Web Development

Like many parents of elementary-school-age children, I spend a fair amount of time around trains. Steam, cog or narrow-gauge, I am no stranger to the iron horse. Perhaps that explains the frequency of my use of railroad metaphors. This column is no exception. To realize the full potential of digital technology in product development and marketing, content organizations will continue to evolve over a long period of time. This journey can be represented as a railroad track with parallel rails. These rails are necessary to move forward and stay on course. But unfamiliarity with the track can have deadly consequences. The First Rail:

Nyack, N.Y.-based Flat World Knowledge, which launched this month, publishes free and open college textbooks online, with the option to purchase alternate formats of its content, including print and audio, and other study aids. While offering university-level course material gratis on the Web is not a newfangled idea in the higher-education realm, there are big differences from previous efforts—there’s no advertising within the text pages, nor is there a trial period with hidden fees. There isn’t even any registration required for users. Flat World Knowledge is a publishing company, not an aggregator of other publishers’ titles, says Eric Frank, co-founder and chief marketing officer.

Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), outlined a strategy for the future of the Web in a series of papers and articles published between 1998 and 2001. He observed that while there was a wealth of information available for people to explore on the Web, computers had difficulty extracting information from it. The Web consists largely of free-form text, and computers have great difficulty understanding human language. While search engines can index the Web, a human being is required to interpret the search results. You may be able to surf the Web, but your computer can’t. The value of the

The Web is an ever-changing animal. Keeping that in mind, the most successful online marketing executives must think in the future tense: coming up with inventive, original ideas to help publishers stay ahead of the game. Jeff Yamaguchi, associate director of online marketing for Random House Inc. division The Doubleday Publishing Group, is one such innovator, and he fills us in on a little secret—that the future tense is not enough. In June, Yamaguchi launched Doubleday’s newly revamped Web site, which uses a WordPress platform to simulate the look and usability of a blog while maintaining Doubleday’s integrity and standards as a

Following the addition of its one-thousandth title, DailyLit (www.DailyLit.com) has launched a site redesign that will include customer ratings and online book reviews. The redesign also more prominently features book covers, highlights the most popular titles in each category, and offers featured book lists that include titles selected by the DailyLit editorial staff. With over 125,000 subscribers who have subscribed to over 250,000 copies of books, DailyLit allows books to be sent in short, serialized installments via e-mail/RSS feed according to the schedule set by the reader or on demand. These can be read wherever e-mail/RSS feeds are received. DailyLit offers both classic and

Borders and Vuguru, an independent media studio owned by Michael Eisner, will distribute a Web series, “Robin Cook’s Foreign Body: The Prequel,” through the retailer’s newly launched Borders.com site. The series, which will consist of 50 two-minute episodes, is a prequel to Robin Cook’s new novel, “Foreign Body,” which will be released by G.P. Putnam’s Sons Aug. 5. The first two episodes of the series premiered Tuesday at www.BordersMedia.com/foreignbody, where customers also can pre-order copies of the book. New episodes are available daily, culminating in the final installment airing Aug. 4, the day before the release of Cook’s book. “By teaming with Vuguru

“Today the book business stands at the edge of a vast transformation, one that promises much opportunity for innovation: much trial, much error, much improvement.” —Jason Epstein (“Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future,” Norton 2001) That was seven years ago, and today, innovation and experimentation—trial and error—is the theme of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) report “From Experimentation to Innovation in the Digital Age.” The report contains the results of a survey on the industry’s attitudes and actions pertaining to experimentation (more on page 7). It also contains case studies—based on interviews conducted by Mike Shatzkin, founder/CEO of The Idea Logical Co.,

Travel planning has never been easier. If you want to pack your bags and go somewhere—be it thousands of miles or only a few hours away—a simple Google search will bring you information from hundreds to thousands of sources. So how do travel publishers stay ahead of the Google game—and at the top of its results pages? Lauren Palmer, executive director of online strategy and business development for Fodor’s Travel—the largest worldwide publisher of English-language travel books and guides—is responsible for overseeing the company’s online property Fodors.com, including advertising and affiliate relationships, and digital licensing. And she knows a thing or two about

I recently attended the Book Industry Study Group’s Making Information Pay event (more coverage on pages 7 and 32), where Michael Cader, founder of Publishers Marketplace and Publishers Lunch, offered publishers simple, yet pertinent advice on engaging their audiences: “Leverage the damn book.” One example he gave: His son read a book from the “Alex Rider” series, so Cader went to the store to buy the series’ next book. To illustrate the point he was going to make, he projected a slide featuring the cover of every book in the series. There was nothing that told consumers which book to read next. The

BookLocker.com, a print-on-demand publisher located in Bangor, Maine, is suing Amazon.com over its decision to use one on-demand printer—its BookSurge subsidiary—exclusively for transactions sold and shipped from Amazon, the Associated Press reported earlier this week. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, seeks an injunction preventing Amazon from implementing its new policy, as well as monetary damages and legal fees, according to the report. A majority of BookLocker.com’s sales are through Amazon. The company stands to lose out on those sales if Amazon follows through with its threat to stop selling BookLocker’s books because it uses a competing on-demand printer, said BookLocker’s lawyer. “It’s