March 2, 2004

Cool Tool Alert. Cogitum Co-Citer " 'There's a stone cold freebie (no ads, spyware, etc) called 'Cogitum Co-Citer', available for download here. Once installed, when you're at a site where you want to save some text, you simply highlight the desired text, right-click to get the pop-up context menu, then select 'Grab the selected text'. Co-Citer then auto-opens its screen, allowing you to add comments, organize by selecting/creating a category, etc. To get to the info later, you hit the start menu and choose Co-Citer, which includes print, find and other goodies. This app is incredibly feature-packed, and an absolute stable/smooth joy to use. Sure has cut back substantially on the 'paper-notes' syndrome which used to surround my laptop!...' " [PDA 24/7] Nice freebie that could help with personal knowledge management. Unfortunately, it only runs on Windows and requires Internet Explorer 5+. [The Shifted Librarian] 7:45:27 PM     micro publishing providers. The NYT has a nice sum-up of innovative micro publishing companies. "Unlike e-books, which also appeared in the late 1990's, P.O.D. self-publishing has developed into a real business, attracting involvement from the likes of Random House, Barnes & Noble and now Borders. "We wanted to learn about the market," said Phil Ollila, Borders's vice president for book marketing, in explaining the chain's experiment. The company approached Xlibris, based in Philadelphia, one of the big three of P.O.D. self-publishing, together with 1stBooks and iUniverse, all formed in the late 1990's. Xlibris is 49 percent owned by Random House Ventures; 1stBooks, based in Bloomington, Ind., is privately held. Barnes & Noble owns 25 percent of iUniverse, based in Lincoln, Neb., and Warburg Pincus holds the other 75 percent. The real challenge is not to produce books, it is to achieve all the goals of publishing - to get the books edited, distributed, noticed and, above all, bought. That is no easy feat: in the United States, 150,000-160,000 new titles were published last year, according to R.R. Bowker's Books in Print. On average, the P.O.D. titles sell just 150 to 175 copies, the companies say. Many authors are happy to pay for 50 or 100 copies of their magnum opus to give or sell to family, friends and business contacts. Others, though, confuse production with publication and end up disillusioned." [TJ's Weblog "Technology, Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship"] 5:55:00 PM     transforming publishing. Some anecdotal evidence showed me that the underlying trend changing publishing seems to sustain. While Doubleclick predicts a much rosier picture for online advertising - ""People are looking for a break point," he said. "But we're going to see steady growth." Ryan said DoubleClick expects double-digit revenue growth in 2005, fueled by its tools that help advertisers build online campaigns and track consumer response, as well as its data-analysis and direct-marketing businesses. " more and more publishers realize that money is not with subscriptions but more probably to make with online advertising. ""We just kind of closed our eyes and jumped off a cliff, because we realized it was something we wanted to do," said Dyer, NewsOK's general manager. She said the decision stemmed in part from pressure from advertisers who wanted to know more about the site's readers before paying for online campaigns. Nearly a year into the experiment, Dyer has few regrets. Registered users currently top 277,000, exceeding the weekday circulation of the site's parent newspaper, The Oklahoman. Only about one in 200 readers complained about registration. And NewsOK is optimistic about the potential for selling e-mail advertising to readers who said they are willing to receive messages. " [TJ's Weblog "Technology, Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship"] 5:54:31 PM

© Copyright 2004 Ted Ritzer. Last update: 03/04/2004; 2:00:33 PM.