29. September 2009 by admin.

While researching for an article about the Australian Dust Storm I stumbled upon MagCloud, a service incubated by HP Labs that allows you to publish and sell issues of magazines, and have them printed and delivered on demand to your customers.

This seems like a good idea.  There is a growing number of print magazines, blogs and online-only magazines that reach a very targeted and small niche of interest.  There are also organizations that create magazine-like content for special events and meetings (i.e. the annual conference, graduation, investors meeting, etc.).  Or the company that publishes a small manual or introductory material in the same format.  All of them could benefit from good printed material and low production costs.

At first MagCloud seems “only” a special case of eBook POD services.  But there is more to it.  The print requirements for glossy magazines are just different.  Design issues are also special.  I will definitely test the service with some content I am developing for an eBook, but that could also be released as a magazine in monthly issues and with ad support.  Will post more about it as I work with the service.

One drawback seems to be that the buyer can’t get the magazine in a digital format also, there is only a very basic online preview mode that is low quality.

On MagCloud example is the Australian Dust Storm number: Strange Light by Derek Powasek.

See also the HP Labs report about CloudMag.

Posted in HP Labs, Advertising, POD, Cloud Services, MagCloud | 1 Comment »

25. September 2009 by admin.

MIT Technology Review reports that Asus is planning to launch a new eReader that can befolded, and will not use e-Ink technology, but will be in color. The device is aimed to ride the wave of success of the netbook, launched by Asus. Readers of ebooks price the e-Ink devices despite of being B&W because they are easy to read. But the cost of the Asus eReader could be as low as $165, a serious alternative to the normal e-Ink Reader today. The Asus model also is planned to include a series of characteristics of a laptop, like VoIP via Skype, email and a browser.

TR article is here:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24097/

An article about the color eReader by Fujitsu:
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22332/

Asus website: www.wepc.com

Posted in News, eReaders | 1 Comment »