That is, what three books have you read about computers and culture that have stood the test of time, and deserve to be read, or reread again?

I’ll get the ball rolling, with three that have had a profound impact on my thinking:
* Wealth of Networks, by Yochai Benkler
* Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig
* Programming the Uviverse, by Seth Lloyd

If you have suggestions, why not post comments here, or Tweet with the hashtag: #digitalculturebooks.

I just published my thoughts about this on O’Reilly’s Tools of Change for Publishing blog. The key points are:

The key insights behind Book Oven were the following:

* publishing a book is (almost always) a collaborative enterprise
* online tools (should) make collaboration on making books easy(er)
* if you build a “book” in the cloud, using structured mark-up, then expression of that book in various forms (print, epub, pdf, mobipocket, html, etc), on various devices (including paper & print) becomes arbitrary, and should be nearly trivial
* further, if the “book” exists in the cloud, then the range of things that can be done with this “book” multiplies significantly
* if a system built on these ideals is implemented well, it will be transformative, both for professional publishing workflows, and for the emergence of a new grassroots of indie publishing.

I am still deeply committed to this vision. But I have shifted towards a belief that the above-described platform should be open source. Or at least, an open source version of such should exist.

And:

Wordpress, it seems, is an ideal candidate as a platform on which to build an open source, online, webby, book-publishing system. There may be other likely candidates, but Wordpress has the following characteristic which suggest to me that it is an excellent place to start:

* it is a familiar and comfortable tool to most writers and publishers who are at all engaged online
* it is a stable platform that can handle just about any scale of traffic you can throw at it (the New York Times, for instance, runs on a heavily-hacked version of Wordpress)
* it is open source
* through its plugin architecture, it is infinitely extensible
* through its template architecture, it is infinitely stylable
* through Wordpress Mu, it isinfinitely scalable it has a huge, world-wide community of committed developers
* existing plugins and plugin suites already achieve much of what would bewanted in a Wordpress-based book publishing system.

And elaborating more fully, here is a list of plugins such a system would need:

1. robust version control
2. digress.it (based on the old commentpress)- to allow para by para commenting for editors, and later, if desired, for readers
3. wordpress –> epub conversion
4. wordpress –> ~LaTeX –> print-ready pdf conversion (or similar)
5. wordpress –> InDesign-compliant mark-up conversion
6. book-friendly front-end template(s) (including Table of Contents, Title page etc)
7. generation of a download/(sales?) page that lists available formats (epub, html, pdf etc)
8. table of contents generator
9. a book metadata generation/management tool (ONYX, OPDS compliant?)
10. …etc.

This list of plugins can continue, subject to the interest of developers, and the needs of users of such a system.

You can read the whole thing here.

And props to John Maxwell and his students at the Simon Fraser Masters of Publishing Program for actually building a protoype and publishing a book with it. Also, do head over to Leanpub.com and see another implementation of something similar.

The distinction between “the internet” & “books” is totally totally arbitrary, and will disappear in 5 years. Start adjusting now.

(Photo by Roo Reynolds).

1. You’ve been involved in so many experimental bookish projects (Bkkeepr, Bookkake, the Twitter book, Bookseer, Enhanced Editions, Golden Notebook). What are you working on now?

At the moment I’m helping to develop a London-wide digital arts project for the 2012 Olympic Games; trying to find the time to put out some more Artists’ eBooks; preparing a new Bookkake collection; building a couple more small publishing propositions; filming and writing.

2. Has Bookkake been a success?

Absolutely. It’s proved that it’s possible to start what amounts to a traditional book publisher with nothing but a laptop. It’s proved that POD can form the basis for a real publisher, that the internet marketplace has levelled the playing field between large and very small publishers, and that good design, typography, editorial attention and passion still matter in the age of the ebook. And it’s proved that there’s very little money in publishing, but we knew that already.

3. Since the dawn of the web, there has been talk of the new things we could do with text. What’s wrong with just starting at the beginning and reading until the end?

I don’t think anyone’s said there is. But the idea that there are other things to do with text than linear narrative has a pretty impressive pre-web history. Leaving aside the fact that we far, far too often conflate the terms “book” and “novel”, writers such as Sterne, Woolf, WS Burroughs, BS Johnson, Sebald, Calvino, Perec, Queneau, DF Wallace, Joyce – in fact, anyone who wrote the barest “experimental” work, or even short stories or poetry – to me seem to cry out for an end to the hegemony of the one true book, the relatively recent invention of an industry in need of a packageable format, not some mythical apotheosis of literary form.

4. It seems like we’ve had the ability to make “enhanced ebooks” for as long as we’ve had web pages, but no one bothered. What’s changed? Why is everyone getting so excited about enhancing ebooks now?

Mobile and dedicated devices. The essence of the book has always been not that it is made of paper, but that you can hold it in your hand. It is /wieldable/ – a very different thing to reading on a computer monitor. Now mobile technology is more available and more advanced, you can read ebooks on the bus, in bed and on the loo, readership is exploding, and publishers are realising they can stick some extras in there too. Whether they should is an entirely different question.

5. What will a “book” mean five years from now?

The same thing: words, bound together. That’s pretty much it, whether you’re talking pbooks, ebooks or audiobooks. But perhaps even the most literary readers will have come to include notebooks and netbooks and any number of other things in their thinking too.

6. Are publishers really as clueless about digital as everyone seems to think they are?

Absolutely not. If by “publishers” you mean publishing companies, then they are stuffed full with bright, innovative, book-loving folk who want to do the best by their books and their authors. But they are groups of people, and of course opinions differ on what is best for the industry, and of course there are luddites among them. When I started writing booktwo.org almost five years ago, the publishing industry’s overwhelming response to ebooks was to put their hands over their ears and sing loudly. This attitude has now changed, almost beyond recognition, and publishers are learning as fast as they can.

We can berate publishers for making what we think are bad decisions about digital, but to accuse them of cluelessness just inflates a very dangerous animosity. Publishers love books as much, if not more, than most readers. It’s one of the very few industries where this is true almost all the way up. And we should be working together for the best of all possible futures for books and authors and readers.

6. If you became the Head Decision-Maker at one of the the Big Six tomorrow, what three decisions would you make by next week?

Running on the pretty definite assumption that I won’t, I’d say: (1) All ebooks to be released at the same time as paper release, hardback or paperback (this is not about pricing, which is a different fight, just availability). (2) Bundle ebooks with physical book purchases to grow electronic readership. (3) Stop the in-fighting and present a united front to the retailers, particularly Amazon, because there are very real dangers on the horizon.

That said, I wouldn’t expect them to be implemented very quickly…

7. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the “future of books” ? Why?

Optimistic. Extraordinarily, joyously, heart-burstingly optimistic. Because I genuinely don’t see why we have to nail literary culture to a single format, or why people who love reading will suddenly stop. All I see is an extraordinary, sustained, over-flowing encounter with ideas and stories, across a multiplicity of platforms and practices.

If the publishing industry is myopic in its definition of its own business, then it may well be in for a turbulent time (although, to be honest, it’s always a turbulent time in publishing), but the book – and other definitions of “the book” are available – will be just fine.

8. What depresses you most about the book industry?

Pessimism.

9. Who’s work in the publishing industry has most inspired you in the last year?

Richard Nash’s Cursor project (and Richard Nash). Many, many bloggers, but particularly Booksquare and Teleread. Startups like ORBooks, Zero Books, Cow Books and Muumuu House. We Are Words + Pictures. Book Works’ Semina series. Supervert. So many more things that I can’t possibly remember.

10. Is the novel dead yet?

Two of my favourite books from the last 12 months include Roberto Bolaño’s ‘2666‘ and Jonathan Littell’s ‘The Kindly Ones‘ – both clocking in at well over 900 pages and selling very well indeed. I’ve recently read three books out now or forthcoming – Max Schaefer’s ‘Children of the Sun‘, Emily Mackie’s ‘And This Is True‘, Ned Beauman’s ‘Boxer, Beetle‘ – that have each challenged, engaged and delighted me in a different, extraordinary way. The novel is not going to die, the book is not going to die, nothing ever really dies, no energy is ever wasted, all manner of things shall be well. I read that in a book somewhere.

[Up next: Don Linn]

1. There are lots of good mobile ereader applications out there: Stanza, Kindle, eReader, Kobo, not to mention dedicated readers like Nook and Kindle and the Sony Reader. Why do we need Ibis?

Ibis isn’t meant to compete with any of these. In fact we’re quite open about encouraging readers to take their books off Ibis Reader and put them on a preferred device. You can download a complete epub off the web site any time, and on the mobile devices we provide some quick “Read in Stanza” links on the iPhone (or Aldiko on Android).

What we hope to be able to do in the coming months is provide features that are only available on a web-native platform. Because everything is just a web page, and the code is common across all devices, we can roll out new features and fixes quicker than any of the above. We should be able to innovate as fast as the ideas come.

2. How does OPDS work with Ibis?

OPDS is critical to discovering and acquiring books in a mobile context where people don’t want to type and can’t upload their own books. At launch, we’ll use OPDS similar to the way Stanza and Aldiko do: we browse public catalogs of free content and let people get those books with just a click. The catalogs are always up to date and provide great metadata, covers, etc., all in a commonly-understood data format.

Eventually, of course, we’re interested in using OPDS to manage paid transactions, and we’ve got some other ideas about how OPDS can help people discover books outside of just browsing catalogs.

3. The big problem with mobile readers right now is availability of titles. How will Ibis users get access to new books?

We’re committed to a DRM-free approach, which we know is going to be tricky in terms of acquiring popular content. But there’s great literature and non-fiction being created outside of the traditional publishing industry. We’re still calling titles on Ibis Reader “books,” but in the digital space it doesn’t have to be a traditional book at all. We want to help readers and authors connect with all forms of writing — short stories, literary criticism, poetry, comics, even interactive fiction or video! It just has to be wrapped up in epub, and despite some anti-hype, epub is a great container for any content you want to distribute digitally.

4. Will people be able to buy books and read them on Ibis?

We sure hope so. For us, it’s critical that paid content be almost as frictionless as free content. Anyone who’s bought an ebook lately (outside of the Kindle hardware ecosystem) knows that it’s anything but straightforward to buy digital books. So we won’t go ahead until we’re happy with our approach.

5. Will publishers be able to sell books to Ibis users?

We’re definitely interested in talking to publishers who want to be able to sell direct-to-consumer. That’s been very successful for small to medium niche publishers.

6. What’s so great about HTML 5?

HTML5 has definitely been a wild ride. It’s got weaknesses for sure — Ibis Reader on a mobile device definitely isn’t as fast or as feature-filled as a native app, and Android doesn’t behave the same as the iPhone. There are limitations we’d love to be able to overcome. On the other hand, it’s a tremendous asset for a tiny company to have a cross-platform environment to work with, and adoption of HTML5 on devices and by consumers is only going to grow. It’s a good place to be even though it hasn’t been easy.

7. What is the relationship between ePub and HTML5?

Right now it’s uncertain. There’s definitely movement within the IDPF to make some kind of forward-looking statement about HTML5. In particular I think it’s critical that we adopt the <video> tag, to avoid unintentionally tying ePub to proprietary technologies like Flash. But HTML5 is more than just video and offline usage, and I don’t want ePub to stagnate.

8. What about DRM and Ibis?

Easy question. No DRM.

9. What do you think is the biggest challenge to for ebooks in the next few years?

Right now the fight is over pricing, but I think ease of purchase is the real barrier to consumer adoption. It’s so puzzling right now. People are going to be much more willing to pay publishers’ dream prices if they can just get the books with minimal hassle and have some of the same freedoms of use that print books have allowed.

10. What do you think about global markets for ebooks?

This is a huge area for us. I expect mobile reading and information access to be a key growth area for digital content globally, and in the developing world especially. The old publishing territorial rights models aren’t going to last long. I can’t think of a better way to ensure that ebook piracy becomes entrenched than a refusal to adopt worldwide rights for digital content sales. During Ibis development we’ve taken special care to make sure that we fully support non-English content and scripts.

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Find out more about Liza & Three Press Consulting, and go play with Ibis Reader!

The question you might ask yourself is: who is creating all that text? Well, if you are reading this, there’s a good chance that you are.

You might ask another question: who’s going to edit all that text? And if you are reading this, we’re hoping you’ll help with some of it.

Connecting Writers, Readers, and Word-lovers

That’s why we built Bite-Size Edits: so that people who write text can connect with people who can improve it. Usually that implies a vice versa.

Last month, we announced that we’d split Bite-Size Edits out of Book Oven, but it was a very bare-bones affair: text in, editing, text out. But while editing is the reason for the existence of Bite-Size Edits, the real power lies in connecting writers, readers, editors and people who love words.

We’ve just released a whole host of new social features: contacts, random editing, privacy controls on texts, and much more. We’ve built in some gamish stuff too – everything you do in Bite-Size Edits will win you points, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Try It, It’s Fun!

So, we invite you to come take a look at the new Bite-Size Edits, to add some text for editing, and even better, to do some editing yourself.

Bite-Size Edits is a work-in-progress, and we’d love to get your feedback, suggestions, as well as your complaints.

You can tell us what you think by:

* sending us an email at: contact AT bitesizeedits DOT com

* @’ing us on Twitter at: @bookoven or @bitesizeedits

* submitting bug reports or user feedback at: http://feedback.bitesizeedits.com

But the iPad represents a fundamental shift in the metaphors and language of “computing.” Or rather it extends that shift that was tested first in our pockets with the iPhone, and brings it to our desks, our coffee tables … everywhere else. The iPad is a huge change.

We have lived for the past twenty + years in an engineer’s universe of computing, where layers of implicit understanding – about file structures, multiple programs, menu idiosyncrasies, nomenclature – are required to figure out how to make your computer do what you want it to do. To many of us, these metaphors are completely embedded in our brains. So we can’t understand how someone like, say, my mother, can’t figure out how to use her scanner software. XKDC captures exactly our frustration, with this flowchart to be printed out and given to our less technically astute family members:

To most of “us” this flowchart says: “It’s easy to figure out computers, you just play around until they work.”

But for people like my mother, asking her to play around with her computer until it works kind of like asking me to play around with a German dictionary until I speak German. It can probably be done, but it’s not going to happen. My mother, like 99% of computer users, wants her computer to help her do some basic things: send email, write a document, scan a file. And yet look, for instance at Excel – a veritable locomotive of an application — powerful, robust, mature, flexible. But in fact most of us just need to add and subtract a few numbers, and multiply or divide the results. That’s not to say that there is anything wrong with Excel, but, as with most software, there is so much flexibility that in fact it is difficult for some people to use. Further, that flexibility ends up causing all sorts of problems when unwanted options or formats or behviours suddenly inject themselves into what you are doing.

Apple’s OSX is cheered for its simplicity and intuitiveness, but it is still built on the same engineering-based metaphors, natural metaphors to many of us, but baffling to a huge number of people.

The iPhone was a revelation though. Because space is so constrained on a mobile device, all those things that we expect from our computers – the options and the features and the controls – either disappeared, or were so removed from the user as to be irrelevant.

iPhone apps were forced by the constraints of the platform to do something revolutionary: to do one thing well.

When that thing is something people want to do, the apps are successful.

Extending this design principle beyond a small phone to a larger device will alter the way we think about software, our relationship with “computers” – and the network. Some – many – will decry our loss of control with the iPad, but I can assure you: my mother doesn’t want to control her computer, she wants her computer to help her do what she wants to do. Controlling a computer is the last thing on her mind. As for me, while I like controlling my computer, there are many more interesting and useful things I would prefer to do with my time.

As Fraser Speirs says:

Many will cling to their January-26th notions of what it takes to get “real work” done; cling to the idea that the computer-based part of it is the “real work”.

It’s not. The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.
The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table’s order, designing the house and organising the party. [more...]

I don’t know if the iPad will be commercially successful, but I believe it represents a fundamental shift in the metaphors of computing, as significant as the move from text to graphical interfaces.

[PS: numerous conversations about the iphone shaped these thoughts, especially a delightful conversation in Ludlow with Chris Hughes, about his computer-hating father who loves his iPhone.

PPS: The iPad is not going to save publishing. A few more percentage points (OK, a lot more) on sales, a more flexible agency pricing model, and crucially another big player to compete for publishers against Amazon is going to help, yes. But it is not going to change structural problems of the business. The fundamental value publishers provide is connecting readers to writers. Digital shifts the balance of power (choice, availability, competition) towards the reader. The publishers who win will be those who embrace the reader enthusiastically. And a fancy device isn't going to do that for them.]

The BookServer is a growing open architecture for vending and lending digital books over the Internet. Built on open catalog and open book formats, the BookServer model allows a wide network of publishers, booksellers, libraries, and even authors to make their catalogs of books available directly to readers through their laptops, phones, netbooks, or dedicated reading devices. BookServer facilitates pay transactions, borrowing books from libraries, and downloading free, publicly accessible books. [more...]

Book Oven, particularly my colleague Stephanie, has been deeply involved in the working group of the BookServer project, helping organize the crafting of standards to make this all happen. In the long run, it will make it easier and cheaper to distribute books throughout the universe, and capture the conversations around them.

Looking forward to the official public launch tonight.

As a recently-published book author (of the excellent Six Pixels of Separation), Mitch took the strong position that a book is pages and text, bound together with a cover. Other things – ebooks, audiobooks, ebooks with video & dancing elephants – are just not books.

I’m less of a purist, of course. I’ve read numerous books on my iphone, and though I do like to buy the paper copy as well, my iphone reading is no less book-reading than my paper reading.

I’ve pitched before that we should make the following distinction, since when you are talking about these things you want to be able to tell the difference:

• ebooks are electronic books
• bookbooks are paper books
• book is the species; ebooks, bookbooks, audiobooks, etc are genera

In any case, I’m not sure that the debate really matters. What we call the thing isn’t so important, is it?

The bigger question is: what is a book for. And are there better ways to help a “book” do what it’s supposed to do? O’Reilly’s Andrew Savikas argued recently that many are looking at things totally upside down when they ask: “How can we replicate a book on an iphone?” I agree totally, but let me quote Andrew directly:

The bigger issue I see is that thinking of the problem as “how do we get a textbook onto an iPhone” is framing it wrong. The challenge is “how do we use a medium that already shares 3 of our 5 senses — eyes, ears, and a mouth — along with geolocation, color video, and a nearly-always-on Web connection to accomplish the ‘job’ of educating a student.” That’s a much more interesting problem to me than “how do we port 2-page book layouts to a small screen.” [more...]

So again, I think asking and trying to answer the question, “What is a book?” is the wrong sort of thing to spend time on. What a book “is” doesn’t matter.

What matters is how we – readers, publishers, technologists – achieve what we want. At one point, reading a bookbook (or having it read to you) was the best (certainly the cheapest and most efficient) way to get the information contained in a book transferred into your brain. But bookbooks aren’t the only game in town anymore.

And all of us have to start asking: what are books for? And can we do that thing they are for any better with new technologies and creativity? In some cases, the answer will be no. In others, certainly it’ll be yes. The real new value in publishing will come as we find new and better ways to do whatever it is books are for; and, I’ll bet that in some cases, the good old bookbook will be the best tool for doing what books are for. Whatever that is.

Speaking of which, what is a book for?

[pic by Brett Jordan]