2013, Google launched Play for Education, a program that made it easier for educators to purchase apps and books and distribute them to their students’ Android tablets. Now, this program is coming to an end. As first reported by CRN and also confirmed by us today, Google will stop selling Play for Education…