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Seybold
San Francisco e-Books and XML!
Spotlight on
E-Books
The annual,
fall Seybold San Francisco 2000 opened with
exciting announcements about electronic books, or
e-books. If you are not already familiar with
e-books, they can be defined as, "An electronic version of a printed
book or a book specifically created for electronic
distribution, downloaded and read on a variety of
hardware devices, including PCs, laptops, PDAs,
PalmPilots, and dedicated e-book reading
devices."
Front and
center during SeyboldSF were announcements involving big
players Microsoft, Amazon, Glassbook and Adobe
Systems. Microsoft highlighted its Windows-based PC
Reader application using the new ClearType
technology. While Barnes and Noble has made more
than 2,000 titles available in the format, Microsoft chose
to highlight its new relationship with Amazon.com in which
Microsoft will get a royalty from Amazon for each book
sold. Adobe, not to be left out held a press
conference to announce its intention to purchase longtime
partner, Glassbook, both for the Glassbook interface and
for its e-book server, to help with distribution of titles
in the PDF format. Glassbook is perhaps best known
as the provider for the reader format for Steven King's Riding
the Bullet. Adobe intends to bring Glassbook's
reader user interface into the Acrobat product family and
extend Acrobat to include support for the Glassbook EBX
format.
Despite the
exciting announcements and the new battlelines, the jury
is still out on the viability of the e-book market.
The E-Book Showcase was a big hit at the exposition.
Attendees were eager to compare e-book formats from Adobe,
Microsoft, Glassbook, and NetLibrary's Palm OS based
system. But the question remains, will we make the
switch from paper to any of these new media for
reading? According to the folks at Seybold, a recent
business research survey indicates that only 12% were
likely to purchase an e-book to read on a computer or
other digital device. And some 66% believed
themselves to be "not likely" to buy an e-book
in the next 12 months.
IDEAlliance
Hosts XML and Publishing Day
This year,
IDEAlliance hosted the XML and Publishing Special Interest
Day on Wednesday August 30. Marion Elledge (IDEAlliance)
and Mark Walter (Seybold Publications) served as
moderators for the day.
The first
panel provided an overview of the new opportunities XML
has created for publishers. Featured speakers
included David deMilo, Knight Ridder New Media and Tony
Freeman, DeepBridge Content Soutions.
Dianne Kennedy
(InfoLoom, Inc.) provided an update on the XML family of
standards. Kennedy provided an indexed and
hyperlinked "XML Road Map" to guide those new to
XML and those just trying to keep up with exploding
standards family. The XML Road Map will be soon be
available on the GCA Web site and was distributed in
CD-ROM form at the IDEAlliance booth.
Other panels
of interest to publishers focused on ICE (Information and
Content Exchange) Syndication, PRISM (Publishers
Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata) and
Personalization and Exchange of Customer Information (CPExchange).
Major announcements included the release of the ICE Cook
Book to help publishers get started with Web syndication,
and the release of the PRISM 1.0 Specification.
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Seybold
San Francisco
Upper
Left: The ICE Team at Seybold
Lower
Left: PRISM announcement on XML and
Publishing Day
Lower Right: PRISM
Booth at Seybold San Francisco |
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