A Postcard from Tools of Change

Think back to the summer of 2007. The first iPhones are just hitting the stores. Kindle is still a gleam in Jeff Bezos' eye. And in the words of Publishers Weekly, "a festival of practical geekery" is taking place in San Jose, CA.

That festival was the first Tools of Change for Publishing conference. We were there, of course. And while comparatively small, it was the largest gathering we'd found of people who cared as much as we did about the transition from print to digital books.

That's still true today, which is why I'm excited to be on the floor of ToC 2010 as I write this. The show's a lot bigger now, and has spread beyond its geeky roots to focus on seismic shifts we're all aware of…the explosion of handheld devices, social software and changes in the ways all of us find and use information.

If you're here, come see us. We'll be in booth 114 with our partners Digital Divide Data, and you can always reach us via our contact form. If you're not here, we'll be posting updates on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/tizra

We believe change is not only good, it's constant, and we're looking forward to what comes next.

Rhode Island Releases Green Economy Plans on Tizra

You may have read that Rhode Island's making a serious push to establish itself as a hub of innovation and economic growth in the green energy sector. At the core of this effort is a document called "A Roadmap for Advancing the Green Economy in Rhode Island," which was unveiled today by Governor Carcieri, Senate President Paiva Weed and RIEDC Executive Director Stokes at an invitation-only event keynoted by retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark.

Perhaps less well known is the fact that the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation tapped Tizra to deliver the document, which can be found on their website at…

http://publications.riedc.com/view/qe2ne/default

It's a great example of how an organization can simultaneously provide faster and easier access to information, while simultaneously fostering local economic development, and preserving natural resources that might otherwise go into printing hundreds of copies of the document. Or for all you P-Bruins fans, you could call, it a hat-trick—three goals scored by the RIEDC!

What's Bigger than Amazon, Google, Microsoft & Apple?

The web.

Duh. But with Apple's anticipated Tablet [Update: iPad!], Google's Nexus One phone and any number of other shiny objects to distract us, it's easy to forget that even the most massively successful of these platforms—the iPhone—has maybe 60 million users, whereas the web has about 1 billion.

Maybe this is why the Nexus One's tagline is "web meets phone," and why even though few really know what capabilities Apple's long-rumored tablet will have, it's a safe bet it will feature a great web browser just like the iPhone does.

The simple reason is that the web is simply too big for even the biggest device makers to ignore.

Which is very good news for those of us looking for the best ways to reach large audiences with digital content. The fact that all these great companies are coming out with more great devices just means more ways for users to access the content we serve.

As long as open web standards prevail, those of us who stick with them don't really have a horse in this race. In fact, just the fact that there is a race means we win.

MIT Press Webinar Video & Slides Now Available

Thanks to all who participated in last week's webinar, and to MIT Press for a presentation that drew fantastic attendance and uniformly favorable comments. Video of the full presentation is below. Slides are available for download in PPT and PDF formats.

Free MIT Press Webinar: Building an Ebook Site with Tizra

Exploiting Tizra's iPhone compatibility is one topic on the webinar agenda.

When MIT Press launched CISnet just over a year ago, they were trying something radical: Creating a custom ebook site without investing in custom software and without expensive content conversion. The result was in the words of revered computer science professor Hal Abelson, "a treasure." Now MIT Press has very kindly agreed to share some of what they've learned from their experience developing CISnet on the Tizra platform, and some of their ideas for future expansion.

Join MIT Press Editorial Director Gita Manaktala, and Digital Publishing Manager Jake Furbush for a free webinar…

Tuesday, October 27 at 3pm EDT

Space is limited. Reserve your seat now! We look forward to a fascinating discussion.

Association of Research Libraries Goes Live with Tizra

After extensive internal testing, the Association of Research Libraries has begun offering recent issues of its flagship publication on a public test site hosted by Tizra.

The organization announced recently that Research Library Issues is now available in full-text searchable form at…

http://publications.arl.org

We're thrilled about this, not only because because it's a vote of confidence from a high profile organization, but also because ARL's membership includes some of the most prestigious research institutions in the world (including the libraries of MIT and Indiana University, whose presses are already using Tizra).

In addition to greater production efficiency and flexibility, ARL's use of Tizra stems from a desire to provide members with capabilities including…

• Better full-text search.
• More targeted references via social software and other links.
• Better compatibility with web enabled mobile devices like the iPhone.

We are proud to count ARL—and RLI readers—among the users of Tizra!

Faster than Google!

Don't get us wrong. We love Google, as anyone who remembers what web search used to be like in the days of AltaVista, Excite and even the World Wide Web Worm has to do. But there are certain things even Google doesn't do particularly well, particularly taking users to the relevant part of a long document...without long downloads and repeat searches.

Here's a quick video showing how Tizra solves this problem (among many others), based on actual experience we had looking up our trademark on the official US Patent and Trademark Office site.

Note: Click the little TV icon above to see it big!