Tools of Change Dispatches

By Jason Boog 

GalleyCat and eBookNewser have been covering the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference in New York City all week. We’ve collected some highlights below.

We rounded up five things publishers need to know about apps, from pricing to update schedules to prototype design tools.

Pete Myers, CEO of BirdsInTheHand, a company that makes apps for bird fans, explained how customers helped shape apps: “Birders want to find new birds. They are desperate for a tool like this. Beta testers were the most important part of the process to help us polish our apps,” he said.

Andrew Savikas, CTO of O’Reilly Media, argued that advertising in eBooks won’t make a sustainable model for eBooks: “I’m not convinced of advertising as a part of the future of these businesses…Online advertising is too efficient.”

Finally, Bill Godfrey, CTO of Elsevier, called for industry standards for digital reading: “not to have to worry about how my content is rendered on multiple devices. We’ve got to get to some defacto industry standards.”