Kirk Biglione

We’re just days away from O’Reilly Media’s third annual TOC conference. The schedule for this year’s event looks as fascinating as the weather forecast looks bleak (snow and freezing fog?!).

I’m fortunate to be speaking at TOC again this year. I’ll be participating on Kevin Smokler’s Universal Technology Standards in Publishing panel, as well as Mac Slocum’s Topics from the TOC Tag Cloud panel.

It’s been an interesting year for the publishing industry. The pace of change has accelerated with the rise of the Kindle, and the emergence of the iPhone as a viable reading device. Meanwhile, the Google Book Search agreement raises a whole host of issues for publishers and authors. These new platforms and distribution channels present publishers with new opportunities, as well as a new set of challenges. I continue to believe that there’s no better place than TOC for publishers to make sense of the changing face of the industry.

I’m heading up to Portland tomorrow for the PubWest conference where I’ll be participating in a panel discussion on viral marketing and social media.

It’s an interesting time for the publishing industry. On one hand, publishers are being challenged by the rise of digital media (who isn’t?). On the other hand, social media presents authors and publishers with some interesting new opportunities — not only for marketing, but also for new forms of publishing, story telling, and audience engagement.

I’m currently helping develop the curriculum for Booksquare University, a series of online workshops designed to help publishers and authors make the most of these new opportunities.

I’ve conducted a number of interviews in preparation for the BSU launch. A couple of those interviews have already been published on the main Booksquare site.

• Social Media Thunder - The Gary Vaynerchuk Interview: If there’s a King of Social Media it has to be Gary V. Gary talked with me about building his personal brand and provides some tips for authors looking to do the same with social media.
• How to Succeed After the Writers Workshop: Crime novelist Seth Harwood talked with me about how he found his audience (and ultimately a publisher) through podcasting. Seth also uses a range of social media tools to engage his audience.

More interviews to come. I’m finally getting into production mode for this project.

Amazon’s Kindle was featured on Oprah last Friday. Predictably, the segment generated a considerable buzz amongst ebook lovers and publishing industry observers.

There’s no doubt that Oprah’s endorsement will provide a huge boost for Amazon’s ebook platform. But what does the Kindle’s apparent success mean for the future of the publishing industry? Or ebook consumers? Or even newspaper publishers?

I’ve been covering the Kindle recently for both Booksquare and Medialoper. Here’s a quick roundup of my recent posts:

• Reconsidering the Future of eBooks: Yet another Kindle vs. iPhone comparison. As I note, these are two entirely different types of devices, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
• Reading Pynchon on a Kindle: After spending some time with the Kindle I discovered that many of my favorite backlist titles aren’t available in the Kindle format. However, I had no problem tracking down pirated versions of many of those titles. That’s a shame given how easy it is to buy a book on the Kindle. This is classic example of how withholding digital distribution rights can lead directly to digital piracy.
• Digital Content in an Ownership Society: This was in response to an open question on the TOC blog regarding digital ownership vs. digital subscriptions. This isn’t so much a Kindle article as a discussion of the various issues faced when choosing between buying and renting digital content. While I don’t go into great detail on Kindle books, I do consider Kindle downloads to be a form of rental. The restrictions are such that consumers simply don’t have the same freedom they would with a print edition. As a result, I think it’s safe to view any Kindle purchase as a form of temporary ownership, at best.
• Can the Kindle Save the L.A. Times: At one point I actually had some hope that eReading devices like the Kindle might be a partial solution to the problems facing the newspaper business in America. After reading the L.A. Times on the Kindle for a few months, I’m not so sure about that.

I’ve reached that age where each passing year seems to fly by at an ever increasing speed. By the time I’m 90, a year will seem like a day. However, this year is proving to be an exception to the trend. 2008 seems to be taking a lifetime.

It might have something to do with the demolition. We started a major renovation project last month, and our house has been gutted. As a result, we’ve been forced to move out. It’s sort of hard to maintain a home office when construction workers are knocking down walls.

My last move was 14 years ago, and let me tell you, it’s amazing how much junk can accumulate in that period of time. I feel fortunate that I joined the cult of GTD a few years back. During my purge it became obvious that most of what got purged was pre-GTD. If nothing else, this move has validated the effectiveness of GTD — even my quirky and somewhat limited personal implementation of GTD.

Meanwhile we’re living in an apartment while we wait for our contractor to rebuild our house. I haven’t lived in an apartment since I first moved to LA, and I have to say, this pseudo-upscale urban lifestyle is not for me. Outrageously high rent, bad plumbing, noisy neighbors, and the worst cable company in the world aren’t exactly my idea of a quality life.

If my back yard wasn’t full of lumber I might just go home and pitch a tent.

I knew that I’d written a lot about DRM over the past few years, but I had no clue just how much until I started sifting through the Medialoper archives in preparation for my TOC conference presentation next week. Against my better judgment I’ve become something of a DRM expert. Or at least an expert on the ways that DRM shapes the marketplace for digital content.

In my defense, there’s been a lot to write about. The entertainment industry’s obsession with DRM has been both fascinating and baffling. At this point, almost no one believes that DRM actually prevents piracy. To make matters worse, it’s become clear that DRM is a barrier to the development of a viable marketplace for digital content. And yet, the vast majority of media companies still insist on using DRM. Even the record companies that have recently begun selling DRM-free music still won’t rule out a return to DRM.

This is insanity. And a strange form of ritual suicide by DRM.

There’s no point in going on about DRM when I’ve already written so much about the topic. Since I frequently get inquiries about DRM I thought it might be useful (to myself if no one else) to collect links to my various posts on the topic here.

Read the rest of this entry »

The future of all media distribution is digital. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. And yet, most media companies remain unable (or unwilling) to deliver the products and services that connected consumers clearly want. All too many media companies insist on using consumer hostile technologies that ultimately drive otherwise honest customers to seek out black market content sources.

I’ve been writing about this issue over at Medialoper for some time now. I’ll be presenting a session titled DRM, Digital Content, and the Consumer Experience (lessons learned from the music industry) at the O’Reilly TOC conference next month.

TOC has emerged as the premier conference (possibly the only conference) designed to help book publishers come to terms with the range of technologies that are transforming their industry. Given recent release of the Amazon Kindle, I think this presentation couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.