It’s amazing stuff, he promises. And you’ll see it sooner rather than later.

“They have a new set of products, which are phenomenal,” he told Ina Fried and Liz Gannes at D: Dive into Mobile today. “Very, very impressive.”

Ah. Great! So, is he talking about a new generation of phones, or some other stuff that isn’t a phone? “Think of it as phones-plus,” Schmidt said, stone-faced.

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering when Google’s newest wonder product, its cool/creepy Glass glasses, will become mainstream, Schmidt says it has already happened — on the Google campus. It’s totally normal to see people wearing the all-seeing spectacles, all the time, he said.

But what about people who have insisted they want no part of Glass, and have started preemptively banning it from their premises? “I always love people who ban things they’ve never even seen,” Schmidt said.

According to sources, Amazon paid about $150 million for Goodreads, the popular books recommendation service. But that number could close in on $200 million, if certain performance metrics are met.

And, while BusinessWeek ran a we-are-just-guessing story today that posited a self-described “overly simple, back-of-the-envelope estimate” of $1 billion, sources said that number is simply wrong.

I am still trying to determine how much of the deal was cash — most of it, said sources — and how much was stock.

The San Francisco-based Goodreads had raised close to $3 million from a range of angel investors, as well as True Ventures. The sale is a big win for the firm, which apparently owned between 20 percent and 30 percent of Goodreads.

The online retail giant bought the company to help its book-y social discovery efforts for customers.

Amazon declined to comment, but the Seattle-based company said previously that the deal should close in the second quarter. It’s not the first time Amazon has bought a social book site — in 2008, the company acquired Shelfari for under $10 million.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg might still be trying to figure out the social networking giant’s mobile monetization strategy, but there’s one thing she has locked: The top spot on two of the most important bestseller lists at the same time.

This week, for the first time, her “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” ranked No. 1 on the influential New York Times list for hardcover nonfiction, as well as for combined print and e-book nonfiction. The list, which appears in this coming Sunday’s issue of the New York Times Book Review, actually reflects sales for the week ending March 16, 2013.

“Lean In” has been on Amazon’s top 100 list of all books for much longer — in fact, for 32 days. The tome on the many difficulties faced by women in the workforce reached No. 1 status several weeks ago.

The official release date of the book was March 11, which was followed by a publicity blitz of massive proportions, including the cover of Time magazine, huge takeouts in innumerable newspapers, and laudatory television pieces on “60 Minutes” and with Oprah Winfrey.

“Lean In” has also attracted a huge dollop of controversy, with everyone and their mother (and my mother, Lucky, too) arguing over its merits, as well as its message — including whether Sandberg blamed women too much for the lack of advancement in the executive ranks.

She doesn’t, actually — if you read it, which many pundits appear to not have done. But that has not stopped the rigorous and welcome debate over the important issue, which seems to be exactly what Sandberg was aiming for.

Sales appear to have been widespread, but seem to also be helped by big purchases by companies such as Cisco, which are encouraging employees to read it.

A trio of high-profile tech communications execs from Twitter (Sean Garrett), Facebook (Brandee Barker), and Skype (Brian O’Shaughnessy), have joined forces to create a new firm called the Pramana Collective.

While PR types don’t usually get a lot of the attention, the joining of these three top Silicon Valley players is enough of a news event to warrant some mention.

(If only to try to figure out a good joke to make about its name, which sounds like a line of skin care products at a spa you can’t afford. I do like to amuse myself.)

Actually, according to a blog post from Garrett, which is below, Pramana is “the means by which one obtains accurate knowledge or true perception.”

(Namaste, and let’s hope that means Barker will finally give me a real comment when I shove my video camera in her face — inside joke alert!)

In all seriousness, communications is a critical part of the digital ecosystem, and this is a strong group. Barker, who was Facebook’s first PR head, has been doing a lot of consulting work since she left there; she was a key part of the team involved in the launch of “Lean In,” the unavoidable book by the social networking site’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg. O’Shaughnessy has just left the owner-changing Skype, and before that, he worked in key PR roles at Google. Lastly, longtime communications exec Garrett led the PR team at Twitter through some of its bumpiest years.

Here’s Garrett’s full blog post, which will give you enlightenment on the whole thing:

Finding Pramana

Brandee Barker has the calming wisdom of someone who learned a lifetime of lessons in her four years at Facebook. She started the company’s communications team and was its leader during Facebook’s most formative, fast-moving years. Brandee recognized that when you are moving at mind-bending speeds, you have to make 100 decisions a day and, within those, a few mistakes will be made. Brandee recognized and learned from both these mistakes and the many more successes gained by her and her team. She was my inspiration during my own journey of mistake/success reflection after my similar ride at Twitter.

Brian O’Shaughnessy makes things look easy. Yet, once you get past his self-deprecating jokes and his insistence on shining the light on others, you realize that you came away from a conversation with him twice as smart as when you started. And, one of most complex communications job in the last four years was running Skype’s. During that time, the company was owned by eBay, was spun out to a private equity consortium and then was sold to Microsoft. Off the 30 original eBay/Skype management team when Brian started in 2008. He left in February as the last remaining one. This wasn’t easy. It reflects on Brian’s innate ability to bring disparate people and perspectives together to forge successful strategies through leadership defined by bullshit-free objectivity and a mastery of technical knowledge.

Brandee and Brian share an unwavering sense of loyalty, strength of character and a desire to apply their learnings to something meaningful.

I feel the same way. And I’m pleased to join these two people that I have so much respect for as partners and co-founders of The Pramana Collective.

Since The Pramana Collective comes from the same place as the philosophies that I’ve clearly, if infrequently, written about here, I won’t dive into our feelings about the state of communications and the great changes that all corners of marketing are facing as lines between disciplines blur. But, practically, this change will have us focused on client needs and not definitions of marketing terminology or dated dividing lines. For example, whatever ‘PR’ was and currently may be to some is not relevant to us now — nor was it when we ran teams at Facebook, Skype and Twitter.

The Pramana Collective is a project-focused communications consultancy. This means that we will work with an organization to help meet a specific opportunity or solve a particular issue for a finite period of time. Among the offering mix will be branding, messaging, campaign development, and road mapping communications functions. This is the type of work that Brandee and I have both enjoyed doing as consultants since Facebook and Twitter.

What we won’t do is stick around to be an agency of record that provides ongoing support. We will provide objective recommendations on next steps and, as needed, suggest and help attain ongoing solutions of all stripes (in-house hires, consultants, agencies) to see through strategies. We look forward to partnering with our network of industry colleagues to find solutions for our clients long term interests.

Despite each of us having 20-plus years of experiences, multiple stints running comms teams for high-profile companies where we had amazing internal and external teams; we all would have benefited in the past from having access to a partner peer set that provided actionable intelligence, straightforward advice and a pure project solution mindset like The Pramana Collective’s offering.

When you are moving at a blindingly fast pace while trying to grow a team that’s never quite big enough, it can be a constant battle to stay ahead of being reactive to both external and internal forces and create space to form proactive campaigns around important initiatives and big moments — be they known well in advance or appear suddenly. We look forward to working with all sizes and types of organizations that share our interest in substantive, transparent and integrated communications.

This brings us to our name — The Pramana Collective. For you logophiles the full definition of Pramana is here, but, in short, it’s the means by which one obtains accurate knowledge or true perception. We believe that an organization’s sometimes hidden or obscured truths are the most powerful messages to drive a conversation. And, the “collective” will be our employees, clients and partners who both feel and act the same way.

Our first priority is hiring like-minded people from both the traditional comms world and other marketing disciplines who command the respect of entrepreneurs and executives. Indeed, getting the word broadly out to top talent who may be mapping out next moves is our primary motivation to talking about our consultancy’s formation now. If you are interested or merely curious, find me at sean at pramanacollective dot com.

And know that we believe that the best people need to have dynamic careers. As our projects will be diverse in scope, so will be the professional paths of individuals on our team. We may be a long-term opportunity for some and, for others, we might be an opportunity to attain broad perspective in between in-house jobs. Indeed, we plan to borrow the entrepreneur in residence (EIR) model that venture capital firms use.

We’ve got a lot of work to do. Having a basic web site would be nice. Regardless, whether it’s teaming on the small stuff or the profound, getting to work with Brandee and Brian already has made this journey one worth taking.

(Photo of Garrett, Barker and O’Shaughnessy courtesy of Steve Maller)

As most of the free world knows by now — from the ubiquitous media coverage that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and her new book, “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” has gotten of late — there are some nagging issues of women in the workplace.

That was also underscored by the huge debate that arose over Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s new rule for the Silicon Valley Internet giant that eliminated work-from-home employees.

Now, Cisco CEO John Chambers is weighing in, after a meeting with Sandberg last week, ordering each of his top managers to come up with new women-focused initiatives and put them into their development plans.

More interestingly, in an internal email I obtained, he also noted that his own leadership in the area had been lacking.

“While I have always considered myself sensitive to and effective on gender issues in the workplace, my eyes were opened in new ways and I feel a renewed sense of urgency to make the progress we haven’t made in the last decade,” wrote Chambers.

He pointed out that only one-fourth of the networking giant’s employees and top execs are women, and only 20 percent out of one million networking academy students are women. Currently, Cisco’s highest-ranking woman is Padmasree Warrior, its CTO and strategy officer, and it has three women board members.

Still, wrote Chambers:

“After reading Lean In and listening to Sheryl, I realize that, while I believe I am relatively enlightened, I have not consistently walked the talk … What we have been doing hasn’t worked, and it is time to adjust.”

Here’s the whole memo:

From: John Chambers
Date: March 8, 2013, 6:21:49 PM PST
To: John Chambers
Subject: International Working Women’s Day … Cisco Resolution

To my leaders:

I had the opportunity yesterday to discuss Sheryl Sandberg’s new book Lean In with Sheryl and a group of my CEO peers. While I have always considered myself sensitive to and effective on gender issues in the workplace, my eyes were opened in new ways and I feel a renewed sense of urgency to make the progress we haven’t made in the last decade.

The data is startling. Women hold less than 14% of CEO positions, 17% of board seats globally, and 18% of congressional officials … and these numbers have not changed in a decade. At Cisco, less than 25% of our employees — and our leaders — are women. Only 20% of our current one-million networking academy students are women.

Today is International Working Women’s Day, and I want us, the leaders of Cisco, to see this as a leadership moment. Without realizing it, we operate every day with gender stereotypes and biases, many of which we do not realize. After reading Lean In and listening to Sheryl, I realize that, while I believe I am relatively enlightened, I have not consistently walked the talk. I think each of you, on reflection, will identify opportunities to operate at a new level with your women employees, leaders, customers, partners, and peers. I believe we — together — need to drive a fundamental culture change and it is up to us as leaders to make this change happen. What we have been doing hasn’t worked, and it is time to adjust.

I have two specific asks for each of you: 1) please read the copy of Lean In you will be receiving shortly, before we get to the SVP/VP off-site and 2) determine 3-4 specific things you will do differently and detail those commitments in your development plan and if you need help, please contact Sandy Hoffman, Chief Diversity Officer.

I know each of us will have a different explanation and a different solution, and there is power in the diversity of those ideas in driving change. I am asking two champions — Chuck Robbins and Kelly Kramer — to take a leadership role in moving us forward. I will ask them to report to the Operating Committee every quarter on the progress we have made and the action plans in place.

I think Sheryl says it best: “We can no longer pretend that biases don’t exist, nor can we talk around them … the result of creating a more equal environment will not just be better performance for our organizations, but quite likely greater happiness for all.”

Kath Weslock, Chief Human Resources Officer and I look forward to discussing this topic with many of you. We believe we have an opportunity to make a tremendous difference, and in so doing benefit our people, our culture, our company and, just maybe, the world.

John

Co-founded by Sandberg, serial entrepreneur Gina Bianchini, Debi Hemmeter and Rachel Thomas, the site will operate as a startup, with a full-time staff of four members who will continuously work on the site, updating and launching products as necessary.

The idea goes hand in hand with the major theme of Sandberg’s book, which “contains practical advice for women — and the men who want to help them — on how to lean in and close the gap” between the two, which Sandberg told AllThingsD previously.

The site’s appeal hinges on three primary features: A community section, where folks are encouraged to share stories on how to achieve their goals; an education section, which offers free online courses; and “Circles,” which are smaller, more intimate gatherings both on- and offline for people who want to dive further into the program.

While “Lean In” is all but guaranteed to be a bestseller with all the publicity leading up to the launch, there are no guarantees the website and organizational component of the plan will take off. It all depends on how well Sandberg and company can foster a community (which strikes me as somewhat funny, given her Facebook-ian background).

The site is live now, for all to see and visit, and the book will be released next week.

Take one Silicon Valley exec. Who is rich. Who is a woman. Who seems, on the superficial surface at least, to have it all. Mix with high-profile book she has penned about gender issues in the workplace and a social networking effort to organize around. Sprinkle in some fear, some loathing and a generous dollop of startlingly ignorant assertions about how new media works. Bake in the spotlight for a millisecond.

Voila: Sheryl Sandberg Flambé.

Indeed, at this early point in the marketing game of the well-known Facebook COO’s new book, “Lean In,” the unusual level of vitriol aimed at her is, frankly, is eye-opening. While there is plenty that smart people can disagree with in her tome — after all, this is a very hot-button issue — the fact that it has ratcheted up this far before the March 11 publication date says a lot about a lot of things.

Not the least of which is that the relationship between old media and new media is, in the parlance of the huge Silicon Valley social networking company, complicated.

Consider Jodi Kantor’s New York Times article, titled “A Titan’s How-To on Breaking the Glass Ceiling,” which appeared at the end of last week.

As it was crafted, it immediately went right after Sandberg’s “carefully orchestrated media campaign” — leaving aside the pertinent fact that in this noisy day and age, every big media launch is carefully orchestrated — and then immediately took issue with her effort to start “Lean In Circles”

Oddly described by Kantor, the site is one on “which women can share experiences and follow a Sandberg-crafted curriculum for career success.” Actually, it was a little more complex than that, with major contributions from the highly regarded Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University to this effort.

Then, Kantor uses a sensationally arrogant-sounding Sandberg quote — “I always thought I would run a social movement” — from a recent video interview. As it turns out, though, it’s only a partial lift and almost totally out of context.

In full, it is about how Sandberg thought she would be a do-gooder who would doubtlessly not make much money: “I always thought I would run a social movement, which meant basically work in a nonprofit. I never thought I would work in the corporate sector.”

Then comes my favorite part from the Times piece: “With less than three weeks until launch — which will include a spread in Time magazine and splashy events like a book party at Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s home — organizers cannot say how many more groups may sprout up.”

Hmm. Hmm. They can’t say. Wow. Perhaps that’s because Lean In Circles have not started yet? You know, the service has not opened and therefore no one is using it.

Could Instagram have said how that piles of would use it before it started, especially since its first iteration was a dud? Nope! Could YouTube have known “Oppa Gangnam Style” was going to be a ginormous hit? Nope! Could the New York Times have known that it might have wanted to get ahead of this Internet thing before it decimated their business? Nope!

Here’s the thing — you can’t really fail before you start, but perhaps that’s just a Silicon Valley thing.

Let’s be clear, the “Lean In Circles” might turn out to be a big zero and perhaps Sandberg cannot compel women to use them. It could be an online ghost town. Or it could be very popular.

Who knows? All I am certain of is that it will — as the success of most online products depend on — be about whether people find whatever Sandberg is offering useful.

Also wrong is an account of Lean In essays that Sandberg has requested from some prominent women, which Kantor underscored asks for happy endings. True, but not quite if you read the whole document, which also says in part:

“Leaning in means pushing through the challenges and going down a path with an uncertain outcome. The path often leads to a positive internal result (newfound confidence, strength or determination) and often an external
reward (promotion, raise or goal achieved.) Leaning back means choosing to stay in a known or comfortable situation. This often leads to an internal
realization (desire to grow, change, consider leaning in the next time) and possibly a negative external result (stagnation, missed opportunities, loss of income.)”

After that, like many pieces so far, the article is all about how rich ladies with big houses and nannies should not lecture to other ladies without them. Perhaps that is so in some contexts and there is no question that her own massive success might be Sandberg’s most potent Achilles heel in trying to get her message out.

But in my reading, book as a whole is less grand and tsk-tsk than I expected and more about the plethora of depressing stats about women in the workplace, as well as some advice that has vaunted her to the top.

Lots of high-profile male execs have done this without the same level of anger directed at them. Thus, even though Sandberg is not the bilious and appalling as Donald Trump, she does not get to pontificate in any way that seems like, you know, she’s had some traction in the workplace — the Treasury Department, Google, Facebook — and might have some good tips to share.

Interesting, though it was not the only media account like this, the Times then followed today with one of the more bizarre and hyperactive columns I have seen of late by Maureen Dowd, who never met a pun she did not abuse mercilessly (and I love a good pun!).

“She has a grandiose plan to become the PowerPoint Pied Piper in Prada ankle boots reigniting the women’s revolution — Betty Friedan for the digital age,” Dowd wrote, also using the out-of-context Sandberg quote again to make her obtuse point. “She seems to think she can remedy social paradigms with a new kind of club — a combo gabfest, Oprah session and corporate pep talk. (Where’s the yoga?).”

Unpacking all those disparate images is a task for someone else with more energy than I have, but it becomes less comical when she goes all digital media expert.

“People come to a social movement from the bottom up, not the top down,” wrote Dowd. “Just because digital technology makes connecting possible doesn’t mean you’re actually reaching people.”

Um, no, it does not — and I am not sure who said it did. Although I am certain Sandberg knows more than Dowd about reaching people online and the potential for getting them to act.

Still, it is just a start and Sandberg does not seem to be saying otherwise. And perhaps it is a good thing to debate whether book is pushing women meet goals they perhaps cannot.

Or — maybe, just maybe — it is a little more complicated. In fact, it is a lot more complicated — the issue of women at work is a thorny issue –which is why it will be interesting to see if Sandberg’s book and social network will have an impact or not.

To be clear, I have no idea if it will and neither does anyone else. No one thought Facebook would have a billion users (I definitely did not!).

That answer is to come, of course, after what will doubtlessly be a rollout where the turbulence is just beginning.

“We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in,” wrote Sandberg in her book.

True that. That’s because, as it turns out, leaning in turns out to mean a very bumpy ride for those who do.

Last week, I ambled over to the Founders Den in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood to talk to California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom about his new book, “Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government.”

For the book, described as a “rallying cry for revolutionizing democracy in the digital age,” the former San Francisco mayor, who also ran for governor of California, interviewed dozens of politicians, Internet players and other digital thinkers.

Newsom’s point is to turn citizens into collaborators in the operation of government, changing it from what he describes as a “vending machine” now to an inclusive and interactive social platform.

Here’s my longish video interview with Newsom:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130211/gavin-newson-talks-about-transparent-government-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130210/study-online-media-pays-off-for-consumers-more-than-offline/ http://allthingsd.com/20130210/study-online-media-pays-off-for-consumers-more-than-offline/#comments Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:00:21 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=293269

Apparently, you can get media satisfaction — as long as you are online as opposed to offline.

According to a new study by the Boston Consulting Group, consumers accrue more value from their online media usage than from their offline consumption.

The new research report — titled “Follow the Surplus: How U.S. Consumers Value Online Media” — calculated that the average U.S. online user got a “consumer surplus” of $970, compared to $900 from offline media.

BCG defines consumer surplus as “the value consumers themselves place on a media-related activity or product over and above what they pay for it.”

The report looked at seven categories — books, radio and music, U.S. newspapers and magazines, TV and movies, video games, international newspapers and magazines and user-generated content and social networks.

The largest chunk of online consumer satisfaction came from UGC and social, such as use of Facebook and Google’s YouTube, which makes sense since the actual cost is nearly zero — making any benefit essentially digital gravy.

Books were where the least consumer surplus was online. That’s not a surprise, said BCG senior partner John Rose, who coauthored the report, but it is likely to change soon with the increasing popularity and proliferation of a variety of devices.

That’s double from three years ago, with the average consumer now owning 2.9 devices, such as mobile smartphones and tablets. It will increase to 4.1 in three years, said the BCG report. Also up, of course, is the number of hours spent online, which — in turn — dramatically increases the value of online media consumption.

Advertisers still have not caught up with consumers, of course. “The value is from the consumers’ perspective and not the advertisers’ perspective yet,” said Rose, in an interview. “The business models are still not in place to support what consumers already know they want.”

Gender is not an issue, with men and women both consuming about 12 hours a week of online content. But men listen to more music, while women prefer social interaction more.

Another interesting result, read the report: “By a margin of some five to one, U.S. consumers are more excited about the Internet’s potential rewards than they are worried about the potential risks.”

In other words, they like online media, they really like it.

That’s why, said Rose, the medium and the business model will evenutally come together.

“Different people will say different things about when it will come together and not if it will come together,” said Rose. “Advertisers have always found ways to create value, even if they have not done it yet with online media.”

There are lots of other interesting findings and charts from BCG, some of which are embedded below (click to enlarge them and the whole report can be found and downloaded here).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130210/study-online-media-pays-off-for-consumers-more-than-offline/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20130201/eric-schmidt-unloads-on-china-in-new-book/ http://allthingsd.com/20130201/eric-schmidt-unloads-on-china-in-new-book/#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2013 23:39:00 +0000 Tom Gara http://allthingsd.com/?p=290921 Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is brutally clear: China is the most dangerous superpower on Earth.

Corporate Intelligence reviewed preliminary galleys of Schmidt’s new book, “The New Digital Age,” (Random House) which debuts in April. And Schmidt’s views on China stand out the strongest amid often predictable techno-utopian views of the future.

Some of these views are both cliched and camera-ready . He imagines that soon an “illiterate Maasai cattle herder in the Serengeti” will use a smartphone to “inquire the day’s market prices and crowd-source the whereabouts of any nearby predators.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130201/eric-schmidt-unloads-on-china-in-new-book/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20130121/viral-video-samuel-l-jackson-channels-taylor-swift-oh-goody/ http://allthingsd.com/20130121/viral-video-samuel-l-jackson-channels-taylor-swift-oh-goody/#comments Mon, 21 Jan 2013 22:38:15 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=287200

A while back, the incomparable actor Samuel L. Jackson did an epic reading of the book “Go the F**k to Sleep.” Now, the “Django Unchained” movie star is taking on an even bigger task, with a dramatic take on Taylor Swift’s I-lost-another-boyfriend song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” for a radio show.

Enjoy (it’s really enjoyable):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130121/viral-video-samuel-l-jackson-channels-taylor-swift-oh-goody/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121121/viral-video-the-creepy-alien-movie-from-the-twilight-lady/ http://allthingsd.com/20121121/viral-video-the-creepy-alien-movie-from-the-twilight-lady/#comments Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:16:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=271560

It’s called “The Host,” and it’s all depressing sci-fi future, with the usual aliens occupying human bodies and taking over the whole world. You know who’s been snatched if they have glowing eyes.

More importantly, it is the movie of the book that came after Stephenie Meyer’s hugely popular “Twilight” series about vampire love.

This one’s also got an alien-human love story going, but it looks less earnestly earnest.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121121/viral-video-the-creepy-alien-movie-from-the-twilight-lady/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121027/missing-from-surface-tablet-barnes-nobles-nook-app/ http://allthingsd.com/20121027/missing-from-surface-tablet-barnes-nobles-nook-app/#comments Sat, 27 Oct 2012 21:56:37 +0000 Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Keach Hagey http://allthingsd.com/?p=264226 When Microsoft agreed to invest $300 million in Barnes & Noble’s new subsidiary Nook Media LLC earlier this year, Barnes & Noble committed to creating a Nook e-reading app for Microsoft’s new Surface tablet. But with the tablet’s release Friday, that app is missing in action.

In contrast Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle app is already available to be downloaded free. The online retailer said in a release that “customers around the world can now download this free app and enjoy Amazon’s selection of over 1.5 million books at the best prices, including over 200,000 exclusive titles.”

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121027/missing-from-surface-tablet-barnes-nobles-nook-app/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121004/address-book-app-brewster-now-factors-in-location-fixes-favorites/ http://allthingsd.com/20121004/address-book-app-brewster-now-factors-in-location-fixes-favorites/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:44:03 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=257053 Brewster, the smartphone app that pulls all of your digital address books into one place, has introduced some new features meant to make your digital life management that much easier — even if you’ve got thousands of “friends” in those contact lists.

The free iPhone app now factors in your location so that nearby friends pop up at the top of your contact list. And searching by keyword through your Brewster address book now offers more refined results.

For example, a search for “running” might previously have brought up lists of people who enjoy jogging and run their own companies, without any obvious distinction between the two. Now, users can see more details about each contact.

The app also has improved its algorithm for “Favorites,” a section of the app that shows who you contact the most in a colorful, tile-like photo format. Early on, some users said that the app wasn’t really showing them who their favorite contacts were; Brewster says it has now tweaked the app so that Favorites are truly top contacts. Favorites also shows your last method of communication with that person.

Brewster is the creation of New York-based entrepreneur Steve Greenwood, formerly of Facebook-acquired Drop.io. Greenwood says he had been formulating the idea for Brewster for five years before the product launched, using his extensive Excel spreadsheet (with more than 7,000 personal contacts and 30 category tabs) as a test case for the app.

It’s one of at least a few start-ups looking to tackle contact-management. My AllThingsD colleague Liz Gannes points out in her interview with Greenwood that apps like Xobni and Cue also offer “smart” address books. As consumers gather more and more contacts across multiple email and social networking accounts (far exceeding Dunbar’s number), some are turning to helpful utility apps like these to help them keep track of people.

But after the Path debacle last February, privacy is, naturally, of utmost importance to app users who are asked to give apps like Brewster access to accounts like Gmail, Facebook and Twitter upon signing up.

Brewster launched in July to a warm reception in the tech start-up world, but hit a small bump in the road early on. That same week, Brewster briefly exposed the contact information of some users, including actor and tech investor Ashton Kutcher. The company quickly fixed the bug.

Greenwood has insisted that users’ contact information should remain private, and that the company will not sell user data.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121004/address-book-app-brewster-now-factors-in-location-fixes-favorites/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20121002/a-little-night-reading-with-light-up-devices/ http://allthingsd.com/20121002/a-little-night-reading-with-light-up-devices/#comments Tue, 02 Oct 2012 22:11:01 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=256398 We’ve all been there: The person on one side of the bed is ready to sleep while the person on the other side wants to stay up and read a little longer. The night owl usually wins because the sleepy one is too tired to argue.

I’m the night owl in this scenario. Since my husband wakes up an hour and a half earlier than I do each morning, he always closes his book first, leaving me reading with the light on and feeling guilty. Some people with iPads find they can read in the dark by the glow of their LCD screens. But if you’re like me and you use a more traditional e-reader, like Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s Nook, you need another light source to finish your chapter.

Now, both Amazon and Barnes & Noble offer touchscreen e-readers with lit screens. Amazon’s $119 Kindle Paperwhite started shipping on Monday for $119, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight launched in April for $139, but this week it dropped to $119.

The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight.

Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite.

Good news: Both e-readers will give sleepy spouses a chance to snooze. For the past week, I’ve used them to read guilt-free in the dark, finishing chapters of Ruth Reichl’s memoir, “Tender at the Bone.” These e-readers’ lights came in handy in other places, too, like while I stood waiting on dimly lighted subway platforms or in certain spots in my house where the light isn’t ideal for reading. I still think reading with a lamp is easiest on my eyes, but these are the next best thing.

Though each device’s light worked as advertised, I found myself reaching for the Kindle Paperwhite more often because it had a more even-looking light than the Nook with GlowLight. And the Kindle’s light comes from LEDs at the bottom of the screen, while the Nook’s LEDs are at the top where they were more noticeable, given the angle at which I comfortably hold books to read.

Neither of these lights looks flawless: With both, I saw lines on the screen near where their LED lights shone onto the page.

Amazon says its Kindle Paperwhite screen has 25 percent higher contrast than previous Kindles, and text looked crisp and easy to read. Its Wi-Fi version costs $119, and it’s also available with a 3G connection for $179. But for these prices, Amazon Special Offers appear on lock screens every time the Paperwhite is in sleep mode. To buy a device without these ads, you’ll have to pay $20 more. And the Paperwhite’s power adapter is sold separately for $10.

At $119, Barnes & Noble’s Nook with GlowLight costs the same as the Kindle Paperwhite but doesn’t have ads on its screen and ships with a power adapter. It’s only available in a Wi-Fi model, not 3G for people who want an e-reader with an always-on Internet connection.

The lights on these devices work differently. The Kindle Paperwhite’s light comes on as soon as you wake the device from sleep and start using it. The light technically never turns off; it can only be turned down to a low level that looks like it’s off. The Paperwhite’s light-use instructions appear on screen and tell people to use a high setting in brightly lighted rooms and a low setting in dark rooms. This sounds counterintuitive, but an Amazon spokeswoman explained the company believes the most comfortable reading experience is when the light of the display isn’t much brighter than the surroundings.

Sure enough, when I was having trouble sleeping and reached over for the Paperwhite, I read books at light level six (out of 24) because my eyes were adjusted to the dark.

When you wake the Nook with GlowLight from sleep, its light doesn’t go on automatically. But a simple move turns the light on and off: Press and hold the little “n” button below the screen for two seconds. Like the Kindle Paperwhite, an adjustable scale turns the light up or down, though the lower lighting levels of the Nook GlowLight didn’t look as good as the Kindle Paperwhite.

In the hand, the Nook with GlowLight is wider than the Kindle Paperwhite, but the Paperwhite is a bit longer when measured from the top to bottom. The Nook with GlowLight has subtle physical buttons between the screen and the edge of the device, giving you ways to flip pages without touching the screen. I like using this option when my hands are covered in sunscreen at the beach.

As is expected, the battery life for both devices is affected by the lights, but is still very good. Amazon estimates the Kindle Paperwhite will last eight weeks with its light on. Barnes & Noble says the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight will last for a month with its light on and two months with the light off. Both companies tested battery life for a half-hour of daily reading with Wi-Fi off.

If you still can’t decide, some of Amazon’s extra features may sell you. Certain titles from the bookselling giant include a feature called X-ray, which displays extra details about the book. And the Kindle Paperwhite can receive library books via Wi-Fi, while the Nook uses a clumsy transferring technique that requires a USB cord.

Email katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121002/a-little-night-reading-with-light-up-devices/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120913/rick-smolans-newest-project-will-try-to-breathe-life-into-big-data/ http://allthingsd.com/20120913/rick-smolans-newest-project-will-try-to-breathe-life-into-big-data/#comments Thu, 13 Sep 2012 10:00:35 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=250353 Rick Smolan, creator of the epic “Day in the Life” photography books, is taking on a new challenge: Big data.

“Big data” has become a buzzphrase many people like to hate for its vagueness, but Smolan’s book format brings out all sorts of specificity and examples.

© Joe McNally 2012 / from The Human Face of Big Data

His new 7.5-pound book, “The Human Face of Big Data,” includes vignettes about wirelessly sensing disproportionate electricity and water consumption by individual home appliances, restoring human sight with a pair of computer eyeglasses that analyze light and other input in real-time, predicting repeat heart attacks by screening large samples of patients’ EKG data, and taking personal health tracking to the extreme. It will be released Nov. 20.

Smolan has been creating these massive photography projects for the last 30 years, but they’re usually about more naturally visual subjects, most recently President Obama and global water problems.

“This is the most difficult set of assignments I’ve ever worked on,” he told me. “How do you photograph data?”

Smolan also said he is well aware that the next step beyond “big data” is often thought to be “big brother.” He said the aim of the project is to get people to talk about the potential for big data, without ignoring the privacy implications.

While the book may be a static piece of work, Smolan is also trying to create a participatory experience that generates its own data, hopefully a big amount of it. Before the book comes out, he is releasing a Human Face of Big Data app for iOS and Android that asks people to measure themselves from Sept. 25 to Oct. 2.

The app will collect data about each user implicitly from smartphone sensors as well explicitly through quizzes, with everything promised to be anonymized (though I’m not clear on how exactly that will happen, given the depth of access a smartphone has to its owner’s activities).

For example, the app might count the number of contacts in people’s phone address books or track how far they travel in a single day. Then it will inform users about their “data doppelgangers” with similar attributes somewhere else in the world.

At the end of the week, all the data will be made available to scientists at Webcast “Big Data Lab” events in New York City, London and Singapore. And there’s a whole bunch of more ambitious (dare I say big) ideas beyond that, including a kids’ education day and a documentary film.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120913/rick-smolans-newest-project-will-try-to-breathe-life-into-big-data/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120830/exclusive-facebooks-sandberg-has-penned-lean-in-a-book-on-women-and-leadership-set-for-2013-publication/ http://allthingsd.com/20120830/exclusive-facebooks-sandberg-has-penned-lean-in-a-book-on-women-and-leadership-set-for-2013-publication/#comments Thu, 30 Aug 2012 19:00:33 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=246449

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has written a book on challenges facing women in the workplace that is expected to be published next year by Knopf.

Titled “Lean In,” the book is not a memoir, but a “call to action” with a lot of research and data, laced with anecdotes of the experience of one of Silicon Valley’s most high-profile female executives and also many other women.

“I believe that the world would be a better place if half our institutions were run by women, and half our homes were run by men,” said Sandberg in an email to me earlier this week. “The book contains practical advice for women — and the men who want to help them — on how to lean in and close the gap.”

Juggling leadership roles and family has been a central topic of Sandberg’s in numerous speeches she has given in recent years.

Among the key themes she has outlined — most prominently in a TEDTalk in 2010, which is embedded below — is the lack of progress for women in top positions and the loss to society when half the population holds only one-fifth of the top jobs across key industries.

The title comes from her advice in these speeches for women to lean in to their work rather than lean back, as many tend to do for a variety of reasons at key points in their careers.

In the speeches, Sandberg — who worked in a high-ranking job at Google and also did a stint in government at the Treasury Department in the Clinton administration — also advised women not to “leave before you leave” a job.

In one speech, she said:

“So, my heartfelt message is: Don’t leave before you leave. Don’t lean back, lean in. Keep your foot on the gas pedal until the day you have to make a decision. That’s the only way to ensure you even have a decision to make.”

The book’s publication, largely due to Sandberg’s prominence, is likely to reignite a heated debate over the longstanding issue about women and work. That includes in tech, where there are still a paucity of female CEOs, board members and venture capitalists.

Speaking of debate, publishing such a book — or being seen as doing anything not related directly to Facebook’s business — at such a dicey time for the company is sure to attract some negative attention for Sandberg and possibly Facebook.

That’s especially true after its botched public offering, which has been followed by a deep drop in the stock to half its initial IPO price and worries about its core business growth.

To be fair, the ideas in “Lean In” have been developed over many years and Sandberg has long noted that the discussion of these issues is too important to wait.

Sandberg said she finished the book well before Facebook’s recent tumultuous IPO and on her own time.

She added that she would eventually promote it on her own vacation time, too, and that all her profits will go to charities that support women. But Sandberg did not volunteer the advance she got paid for “Lean In.”

Along with that possible (and inevitable) why-aren’t-you-fixing-the-stock criticism, penning such a book might also further encourage persistent rumors that Sandberg will eventually leave Facebook, including to pursue a political office.

Not true, said Sandberg, who said firmly that she plans to stay put at Facebook as the No. 2 exec to co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He has apparently known about the book project since its beginning and has encouraged it.

To complete the book — which is now being edited — Sandberg worked with a full-time writer, Nell Scovell, as well as a researcher, Marianne Cooper.

Scovell, a journalist and longtime television writer in Hollywood, started helping Sandberg with her speeches about two years ago. Cooper is a sociologist at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University and is the author of the forthcoming University of California Press book, “Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times.”

Until the book is out, here’s a taste of what Sandberg has had to say so far on women and leadership at both her TEDTalk in December of 2010 and also at a commencement speech at Barnard College last May:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120830/exclusive-facebooks-sandberg-has-penned-lean-in-a-book-on-women-and-leadership-set-for-2013-publication/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120813/before-q2-earnings-groupon-book-author-sennett-and-former-coo-solomon-talk-about-about-daily-deals-site-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120813/before-q2-earnings-groupon-book-author-sennett-and-former-coo-solomon-talk-about-about-daily-deals-site-video/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2012 17:17:00 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=240547

With a title like this — “Groupon’s Biggest Deal Ever: The Inside Story of How One Insane Gamble, Tons of Unbelievable Hype, and Millions of Wild Deals Made Billions for One Ballsy Joker” — it’s pretty easy to imagine that Frank Sennett’s book on the formation of Groupon chronicles a pretty wild ride.

And indeed it has been a wild ride for the Chicago-based daily deals site, as depicted in innumerable media accounts and also in Frank Sennett’s book on the juicy subject.

Today, Groupon will report its second-quarter earnings, which Wall Street investors are expecting will finally be better than the company has performed since its IPO.

In fact, its shares rebounded last week by 13 percent, to close Friday at $7.44, although the stock is still down 70 percent since Groupon went public last November.

I did a video interview with Sennett, who brought along former Groupon President and COO Rob Solomon, to talk about where the company has been and where it might be going.

Here’s the chat:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120813/before-q2-earnings-groupon-book-author-sennett-and-former-coo-solomon-talk-about-about-daily-deals-site-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120806/in-major-expansion-kno-adds-k-12-to-digital-education-platform-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120806/in-major-expansion-kno-adds-k-12-to-digital-education-platform-video/#comments Tue, 07 Aug 2012 04:00:03 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=238514

In a big leap into a new but adjacent market, Silicon Valley digital education start-up Kno said it is entering the K-12 space, expanding from its college-only focus.

Its first step will be a partnership with major textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which provides nearly half of such content aimed at children from kindergarten through high school.

Enhanced digital versions of those textbooks cost $9.99 or less — Kno gets a piece of each sale — and can be used via an Apple iPad app and also on the Web. Kno said its platform will also be available soon on Google Android and Microsoft Windows 7.

I did a video interview today with Kno co-founder and CEO Osman Rashid at the global HQ of All Things Digital about the effort, which is a big jump for the company that started off trying to make its own tablet device.

Armed with a pile of venture funding, it has pivoted drastically — Apple and then Google completely blew its stillborn hardware efforts up — into creating an educational software platform.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has raised about $70 million from a range of prominent backers such as Andreessen Horowitz and First Round Capital, along with investors Mike Maples and Ron Conway.

It’ll need more deals to make up that tall valuation, of course. Kno said hopes to strike similar deals with the two other big textbook publishers, McGraw-Hill and Pearson, so it can offer most of the books used by schoolchildren.

It’s definitely an interesting time for electronic books in general and the education market in particular, as many efforts are being made to provide all kinds of educational tools online.

The e-book arena here is increasingly competitive, with big companies such as Amazon and even Apple interested in the important space.

Here’s my chat with Rashid about it all, as well as some screenshots of the new offering:

And here’s the official press release:

KNO LAUNCHES K-12 DIGITAL TEXTBOOKS, EMPOWERING PARENTS

TO GO DIGITAL AT HOME

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Kno Partner to Introduce Enhanced K-12 Content at Introductory Rental Prices From $9.99 or Less

Santa Clara, CA — August 7, 2012 – Kno, a pioneer in education software, today announced that the company is entering the K-12 education market through a new partnership agreement with global education leader Houghton Mifflin Harcourt [HMH]. Previously only available to college students, Kno will offer interactive K-12 textbooks for the iPad, the Web, Android and Windows 7.

The agreement marks a turning point for elementary and secondary education by giving children and parents the resources and power to supplement classroom learning through enhanced digital content at home. Just in time for the back-to-school season, parents can now rent digital textbooks for their children, including subjects aligned with Common Core standards, for a one-year rental rate of $9.99 or less per book.

“Even if the schools have not adopted digital textbooks, we wanted to give parents the option to have their kids’ same textbooks available at home,” said Osman Rashid, CEO and Co-Founder of Kno, Inc. “With digital books priced at $9.99 or below, parents can now finally stop their kids from carrying their heavy backpacks to and from school for less than $60 for the school year by supplementing classroom materials with interactive textbooks that can be used at home and on the go.”

The Kno digital textbook app is available today for the iPad and Web and will be available for Android tablets and Windows 7 in time for back to school. With Kno’s app, parents can enhance their children’s learning experience with more than 70 interactive features that bring academic content to life, making learning more engaging and fun. All of the app’s features are engineered to help students retain information more easily and ultimately help improve their grades and comprehension of material.

“By offering digital access to enhanced K-12 content on the go and at home, this collaboration will empower parents to get more involved in their children’s education. We know parental involvement is an important factor in student achievement, and we’re proud to be the first content provider to bring Kno’s technology to the K-12 world,” said Tim Cannon, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Alliances for HMH. “HMH aims to make quality content available to the widest possible audience with the mission of changing people’s lives by fostering passionate, curious learners. This partnership with Kno supports that goal.”

The interactive features that allow students to engage with the content better and study more efficiently include:

* A digital Journal that automatically saves a student’s notes and highlights them in a study notebook.

* Automatic Flash Cards of key terms in a book to help students study more efficiently and better retain information.

* 3D models that bring difficult chemistry concepts to life to make them easier to understand.

* Quiz Me feature, which automatically turns any diagram in a book into a multiple choice quiz for easy self-quizzing before tests.

* SmartLinks that deliver instructional videos, images, and photos to formulas and concepts in a textbook in real-time for easy reference.

* Coming soon, an analytics feature that will enable active engagement between parents and students to better measure reading progress.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120806/in-major-expansion-kno-adds-k-12-to-digital-education-platform-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120615/aaron-sorkin-on-jobs-movie-zuckerberg-as-anti-hero-and-more-the-full-d10-interview-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120615/aaron-sorkin-on-jobs-movie-zuckerberg-as-anti-hero-and-more-the-full-d10-interview-video/#comments Fri, 15 Jun 2012 15:43:09 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=220713

One of the most engaging interviews at the 10th D: All Things Digital conference was with well-known Hollywood screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.

Best known for television hits such as “The West Wing” and movies like “A Few Good Men” — and, of course, the controversial film about Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg called “The Social Network” — he is now about to launch a new HBO show called “The Newsroom.”

But most intriguing to the crowd gathered was his work on an upcoming project: To turn Walter Isaacson’s book about Apple’s Steve Jobs into a movie.

Sorkin had a lot to say about that, and also about the way his digitally distracted audience watches all his work, in this talk with Walt Mossberg.

Here it is:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120615/aaron-sorkin-on-jobs-movie-zuckerberg-as-anti-hero-and-more-the-full-d10-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120530/patents-or-pork-belly-allthingsds-katie-boehret-talks-with-nathan-myhrvold/ http://allthingsd.com/20120530/patents-or-pork-belly-allthingsds-katie-boehret-talks-with-nathan-myhrvold/#comments Wed, 30 May 2012 21:40:54 +0000 Drake Martinet http://allthingsd.com/?p=214540 Katie snagged a quick backstage conversation with Intellectual Ventures CEO Nathan Myhrvold, and asked him about the other venture he has become famous for.

Myhrvold has won two James Beard culinary awards for his cookbook projects, and Katie grilled him on the same:

Full D10 Conference Coverage

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120530/patents-or-pork-belly-allthingsds-katie-boehret-talks-with-nathan-myhrvold/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120411/apple-could-face-federal-book-suit-today-reports/ http://allthingsd.com/20120411/apple-could-face-federal-book-suit-today-reports/#comments Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:32:59 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=195227 The Department of Justice may file a suit against Apple today over e-book price-fixing complaints, according to reports from Reuters and Bloomberg. The DOJ has been probing antitrust complaints regarding Apple’s 2010 pacts with  book publishers; several of the biggest publishers are preparing to settle those charges by “tearing up” those deals, according to The Wall Street Journal.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120411/apple-could-face-federal-book-suit-today-reports/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120330/viral-video-the-host-does-not-seem-very-cordial/ http://allthingsd.com/20120330/viral-video-the-host-does-not-seem-very-cordial/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:57:05 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=191528

Freaky blue eyes, freaky voice, freaky aliens come here to occupy us humans again.

I am so there.

Here’s the trailer for the movie version of the book “The Host,” by the same lady who wrote the “Twilight” series — although this time no vampires or werewolves.

Just irksome invasion-of-body-snatchers kind of thing.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120330/viral-video-the-host-does-not-seem-very-cordial/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120328/third-points-loeb-to-yahoo-about-board-rejection-illogical-alice-in-wonderland-world/ http://allthingsd.com/20120328/third-points-loeb-to-yahoo-about-board-rejection-illogical-alice-in-wonderland-world/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:45:31 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=190878

Third Point’s Dan Loeb, the activist Yahoo shareholder, fired back at the company today about recent board appointments that ignored his alternate slate of directors, in yet another colorful letter that compared the Silicon Valley Internet giant to the famous children’s book “Alice in Wonderland.”

And not in a nice way.

“Our view of the nomination process is further reinforced by your explanation on Sunday as to why I would not be an acceptable Director. You told me that the Board felt my experience and knowledge ‘would not be additive to the Board’ and that as Yahoo!’s largest outside shareholder, I would be ‘conflicted’ as a Director, wrote Loeb to CEO Scott Thompson. “Am I conflicted to advocate for the interests of other shareholders because we are owners of 5.8% (over $1 billion) of Yahoo! shares (unlike the non-retiring and proposed board members who have never purchased a single share of Yahoo! except for subsidized shares issued through option exercises and shares “paid” by the Company in lieu of fees)? Only in an illogical Alice-in-Wonderland world would a shareholder be deemed to be conflicted from representing the interests of other shareholders because he is, well, a shareholder too. This sentiment further confirms that Yahoo!’s approach to Board representation is “shareholders not welcome.”

We’re about to go down the rabbit hole, indeed, as the well-known New York hedge fund exec moves to significantly step up his proxy battle against Yahoo. While it will be a tough road for Third Point to attract enough investor support for his side, it’s still a noisy mess that Yahoo can ill afford, especially as Thompson readies significant layoffs as part of a major restructuring.

Here’s the full text of Loeb’s saucy letter:

TP March 28 Letter to CEO Thompson Re Board Negotiations

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120328/third-points-loeb-to-yahoo-about-board-rejection-illogical-alice-in-wonderland-world/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120314/a-big-digital-kiss-to-britannica-change-it-is-okay-look-it-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20120314/a-big-digital-kiss-to-britannica-change-it-is-okay-look-it-up/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:04:20 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=186332

The folks over at Encyclopaedia Britannica posted today to say they are discontinuing the 32-volume printed book edition of the invaluable information resource “when our current inventory is gone.”

It’s an obvious and inevitable move — although I deeply loved my giant set of tomes back in the day. But my favorite part of the transition is how the organization handled it with class and forwardness, with a blog post titled: “Change: It’s Okay. Really.”

Really it is, in this case at least.

In a simple but elegant set of words, they wrote about its history:

For 244 years, the thick volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica have stood on the shelves of homes, libraries, and businesses everywhere, a source of enlightenment as well as comfort to their owners and users around the world.

They’ve always been there. Year after year. Since 1768. Every. Single. Day.

But not forever.

Indeed, as Kansas sings, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. And Britannica Online for now.

Here is a funktastic video Encyclopaedia Britannica did that communicates its next life aptly via YouTube:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120314/a-big-digital-kiss-to-britannica-change-it-is-okay-look-it-up/feed/ 0