The chair of the Society of Authors, Tom Holland, has hit out at publishers' attempts to seize control over electronic rights, calling eBook deals that lock authors in for the duration of copyright "not remotely fair" and urging authors to push for higher eBook royalties:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/12/ebooks-publishing-deals-fair
Google has created a new tool designed to make it possible for anyone, not just developers, to build apps for devices running the Android operating system. Google App Inventor (which is free) allows users to drag and drop blocks of code which contain features common to many apps (GPS, SMS and social network links): http://digitalmedia.strategyeye.com/article/37ADMjLsO1U/2010/07/12/google_launches_do-it-yourself_app_creator/?nsl=Hg3WlUTCr4li
Richard Waters examines the work of "content factories" such as Demand Media who have made a business out of gaming Google's systems. The company, and many others like it, track the queries entered into search engines to find out what users are interested in, then hire freelance writers to rush out articles to meet the need. The problem is, because the content matches Google's search engine formula users are seeing a lot of mediocre content getting a more prominent position than it should do:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ec7cb18c-8dda-11df-9153-00144feab49a.html
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Eileen Gittins, the CEO of bespoke book-publishing firm Blurb, talks e-books (prediction: in 5 years 50% of books will be digital), new publishing models and the iPad:
http://digitalmedia.strategyeye.com/article/xpLt1D7k8hY/2010/07/12/interview_blurb_ceo_on_the_future_of_books/
In the streaming video era, with the publishing industry under relentless threat,The New York Times examines the current success of the book trailer and author video and how technologically upgrading their marketing efforts is now essential to authors:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/fashion/11AuthorVideos.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=the%20author%20takes%20a%20star%20turn&st=cse
Waterstone's is to open a cinema in its Piccadilly branch next year in a move that follows its sister chain HMV: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/122994-waterstones-to-open-cinema-in-piccadilly-branch.html.rss
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