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.