Originally appeared on Digital Book World
A few weeks ago my company, The Perseus Books Group, released an app for the iPad called JFK: 50 Days. It's meant to be a companion product to a large coffee-table book called JFK: Day by Day (Running Press), which covers the 1,036 days John F. Kennedy was President. We describe it as a companion because the app is focused on fifty select moments from the book to mark the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's election to the White House.
But what's in the app that's not in the book is more than an hour's worth of incredible video, most of which is rare footage culled from the archives of NBC News, featuring JFK, Jackie, and other members of the Kennedy family during the early 60s. Thanks to the technology of the iPad, we're confident the experience of both viewing and reading about these historical moments is truly gratifying.
So how did this all come about? Well, during a meeting with the folks at NBC News it was brought to our attention there were tons and tons of Kennedy footage in the vaults and they suggested we do a project together relating to our book. Naturally we loved this idea and immediately got to work. The first thing we needed to do was figure out just what this should be because digital projects featuring video and images are always a challenge due to the amount of file size these assets use. As a guide, we turned to the print version of the book, which is fully designed and has a particular look. Since this was going to be a companion product, we determined an app was the logical format because it would allow us to essentially keep the same design while maintaining a similar layout.
With that decision behind us, we forged ahead spending hours and hours viewing old clips in the NBC News archives division located at Rockefeller Center. It took about a full month to complete and as the lead producer of this project, I can honestly say it was quite an amazing experience and absolute privilege for our team to have been given the chance to take this unfiltered trip through history.
While all this was taking place we approached Vook about working together to program the app using Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite, since they were chosen by Adobe as a BETA tester for this new platform. If you've downloaded Wired or The New Yorker apps for iPad, which also uses this software, then the various ways to navigate JFK: 50 Days would be familiar to you. We felt it was the best option to present the fifty days in chronological order and as far as I know, this is the first book-related app using this approach. Here's a video example courtesy of NBC.
The structure of the "50 days" helped keep us focused since there was so much archival footage to watch. Even after we made our final selections there were still a number of choice moments that we just felt could not be left out of the app. So we decided to represent those pieces in montage form, which appear at the end of the app as bonus features. These montages are probably my favorite part of this project because they challenged us to string together unique pieces of forgotten history in a way that captured the essence and emotion of those moments in time.
I really hope readers come to appreciate the quality of the video because all the archived footage presented in JFK: 50 Days was painstakingly restored to deliver visuals with striking contrast and great sound. Believe me, this is not easy to do when working with film that's fifty years-old! But I feel the time, effort, and care we put into the clips really shows.
JFK: 50 Days was officially launched on November 15th with a segment on The Today Show. About a week later, David Gregory, moderator of Meet the Press, (who was kind enough to film the introduction for the app), agreed to promote it at the end of his program. There's also a terrific TV commercial airing on NBC to raise awareness in the marketplace. As you might imagine, all this has been simply fantastic to see and everyone who has been a part of this project is thrilled by NBC's support.
I'm happy to report JFK: 50 Days was #1 in the Books category of the App Store for two weeks and reached as high as #14 in paid apps overall. With the 50th anniversary of JFK's inauguration speech coming this January we're gearing up for another wave of promotions. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, if you have an iPad, you can get the JFK: 50 Days app here.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Blio Reader: Bliss, Blah, or Somewhere Between?
There's been a tremendous amount of anticipation and speculation over the past year about Blio, a reading technology that promised to be a great new way to read books on computers and portable devices, especially titles with graphics. So when Blio finally launched about a month ago, I immediately wanted to check it out.
The first thing one discovers is that the initial release is for Windows based PCs only. Not Mac, not iPad, not Android, and not for any smartphone, though their official press release states it will be available for those platforms soon. As someone who enjoys reading on the iPad, this was pretty disappointing, for I was certain Blio would cover all bases at launch. And yet I was eager to give this new software a try, so I downloaded it to my desktop and promptly created an account, all of which was quick and easy.
When I first began using Blio I was quite underwhelmed. That's because the reading layout is pretty similar to Zinio's and the virtual bookshelf that organizes your collection is reminiscent of Kobo's. However, the more I continued playing with the program it became apparent there were some nice aspects to the general functionality. For example: Browsing the store and downloading free public domain titles such as Moby Dick was a snap and within 30 seconds I was reading Melville's classic. Turning pages, zooming in and out, and looking up definitions of words also performed smoothly.
But it's the other enhancements, like reading titles in multiple views (including 3D), watching video, and adding notations that can be exported for future reference that makes Blio different from other electronic reading experiences. These features could potentially be even better when executed on a tablet device like an iPad or the soon-to-be-released Samsung Galaxy Tab, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Unfortunately the folks at Blio described the capabilities of their software as "revolutionary," which only set them up for ridicule, especially since Zinio, iBooks, Kindle, Nook Color, and Kobo offer reading options, like text-to-speech, that are pretty similar (in way or another), if not exactly the same. Granted the way Blio integrates video, audio, and the option to search using Google and other engines without having to leave the page provides a convenience competitors currently lack. But describing the 3D page turns as "realistic" is off the mark when compared to reading an iBook, for example. Blio's approach to 3D page turning reminded me a little of an older technology from the 90s called RealRead - (Remember them?). They were one of the first to introduce three-dimensional reading but it just never caught on.
Another reason expectations were high is because Blio was developed by K-NFB, a company founded by futurist Ray Kurzweil, a man with an esteemed reputation for inventing incredible technologies. Here's a video of Kurzweil explaining Blio at the Tools of Change conference earlier this year. Kurzweil Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind (K-NFB) has a long history of assisting those with disabilities such as blindness, dyslexia and ADD, so it seems logical they expect to continue working with educational communities. Plus the partnership with Baker & Taylor, a global media distribution company, will certainly help reach a variety of channels, including libraries where there's likely to be wide adoption.
But to my mind things start to get tricky for Blio on the consumer level. As a first attempt, they've arranged for the software to come pre-loaded on all Toshiba laptops. This certainly might gain some new users, but it will take a much more aggressive marketing and publicity campaign to have any measurable impact.
Overall, it's easy to discount many of Blio's innovations when using the software on a PC because in that form it seems like old hat. But if the iPad version fully takes advantage of the swipe and touch capabilities, then I think Blio just might win over the critics.
Have you tried Blio yet? If so, what do you think of it so far?
The first thing one discovers is that the initial release is for Windows based PCs only. Not Mac, not iPad, not Android, and not for any smartphone, though their official press release states it will be available for those platforms soon. As someone who enjoys reading on the iPad, this was pretty disappointing, for I was certain Blio would cover all bases at launch. And yet I was eager to give this new software a try, so I downloaded it to my desktop and promptly created an account, all of which was quick and easy.
When I first began using Blio I was quite underwhelmed. That's because the reading layout is pretty similar to Zinio's and the virtual bookshelf that organizes your collection is reminiscent of Kobo's. However, the more I continued playing with the program it became apparent there were some nice aspects to the general functionality. For example: Browsing the store and downloading free public domain titles such as Moby Dick was a snap and within 30 seconds I was reading Melville's classic. Turning pages, zooming in and out, and looking up definitions of words also performed smoothly.
But it's the other enhancements, like reading titles in multiple views (including 3D), watching video, and adding notations that can be exported for future reference that makes Blio different from other electronic reading experiences. These features could potentially be even better when executed on a tablet device like an iPad or the soon-to-be-released Samsung Galaxy Tab, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Unfortunately the folks at Blio described the capabilities of their software as "revolutionary," which only set them up for ridicule, especially since Zinio, iBooks, Kindle, Nook Color, and Kobo offer reading options, like text-to-speech, that are pretty similar (in way or another), if not exactly the same. Granted the way Blio integrates video, audio, and the option to search using Google and other engines without having to leave the page provides a convenience competitors currently lack. But describing the 3D page turns as "realistic" is off the mark when compared to reading an iBook, for example. Blio's approach to 3D page turning reminded me a little of an older technology from the 90s called RealRead - (Remember them?). They were one of the first to introduce three-dimensional reading but it just never caught on.
Another reason expectations were high is because Blio was developed by K-NFB, a company founded by futurist Ray Kurzweil, a man with an esteemed reputation for inventing incredible technologies. Here's a video of Kurzweil explaining Blio at the Tools of Change conference earlier this year. Kurzweil Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind (K-NFB) has a long history of assisting those with disabilities such as blindness, dyslexia and ADD, so it seems logical they expect to continue working with educational communities. Plus the partnership with Baker & Taylor, a global media distribution company, will certainly help reach a variety of channels, including libraries where there's likely to be wide adoption.
But to my mind things start to get tricky for Blio on the consumer level. As a first attempt, they've arranged for the software to come pre-loaded on all Toshiba laptops. This certainly might gain some new users, but it will take a much more aggressive marketing and publicity campaign to have any measurable impact.
Overall, it's easy to discount many of Blio's innovations when using the software on a PC because in that form it seems like old hat. But if the iPad version fully takes advantage of the swipe and touch capabilities, then I think Blio just might win over the critics.
Have you tried Blio yet? If so, what do you think of it so far?
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