Holtzbrinck Online

A Pretty Good Read

Modest Mouse: A Pretty Good Read, the unauthorized biography of the band Modest Mouse is in bookstores now. The author, journalist and bassist Alan Goldsher, chronicles the chaotic rise of the Washington State rock trio from little-known indie heroes to platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated, international superstars.

Click on these links to hear Goldsher read Chapter 2, Interlude 2, and Interlude 4 from the book.

Goldsher shares great stories about the band, and incorporates interludes of analysis on the music world, especially the indie music scene. Plus, he is very funny. I can’t help but tell one of my favorite, more literary, nuggets from the book: Goldsher points out that the name “Modest Mouse” does not have anything to do with Mighty Mouse, but is actually a reference to Virginia Woolf’s short fiction work “The Mark on the Wall.” Listen to Chapter 2 to hear the whole quote from Ms. Woolf.

Read more about the book here: Modest Mouse: A Pretty Good Read.

F is For Fake (it's also for "flog")

Sony has been the latest big company to be called out for having a "flog" (short for "fake blog"), admitting that a new blog that was supposedly set up by an individual to talk about how much he wanted a PSP for Christmas was indeed a fraud. Behind the whole enterprise was Sony itself, who had hired a couple of marketers to start and maintain the blog, repeatedly hyping its product. Wal-Mart has been involved with similar situations, as have a number of big corporations. I guess what's shocking to me in this case is that the PSP is already a pretty popular device, which kids indeed want for Christmas. (Like, Microsoft's Zune needs all the help it can get; I'm sure that some of the comments you're reading on Amazon about how "great" it is have been left by Microsoft employees). All of this just goes to show how popular the blogosphere is, as well as how tempting it is to try to unduly influence the discussion in cyberspace. But of course, one of the great things about the online world is its utter transparency. Sooner or later the truth is coming to come out, and it's never pretty when it finally does.

The fake blog

Media Post Story

A Literary Light

Congratulations to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who will receive one of France’s top cultural honors, the Commandeur des Arts et Lettres medal, from the San Francisco consul general of France this evening (SF Chronicle). A well-known poet, writer, painter, publisher, activist, and intellectual, Ferlinghetti founded the country’s first paperback bookshop, City Lights Bookstore with Peter D. Martin in 1953. The San Francisco store has served as a literary landmark ever since. In 1955, he launched City Lights, a publishing house famous for the Pocket Poets Series and its commitment to progressive ideas. Ferlinghetti was named San Francisco’s poet laureate in 1998, and has previously won several other cultural and literary awards. Each year, about 20 people receive the Commandeur des Arts et Lettres award, which is awarded in recognition of significant contributions to the arts. Past non-French awardees include David Bowie, Jackson Pollock, and Ferlinghetti’s friend, Allen Ginsberg.

Words For Sale

Recently I was reading an article online when I encountered a word with a curious double-underline. So, I decided to investigate. What I expected was to click on the word and zoom over to another place on the website where I could learn more about that topic. Little did I know that as soon as my cursor moved across the word, a pop-up advertisement would appear over the text! Although I’ve since discovered that this type of advertising has been around since 2004, the ad was a surprise. What I found out was that this is called “in-text” advertising, a form of promotion that is steadily spreading across the web. Previously found only on niche sites, in-text advertising is cropping up more and more as publishers experiment with various types of online advertising to see what works best for readers and advertisers. In-text ads have even made their way onto mainstream sites such as FoxNews.com. Since you are probably wondering by now … yes – in-text ads have been controversial since the day they were launched because, essentially, they violate the publishing equivalent of separation of church and state. As the Wall Street Journal reported recently, among other problems, in-text ads mark “a departure from a long-observed tradition in the print medium of keeping editorial content separate from advertising.” The ads are not like a “special advertising section” you’d see in a magazine, because they’re embedded in editorial content, with only that subtle double-underline to distinguish them. So, concerns that the ads present ethical problems or have the potential to corrode ‘‘journalistic quality and credibility’” seem well-founded. If the trend grows, could writers be tempted to sprinkle their pieces with keywords for advertisers? Publishers who run in-text ads say there’s no problem since their news departments don’t know what keywords advertisers purchase. And purveyors of in-text ads argue that editorial departments are responsible for maintaining good editorial judgment in the face of any type of advertising. Spending on online advertising is increasing, and in-text advertising offers advertisers and website owners another opportunity to serve highly targeted ads that I’m sure is difficult to pass up. Plus, providers of in-text advertising are gaining a better and better understanding of where, and how, and how often to serve the ads. My sense is, keep an eye out for those double-underlines.

Books Come Alive!

Microsoft launched their Live Search Books in beta yesterday, and, frankly, I think it's fantastic. Live Search Books includes Search Inside the Book functionality, so if I've selected Voltaire in His Letters, and I keyword search Chatelet, I'll get links to pages including mention of that keyword sorted in order of relevance. This isn't anything revolutionary, of course, but its relative lack of novelty doesn't nullify the convenience offered (I'm not jaded). People are reading more and more online, generally in snippets, excerpts, and on a per-document basis. Initiatives such as this and Google Book Search expand the possibilities of the book reader's experience beyond the paper format, though I imagine that most will opt to print out their downloads. Books for download in PDF are limited to noncopyrighted material scanned from books from the British Library, the University of California, and the University of Toronto, and there are plans to add books from the New York Public Library, Cornell University, and the American Museum of Veterinary Medicine. (Read more.) Copyrighted material will be included at a future date. Navigating from the download page back to the search page is a bit difficult (perhaps, this is anecdotal), and it is taking Firefox on my Mac what seems eons to upload search results for Voltaire (this also may be anecdotal; IE on my PC had no problem loading the data). And a friend of mine noted that he can't locate any editions of Gargantua and Pantagruel. Oh well.

Wii-ching New Audiences

I let this post simmer for a bit in order to organize my thoughts, but the initial idea came from spending Thanksgiving with my family. 

The weekend before Thanksgiving I bought the new Nintendo Wii (pronounced: we).   Nintendo has not been shy about their goal for the Wii - they hope to reach out to an audience beyond the current "gamer" group.    In order to achieve that goal the Wii is small, sleek, quiet, affordable and, most importantly, utilizes a motion sensing controller that resembles a TV remote that Nintendo hopes will be more inviting for non-gamers to use. 

Forbes.com Special Reports on Books

Forbes Magazine this month has a huge Special Report on books, and all of the material is also on their website. There are many really interesting articles and essays, including one by Tor author Cory Doctorow entitled "Give it Away," wherein he talks about how he has offered every one of his books as a free download from his website, and it hasn't hurt his sales. I'm not sure I agree with his argument, but I am sure he's not an R.E.M. fan, or else he would have titled his piece "What if We Give it Away?" which is a track from my favorite record of theirs, Life's Rich Pageant. Of course, he could have also called it, "It's the End of the Publishing World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)." Just sayin'...

Forbes.com Special Report: Books

Made Your List Yet?

Attention shoppers and book lovers: ‘Tis the season for holiday gift guides and lists and lists of the “Best Books” of 2006. Here’s a bunch to check out. Happy browsing.

The New York Times has announced their picks for the 10 Best Books of 2006.

For younger readers, check out the Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults for 2006 from the ALA/YALSA.

Amazon.com has two features on the best books from 2006: The Top 50 Editor's Picks and Customers' Top 50 Favorites.

The Kansas City Star, Canada’s Globe and Mail, and The New York Times have all announced lists of 100 noteworthy books from 2006.

Again, for younger readers, check out the full list of Best Books for Young Adults for 2006 from the ALA/YALSA.

The San Francisco Chronicle has a feature on the Best Gift Books and The Independent lists the best world fiction on sale for the holidays.

Finally, USA Today has a Holiday Book Gift Guide organized by category. Categories include quirky, music, movies, art, pop culture, entertaining, cooking, calendars, for readers, and children’s.