The Reading Edge Podcast

Anthony Antolino

Tony Antolino, senior vice president of DMC Worldwide and a co-creator of Copia, has been involved with Copia from its beginnings about two years ago.  DMC Worldwide is a privately held company with a 56-year history. Copia is just about to launch via applications for desktop, iPad and browser, and they expect to begin offering e-reader devices in the fall.

The Copia Beta that I’ve been trying reminds me of Goodreads, the social network for readers launched in December of 2006 that now has 3.5 million members who have added 100 million book titles.  There’s also LibraryThing which describes itself as a community of 1 million book lovers.  So there is lots of competition in this promising area of social media for readers. Copia appears to be a serious entrant, with 100 DMC employees having worked on the project full time for two years.

My interview with Tony took place by Skype and phone on August 18, 2010. Click here for a March, 2010, video of Tony talking with O’Reilly Media’s Joe Wikert

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The Kobo Reader, at $150, costs less than the Kindle 6-inch and the nook, and does less, too. But the Kobo’s svelte profile and light weight make it convenient for reading in some settings. In all, it’s an attractive new entry in the e-book sweepstakes. All three of these e-ink readers have advantages over the iPad, which I find I’m using less and less for reading books.

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Social media evangelist Bryan Person did Part 2 of our conversation about the iPad on Thursday April 15, 2010.  This gave me a chance to revisit my expectations on how good a reading device the iPad would be compared with the Kindle.

We spoke 12 days after I had bought my 16GB WiFi-only iPad at the Apple Store at the Cherry Creek Mall in Denver. (Click here for video of my memorable entrance into the store.)  In that time, my fascination with the device kept growing.

In this interview, Bryan and I discuss the issue of “serious readers” and whether they will be drawn more to the Kindle than the iPad.  I have to confess that since our conversation, I am less inclined to make this distinction.  I have read too many accounts like this one of people using the iPad for very serious reading, and my own experience has shown me that I am perfectly at home reading on the iPad for up to an hour.  Yes, I sense some discomfort in my eyes from the LCD screen, but the ability to turn down the brightness from within most of the iPad reading apps I use–iBooks, Kindle, Kobo, and Stanza, but not Barnes & Noble–makes it manageable.

I remain in love with my Kindle and am quite sure that reports of its demise are exaggerations, as Mark Twain would have put it. I don’t see this as an either-or proposition.  The iPad’s arrival is wondrous, for many reasons beyond the realm of reading books.  The Kindle owns the outdoors, and any time I go with Darlene to read outside at a cafe, the iPad stays at home.   At home, sometimes I pick up the Kindle, and sometimes I pick up the iPad.  I haven’t figured out which situation is which, but I’m having lots of fun experimenting.

And tomorrow, I’ll have another device to explore–the Alex by Spring Design.  Stay tuned!

CORRECTION: The monthly price of The Wall Street Journal iPad app is $17.29, which is $2.30 more than The Financial Times US edition on Kindle at $14.99.  In the interview, I guessed that the Journal is $5 more.

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On my first iPad session at a local Starbucks in Denver, I realize that overhead lights can be a challenge as reflections in the iPad’s screen. Some horsing around with a Gorilla tripod solved the problem. For a relatively simple project this morning, involving email, Safari, and Apple’s Pages word processor, I was able to leave my MacBook Air in the bag and work exclusively with the iPad.

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Several hours after fetching my iPad in Denver, here are some initial thoughts on how it stacks up against the Kindle, and more. The one thing I left out was how heavy it seems compared with the Kindle 6-inch. That’s probably a deal breaker for reading in bed and long reading of just about anything, as well as tossing something in my bag to carry with me for occasional chances to read.

Still, this is a mysteriously compelling creation. It has my curiosity fired up to 11, as if I’m a remnant human who never saw a pencil before, wondering what to do with it. That may just be the three hours of sleep talking!

I’m sorry this video player shows as a black screen. I promise: If you click on it, it will play.

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Andrew Malkin is Vice President – Book Content at zinio, a privately held company that calls itself the largest online newstand in the world, with more than 50,000 digital magazines and books and e-stores in 15 languages.

I interviewed Andrew on March 14, 2010, in Austin, Texas, during the South by Southwest Interactive conference.

His varied experiences in the publishing world give him deep background in an industry headed for massive change through initiatives like the ones zinio is championing.

You can get a taste for the rich magazine content zinio is offering by checking out their Read Green Initiative and signing up for a free one-year subscription.  I tried the National Geographic, and it’s fantastic.

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I had a lively chat on March 14, 2010, in Austin, Texas, with Pablo Defendini, who is producer of Tor.com , the very alive web presence of Tor Books, which is an imprint of Macmillan.  In fact, Pablo was the one whom John Sargent, Macmillan’s outspoken CEO, asked for help creating a personal blog.

You can check out Pablo’s own blog here, and follow him on Twitter here.

If you think it’s easy to tell who the bad guys are in the eBook Revolution, talking with Pablo Defendini will cure you of simplistic judgments.  He’s the very model of a modern digital guy, working within an industry steeped in literary tradition. It’s a great story.

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Bill Jensen, Director of New Media at Village Voice Media Holdings, was a panelist today at South By Southwest.  The topic of the session, “iPad: New Opportunities for Content Creators,” drew an overflow crowd to the Radisson Hotel 21 days before the iPad will be available in Apple stores and for delivery of pre-orders.

Jensen gave a fairly confident assessment of the digital future for his company’s string of 17 alternative weekly publications, including the mothership, The Village Voice, as well as Denver’s own Westword.

He described why the iPad is generating such interest among publishers like himself.  I left the session convinced that the hype about this device is not a mirage.  Time will tell, and pretty soon. Meanwhile, geeks at SXSW aren’t the only ones suffering from iPad Distortion Syndrome. Click here for video of Stephen Colbert’s Grammy’s gambit that got one into his hands, briefly.

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