Think Forward

Disney Digital Books - On the right track

Last week I wrote an article at Creative Strategies Online discussing the shift in publishing to digital formats.  In essence what I was talking about is the idea that publishers need to think not about how to re-purpose books into digital formats for digital distribution but how to re-invent books all together.  

Disney is on the right track with their launch of www.disneydigitalbooks.com. With this new initiative from Disney I think we see a glance and what is possible when we begin to think about the question of re-inventing books.   

Disney is in the early stages of this development and I am sure they will continue to innovate with more multi-media over time.   But the important thing is that they have jumped off on the right foot with a powerful new service at a pretty decent price point.    

These digital books are online only through the browser but Disney has stated they are looking at all platforms.   Keep in mind Steve Jobs is on their board and a majority shareholder.    

What I love about this initiative is that Disney has now entered this market in full force and will continue to open the eyes of publishing executives about what is possible as we create what is in essence a multimedia book.     These books from Disney are much more interactive and engage with the child in the reading experience by using sound, animation and more.  

My initial fear with the creation of multimedia books is that it would skew too heavily on the multimedia front.   I am glad that Disney has come out and said that their experience will be about reading and the media will be supplemental to the reading experience.   This again is a good way to look at this transition from analog to digital books. 

Disney has the marketing power to really drive this concept and create value around their assets.   It is exciting to see a company like the Walt Disney Company embrace a medium, have a vision and create something truly valuable.   

Launching CreativeStrategiesOnline.com

All though I will still be updating my blog with more informal thoughts and analysis, I am happy to announce the launching of www.creativestrategiesonline.com. 

Our company will use this website for more formal articles and analysis that we will self publish and distribute through this website.    

Check it out regularly and follow the twitter feed from it and other relevant tech news twitter.com/creativestrat

Intel launching App store - Infrastructure

This is one of the things that came out of IDF that I was surprised didn't get the same kind of media attention as other announcements.    

What stands out to me about this announcement is that this is a necessary advancement for Windows based software.   I say that because software discovery is one of the most discombobulated experiences for consumers on the Windows platform.   I've been harping on Microsoft and companies that ship Microsoft clients that they need to make the software discovery process much better.   

We do a lot of research spending time talking to consumers and observing their computing habits and one thing that always stands out is that they only really use a handful of applications regularly.    I don't believe this is solely because their computing needs are so incredibly simplistic that all they need is a handful of programs.   If feel more fundamentally to the point is that they don't realize the plethora of great software that exists out there in the universe to add value to their computing experience.  

This is one of the more revolutionary aspects of not only the iTunes App store but iTunes in general.   When we observe consumers using iTunes what we find is they spend a great deal of time discovering.   They discover music, movies, apps and more and enjoy doing it.  

My thought all along is where is this experience in digital for the software world.   When was the last time you saw a group of consumers standing in the software isle at your local computer store simply browsing software.    My experience is those isles are constantly empty as if they plague existed in those isles. 

What is fundamentally important to an app store infrastructure akin to what Intel is working on is that this fundamentally has the opportunity to eliminate the need to get software in disc form as well as lead to a world of computing software discovery.   

Apple isn't perfect when it comes to OSX software but they do have something useful on their website that helps you find all kinds of great software, categorized and reviewed to help you find useful software.   I do this at least once a month and almost always find an application that makes my Mac better and myself more productive. 

If this app sore infrastructure or something like it takes off we could safely say the end of optical disc drives in computers is in sight.