13. Break Down
EPUB HTML PDF
DRM Support YES NO YES
Image Support YES YES YES
Sound Support YES YES YES
Word Wrap YES YES NO
Annotations YES/NO NO YES
Bookmarking YES NO YES
Video Support YES YES YES/NO
14. Who?
Who is using e-readers?
Over the 2011 December holiday season, ownership of
e-book readers increased from 10% to 19% nationwide
15. Who is using what?
Ownership
Kindle
Nook
iPad
Other
16. Why?
Why is it time to go digital?
Cost Convenience
Amends
Traction
Technology
17. Why?
Why is it NOT time to go digital?
Technology Shelf Life
Cost
ADA Unexpected re-
Requirements flow
23. Examples in Higher-Ed
HTML
• Duke Research
• Nevada Silver & Blue – University of Nevada, Reno
• Syracuse University Magazine
Flash
• Concordia St Paul Magazine
• Scope Quaterly – Skidmore College
• Student Handbook – Westchester Community College
PDF
• Alumni Magazine – NYU
• Campus Safety – Westchester Community College
25. People to research
• Craig Mod www.craigmod.com
• Khoi Vinh www.subtraction.com
• Oliver Reichtenstein www.informationarchitects.jp/en/
• Roger Black www.rogerblack.com
• Mark Boulton www.markboulton.co.uk
Editor's Notes
Ed Tatton, Publications Office at WCC, worked for Parks department, SUNY Orange, SUNY Albany. This is my 4th SUNY CUAD.
Analyze what you have, who reads what publications, when do they read them and how do they access them? before you can fully analyze you need to understand your options.
A newsletter, a student handbook, open house invite? Once you figure out the publications shelf life, reach and importance, you can best determine what format is suitable. You may very well use a pdf for a course schedule or open house invite but html5 for your annual report.
Electronic book reader otherwise known as an E-reader48% market is Kindle, B&N Nook, Pandigital, Hanvon and SonyTablet ComputeriPad, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Xoom, HP TouchPadCell PhonesiPhone, Android, webOSLaptop/Home ComputerWindows, MacOS, Linux
PDF can be opened across all platforms of e-readers
.AZW - Amazon Kindle Format. A custom format for the Amazon Kindle, this e-reader file format is only usable on a Kindle e-reader. DAISY - A format that is text and audio-enabled that allows visually-impaired users to ‘navigate’ a text, rather than listening from one end to another, as with conventional audio books..DJVU - High-compression rate for high-resolution documents.epub - An e-book standard maintained by the International Digital Publishing Forum, designed for ‘re-flowable’ content, .html - A computer programming language that many texts are formatted with.mobi - An Amazon format for e-books that is compatible with mobile devices .pdf - Portable Document Format External Link. Made by Adobe.txt - Plain Text File Format.flv/.swf – Adobe flash files, fancy interactive not very friendly across platforms.
Epub texts do not support all images or embedded content such as equations at this time.Reflow can be good for screen sizes, bad for indexes.
Started in 1993. Documents include Images, flash objects including video (no longer under development by adobe) . Links to websites or other documents including forms. Embedded video does not work on iPad or iPhone. Easily created in different programs.
Markup language for web. Video, Audio 2d and 3d graphics, interactive pictures, charts, graphs and games. Geolocation. Mobile devices still have some issues with video playback both apple and android. Like learning a foreign language! Javascript runs about the same speed on Kindle Fire, iPad 2 and BlackBerry Playbook. iPad 3 runs faster.
Break down.
43% of Americans have read an e-book, magazine, journal or news article digital on an e-book reader, tablet, computer or cell phone. According to Pewinternet.org
iPad 61% Kindle 14% Nook 1% Other 24%
COST - Digital editions are far and away the cheapest way to distribute a publication. Printing and distribution of hard copy collateral runs into thousands of Dollars and they can actually run out! You can utilize this savings on design and content for digital publications making your library of publications more visually stimulating with better photography, design and video work.TRACTION - Digital editions may be shared directly from within the publication – by ‘Shared’ we mean e-mailed, Tweeted or posted to Google+ or Facebook page and of course highlighted on the web page of your choice. Bundle your digital publications with your social media content. Make sure your digital publications are part of your digital social experience.AMENDS - Print publications once printed and distributed are set in stone, they cannot be amended or updated, a digital edition will allow for your on-line magazine, handbook or catalog to reflect the changes you need when you need them. Making amendments painless and nearly un-noticed by the public. Unlimited space and size of publications especially if hosted on the web. Collaboration is easy from people who may not share an office space, perhaps extension sites or someone working from home or a vendor out of state.CONVENIENCE - Digital publications are simple to carry and easy to access! One of the key reasons e-books are so popular is because they take up no space and are easily navigated. Menu and indexes become active links making navigation very speedy. Search options can also make spanning a large publication an easy task. Translations can be made very easily from English to Spanish to expand your reach.TECHNOLOGY - You can easily add media including color photos that are zoomable, audio files, video etc. Hyperlinking within the documents text to footnotes and back, cross-references to notes, glossary, etc. etc.
The technology is continuing to change at a rapid pace. Maybe we will see a similar trend what happened between Blu-ray dvd and HDdvd, maybe we won’t. You need to stay on top of trends and technology to maintain your publications are available to the massesaccess by blind and print-disabled students and faculty. Text to speech capabilities in DAISY and EPUB standards work great but mobile hardware can make navigation hard. COST - Creating a custom app to distribute content to Alumni can be very engaging. However updates to newer mobile operating systems for a magazine that comes out 4 times a year is a very expensive investment.Storing digital files can get messy quickly. Backups of files will be needed to insure you have an archive of the publications you created. This is much harder than organizing catalogs or handbooks on a shelf in your office. The time you spend creating digital documents with photos and videos embedded need to be taken into consideration as to how long the piece is expected to stay relevant. EPUB formats will make the text fit the screen size and will re-flow text as necessary making page numbers different on different devices. This can prove a massive problem for someone who is looking to cross formats and index pages and unsuitable for citations if any are needed.
Estimate tipping point 2015Print Newspapers will die 2020Digital strategy is necessary to enable content to delivered to customers
Figure out what will work best for your situation. Are you a one man team? Do you have support available? Do you have a budget available? Start with one project at a time. Track usage and adjust content for the next round.If you stick with a PDF make sure it’s not a static PDF but don’t overwhelm it with shiny video and flash.Lets look at some more options.
Google Currents is about as drag-and-drop as they come. The self-service platform for publishers allows you to create different sections of your publication and view it in a simulator for Android, tablet, iPad or iPhone. You can import articles from Google Docs, upload media, or create sections from an RSS feed or a Google+ page. As long as you go in knowing that the end product will look similar to many news aggregators apps. starting from scratch and have no budget, this is probably a great place to start.The built-in simulators provide nice instant feedback on the look-and-feel you're creating. occasionally tricky to debug. If you have a designer, it may drive them crazy. You don't have a lot of control over the output, theme or styling of the magazine. The content is downloaded so it can be viewed offline however it is an app that has to be downloaded to be able to view your publicaiton.Treesaver is a JavaScript framework which helps to create paginated, magazine-style layouts using HTML5 and CSS3. Navigating a Treesaver magazine is intuitive and the dynamic layouts reflow to fit any size screen. quick, intuitive, very device friendly. Doesn’t support any CMS, everything must be built by hand.Baker is an HTML5 ebook framework for publishing focused on iOS,uses open web standards. You create your book as a collection of HTML, CSS, JS and image files. Then to create an iOS app, drop them into a folder add a few other bits and its ready. Support in the Apple Newsstand is available. Not much guidance outside of newsstand.Laker builds on top of Baker but focuses more on html5. You need to be have good knowledge of jquery.Kindle Publishing for periodicals is still in testing but is very easy to use and turns content into a .mobifiletype. Formatting is a bit restricted at the moment.Adobe Digital Publishing Suite- Originally based on the tablet experience its expanding now. Adobe Edge in conjunction with Dreamweaver and/or inDesign can really lead to exciting html5 and javascript publications hosted on the web and accessible across platforms.Wordpress is a blogging engine that can be utilized as a content management system. Check out the Bangor Daily News. They are one of the best examples of proper use of wordpress. They collaborate in Google Docs published to Wordpress and then on to InDesign for their print editions. It’s a massive community that allows tons of support and plugins. It will not give you that packaged publication feel like a monthly magazine but is good for daily or weekly content.Facebook – because everything leads to facebook! The Guardian, Wall Street Journal and others have facebook apps which let users interact with the stories. You have a ready-made audience waiting to buy in. However the overshare on peoples walls will lead people to hide all the activity. Also the Apps only work well on desktops at the moment, Facebook is releaseing App Center which will allow apps to work in html5 on the iphone and android platforms.
Still an unanswered question. There aren't clear answers to problems such as scrolling versus pagination. gestures and user interface guidelines vary from device to device. People are excited about interactive content for education, but how clear is it that it is more effective or increases comprehension? For public relations materials it comes down to a good publications audit to assess what format can best suit the budget and time constraints you have to work within.
