Publishing

Commentary: What’s Driving the Quad/Graphics Acquisition of LSC Communications

ICYMI – This is big printing news: Quad/Graphics is acquiring LSC Communications (the RR Donnelley spin off). It will create a $8.1B, publicly-held company. Coming from $1.4B all-stock transaction, which includes the refinancing of LSC Communications’ debt.

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Harlequin ebooks will no longer work on e-readers

Via @goodereader Harlequin changing DRM on ebooks purchased on their website, from Adobe Digital Editions to Overdrive’s DRM. They’ll continue to sell ebooks thru Amazon, B&N, and Kobo If you purchased an ebook from Harlequin you have until November 12th, 2018 to back them up using Adobe Digital Editions before they can no longer be accessed.

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Booksellers Protest Amazon Site’s Move to Drop Stores From Certain Countries

A flash strike against Amazon’s AbeBooks, which began Monday, is a rare concerted action by vendors against any part of Amazon, which wields huge power in the book world.

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Bowker’s ISBN Site Has Been Hacked, and Credit Card Numbers Have Been Stolen

RT @PassiveVoiceBlg Bowker was recently made aware by the payment card networks of patterns of unauthorized charges occurring on cards after they were legitimately used on Bowker’s website, www.myidentifiers.com.

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Innovative Storytelling

James Patterson’s next novel will be released on Facebook Messenger

Thriller author James Patterson and Facebook are partnering to release an interactive novel experience based on Patterson’s next novel, The Chef. The book was released on Facebook Messenger, allowing readers to read and interact with the story through the app.

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Snapchat will debut a longform sci-fi thriller story told in a series of texts

Hooked, an app that makes “chat fiction” on mobile, is making its first longform story on Snapchat. It’s a hybrid of science fiction, mystery, and thriller called Dark Matter that takes place in Silicon Valley.

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The Raven Lands on Insta Novels for Halloween

RT @nypl The New York Public Library released the latest installment of Insta Novels: “The Raven” a poem by Edgar Allan Poem. The story was illustrated by Studio Aka (@studioaka) and is available to read on the Library’s Instagram account (@nypl).

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The Spooky Evolution of Text Message-Based Horror Stories

It makes sense that a generation that grew up online would gravitate toward text- and chat-based horror tales. After all, they came of age in the era of “creepypastas”—the catch-all term for web-based share-and-scare stories that have long been part of internet culture, but have grown especially popular in the past decade.

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National Geographic is using virtual reality and social platforms to appeal to Gen Z

To reach the under-24 set, National Geographic is expanding to platforms like Wattpad, IGTV and Amazon Alexa and trying out virtual reality.

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Innovation

How Does This Article Make You Feel?

HT @nycmedialab Fascinating dive into how the New York Times used crowdsourced data to train models that predicted the emotions an article elicited, and then used that to implement contextually relevant ads.

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Gaming will soon be personalized to you, just like Netflix and Spotify

RT @nycmedialab Games are ripe for data collection because every minute of action is a data point. This plethora of data points allows for hyper-personalization (plus addiction) and pushes big spenders (who spend half a million dollars while playing these games).

qz.com • Share

100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics to Follow in 2019 and beyond

Meet the women working relentlessly to save humanity from the dark side of AI

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Technology

The future of photography is code

What’s in a camera? A lens, a shutter, a light-sensitive surface and, increasingly, a set of highly sophisticated algorithms. While the physical components are still improving bit by bit, Google, Samsung and Apple are increasingly investing in (and showcasing) improvements wrought entirely from code. Computational photography is the only real battleground now.

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Filmmakers Are Embracing VR, But Are Audiences Ready For VR Feature Films?

Via @forbes Consumer demand will play a big part in whether VR feature films or feature-length experiences are a fad or a legitimate new genre of entertainment.

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Why aren’t we watching AR and VR esports?

If mixed reality headsets become as ubiquitous as smartphones, it’ll be possible for real world places to become immersive gaming environments and playspaces.

venturebeat.com • Share

W3C Workshop on Digital Publication Layout and Presentation (from Manga to Magazines)

HT @BISG Fascinating deep dive into challenges for digital presentation on the web from a w3c workshop in Tokyo in September

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Google begins rollout of Discover feed on US homepage

ICYMI Google finally placed a news feed on its mobile homepage with the intention of surfacing information before you search.

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Business

Inside Macy’s 300-employee influencer program

RT @Digiday Since launching a pilot version of Macy’s Style Crew last fall with 20 employee “ambassadors,” Macy’s has invested in growing the program. More than 300 employees participated this past spring, and there are now more than 400 active across social media channels, including Snapchat and Instagram.

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Netflix Alters Model

Interesting switch for Netflix – get customers off the couch and into theaters!

deadline.com • Share

Instagram’s next cash cow: instant Promote ads for Stories

Instagram hopes dollars from the long-tail of small businesses and social media stars can help it pull its weight in the Facebook family. A new ad type called “Promote” for Stories allows Instagram business pages to show their ephemeral slideshows to more users without doing much work. Admins can choose to auto-target users similar to their followers, people in a certain location, or use all of Instagram’s targeting parameters to inject their Story into the Stories queue of more users as an ad that can also link to business’ Instagram profile or website.

techcrunch.com • Share

Intel and Tencent debut AI-powered camera systems for retail

RT @VentureBeat Tencent and Intel debuted two new products – DeepGaze and YouBox – that tap AI to track shoppers in brick-and-mortar stores.

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Events

Free in NYC. Interested? LMK ASAP.

Discount: SymposiumX – FINANCIAL INNOVATION ON THE WEB

CUSWF’S Education Director Dr. Rachel Yager and W3C’s Symposium X present SymposiumX – Financial Innovation on the Web on 11/8. Speakers include business thought leaders from Google, Shopify, and Credit Suisse. Save $100 as a special discount for readers of my newsletter. Just use the link below.

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FESTIVAL 2018 – Well-Read Black Girl

NOVEMBER 10, 2018 Well-Read Black Girl and Pioneer Works present the second annual Well-Read Black Girl Festival, a celebration of Black women readers and writers that seeks to initiate meaningful conversations within the literary arts. This year’s festival includes authors Jacqueline Woodson, Veronica Chambers, Renée Watson, Mahogany Browne, Blair Imani, and many more.

wellreadblackgirl.com • Share

Werk It: A Women’s Podcast Festival

HT @WMG_NYC An annual gathering for women shaping the future of podcasting! November 13-14, 2018 in NYC. Two full days of conversations, workshops, live tapings, networking events, and one-on-one mentoring sessions, plus a Podcast Accelerator: your chance to pitch a show, incubate a pilot, and score a development deal with WNYC Studios.

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Publishing Applications of Blockchain Tech

BISG event in NYC on 11/18

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Causes

I Will Vote

RT @BarackObama If you take that power and vote, something powerful happens. Change happens. Hope happens. And with each new step we take in the direction of fairness, and justice, and equality, and opportunity, hope spreads. Go vote!

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WNDB Fall Fundraiser 2018

We Need Diverse Books is trying to raise $50,000 to donate diverse books to low-income schools across the country.

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An Open Letter to the Middleton School District from Authors in the Latinx in Kidlit Community — @TLT16 Teen Librarian Toolbox

HT @TLT16 Last week we learned that educators from the Middleton Heights Elementary School had celebrated Halloween by dressing up as the border wall and in racist stereotypes. Authors from the Latinx in Kidlit community have written an open letter to the Middleton School District in response to the racist costumes posted on social media. Please read their generous offer to visit these students & share widely. Thank you

www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com • Share

AI for Social Good

Google created a new program called AI for Social Good, and launched the Google AI Impact Challenge to help nonprofits use AI for positive social impact.

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