Category Archives: Appepaper

Ebooks and apps innovation exciting publishers despite price concerns | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Ebooks and apps innovation exciting publishers despite price concerns | Technology | guardian.co.uk:

Henri Volans : “The phrase which keeps coming up in my mind about ebooks is evolution” . “I have absolute certainty that we have not reached anything close to the evolutionary ideal of the ebook… I find it absolutely inconceivable that the book can’t evolve and change and grow.”

In his role at Faber, Volans commissioned the iPad edition of The Waste Land, working with partner company Touch Press on the tablet version of T.S. Eliot’s poem.

Volans picked out Thames & Hudson’s Cyclepedia iPad app as another good example of book-app innovation during his speech at the event. “It seems a good example of an e-book that does justice to an art book,” he said.

Ebooks and School Libraries | American Libraries Magazine

Ebooks and School Libraries | American Libraries Magazine:

To better explore these challenges and advantages, it helps to consider a few different school library ebook-use scenarios. A common desire in K–12 buildings is to adopt ebook readers as a replacement for costly and heavy printed texts. An English department that considered making this change was stymied by the lack of availability of some of the texts on their reading list.

This weekend T#M follows the conversations about the cyclocross in Overijse

T#M is a product that I have developed with my best friend François Vermaut.

We are building a system that follows conversations on the web and on
Twitter in particular. This weekend, in partnership with Patricia of
“‘t Koffiehuis aan de Ijse”, we will follow the conversations about
the cyclocross in Overijse.

You can follow the conversations here http://thm.cc/t/overijse

With this case we experiment how social media like Twitter can help
you develop your small business and bring you new customers.


Jean-Francois Declercq
http://www.appe.biz/contact
+32 486 744 520…

Amazon avoids EU problems with its pricing model

European Commission Opens Antitrust Investigation Over Ebook Pricing
Against Apple, Five Publishers see
http://www.writerswrite.com/blog/120620111

Amazon has no problem because they let you the author or the publisher
set the price of the ebook, so they can't be blamed if the price is
wrong.

But have you ever tried to fix a final ebook price on Amazon ? I did.
With the standard (KDP) Kindle platform, it's a difficult exercise. I
wouln't guarantee you an exact value, I can't really figure out the
final Amazon price of my own ebooks…
(http://www.appepaper.com/ebook)


Jean-Francois Declercq
http://www.appe.biz/contact
+32 486 744 520…

Slides of the Vep Information Session on Dec 1st 2011

This Dec 1st, 2011, there was an information session about the VeP (Vlaams eBoek Platform = Flemish eBook Platform) for the call to tenders for innovation.

During the session Johan Delauré of Bibnet presented a nice overview and summary the VeP.

See the slides here :

eReading : eBooks on TV

In two weeks I have seen two demos of eBooks on TV.
The first was at the BoekenBeurs 2011 in Antwerp. You can see a picture here :

Grand Opening of the BoekenBeurs 2011

This week at Devoxx, I have seen an other demo on Google TV.

At the end of the Android Keynote, Tim Bray of Google said Mobile Phones in general and Android in particular could help the developing countries. I guess there is an important place for Digital Reading in the mobile scenarios.

The Flemish eBook Platform (Vlaams eBoek Platform) RFPs are OUT

Yesterday (Nov 10th, 2011), there was great news : the VEP RFPs have been issued !

The specifications were finished in March, so it was about time that the RFP gets out.

One year ago, the specifications looked like that:

Now they look like that:

You can find the ful description of the target architecture on Bibnet’s website:
http://www.bibnet.be/portaal/Bibnet/Collectie/Vlaams_e-boekplatform/Overheidsopdrachten/

They should also land on IWT’s Innovation Platform’s website :
http://www.innovatiefaanbesteden.be/project/vlaams_e-boek_platform_%28vep%29

IWT, Boek.be and Bibnet finally got a GO to issue 2 RFPs :

1. VEP Basisinfrastructuur

The Basic infrastructure to import store, describe and index eBooks.

http://www.bda-online.be/ShowTender.aspx?tendernumber=177899922430426136

2.  Pre-commerciële aanbesteding voor de realisatie van prototypes voor het Vlaamse e-boekplatform

This is rather a call for innovation from the IWT for specific modules : Digital Reading, “Discovering+Browsing+Searching+Finding+Serendipty” (Grasduinen), Social DRM, Search and Marketing services. 
 
http://www.bda-online.be/ShowTender.aspx?tendernumber=118499922429535344

Numeric Shool Project Proposal : Testing digital reading and tablets at school

Today we submitted, together with the Maurice Carême school in Wavre (Belgium), a project proposal in the context of “Ecoles Numérique” (Numeric Shool).

The project we submitted is called “Lecture Numérique à l’Ecole: Test de tablettes” (Digital Reading at School : Tablet Test).

Basically I proposed to prototype my reference architecture for School Ebooks :

http://www.appepaper.com/erra/ereading-scenarios/school-ebooks

Let’s hope we can get the funding for the project. We will see…

Logo Ecole Numérique

Grand Opening of the Boekenbeurs 2011

Last week (Oct 30, 2011) I had the chance to be invited for the opening of the Boekenbeurs in Antwerp.

We were first invited to listen to the speeches of a.o. Geert Joris and Minister van cultuur Joke Schauvliege.  I was a bit dispappointed that no word was said about the Vlaams eBoek Platform (VEP), let’s hope it will be the case next year. I believe that the VEP is a major strategic initiative for the book sector in Flanders and that it needs to be supported by the top of the book sector.

After the speeches, I was mainly interested by the e-Paviljoen which nicely shows how digital reading (or e-reading) can be done in many ways: on e-readers, on tablets, on mobile phones, on computers….

For example, you could read a story on a wide touch screen.

After that we visited the fair. Here are some more pictures.