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.

Comments

Tizra Upgrade Provides a Crisper, More Interactive E-Reading Experience

In the print world, when you think about a reader’s user experience, you consider factors like the size and weight of a book, paper quality, typeface, layout and design. Moving to digital, some of these factors still hold true, but others are replaced with concerns such as speed, intuitive controls, cross-platform compatibility, plus as with any human interface, a host of intangibles. We’re always working to make the Tizra reading experience crisper, easier, and less distracting, because happier readers mean happier publishers. Tizra reader upgrade makes it easy to enhance content with interactive lightbox effects. The update builds on Tizra’s ability to provide usability and compatibility across all the most popular web browsers and viewing devices, and is now available to all Tizra customers. Enhancements include: Speed -- e-reading should be as crisp, fast and simple as turning a page. Your readers are not going to tolerate delays waiting for cont...

Using XML to Create a Better Online Reading Experience for the American Payroll Association

Congrats to the American Payroll Association on their recent launch of XML-based publications on Tizra! Thanks to this collaboration, APA's authoritative books for payroll professionals are now available in crisp, reflowable HTML, creating a user experience that feels like a truly digital native product, rather than a conversion from print. XML-based publishing also creates a better mobile reading experience, supports more precise search and navigation, and opens the door to better accessibility for users with low vision and other disabilities. Our partners at Scribe did a great job supporting APA through the process of producing the XML for loading into Tizra, and we’d definitely recommend them to anyone interested in such a transition. It’s hard to overstate what a big step forward this is for Tizra as a platform and a company. XML has long been planned for in the product's architecture, but now for the first time, we have a working example that demonstrates t...

It's so cool!

I'm a real fan of MIT Press books, and have been for years. Lots of interesting stuff for me in Computer Science, New Media, Electronic Music, and all are well designed, beautiful books, which also matters to me. I have a bunch on my shelves, and more on my "buy someday" list. And this week, we have the public announcement of the Tizra-hosted MIT Press CISnet site . This makes me feel really good because it's very much something that came from a daydream I had last year. I was up at MIT to talk with the (excellent) Venture Mentoring Service, and stopped in at the MIT Press bookstore after the meeting. As I was looking around, but not quite able to find one volume to buy, I thought that I'd pay right then to have access online, like the ACM digital library. I'd happily pay to browse around, search and use books for reference, and then later I might buy volumes that I really wanted to dive into. So we approached MIT Press with the idea, and now there's a gr...

Tizra Blog

Search This Blog