Past meets present at Dear Photograph

Such a simple idea, but so tearjerking. Users send in pictures of a scene from the past placed in front an actual scene from the present and add a poignant caption. Absolutely definitely check out the website, weep, and then buy the book.

The Long Tail just keeps getting longer

I recently finished reading The Long Tail, and it's the kind that you wish you had written yourself. It seems so obvious that the endless possiblities of the Internet can turn the niche into big business - and it's exactly why Amazon, eBay, Netflix and iTunes are so successful. But what is interesting is that the principles of the long tail can be applied to just about anything. Proof of this is that the book was written in 2006 and therefore barely even mentions Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, those mammoths of global democratisation. Yet it is as relevant today as it was then.

Here is a summary from Amazon reviewer Otis Chandler:

Interesting Tidbits

• One quarter of Amazon's sales come from books outside its top 100,000 titles. Thus having a long tail adds ~33% to your bottom line. 
• Ranking bestsellers across niche's genre's gives little value. Filters to rank items must be applied within each niche to become relevant. Goodreads could improve here. 
• As the number of niche's increases, the ability of people to consume more content within the genre increases. This depends on the genre, but it gives me hope that we can increase the number of people who read through Goodreads, by creating better filters to connect readers of various niche's. 
• each year 200,000 books are published in english, and fewer than 20,000 make it into a bookstore. Only 2% of the books published in 2004 sold more than 5000 copies, and can be considered profitable. 
• There is another factor that determines why people create content, other than money: reputation. 
• Ebay has 60 million active users

Three forces need to create the long tail: 

1. democratize production: give average people the ability to create quality content (movies, music, blogs) 
2. democratize distribution: technology to aggregate *all* the content in a genre (Amazon, Netflix, iTunes) 
3. Connect Supply and Demand: filters to help people find the niches they are interested in (Google, recommendations, best-seller lists)

Oh, and you can buy it here.

Philip Pullman on freedom of speech and the right to shock

Novelist Philip Pullman's new book is entitled The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ and explores the life of Jesus and how his story has been recounted through the centuries. And as the title suggests, not everything he says about the Son of God is good - but Pullman doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks. In other words, he believes in the God-given right to shock anyone he wants.

As you would expect, the free-thinking patrons of Boingboing.net are supportive of his position, as are we. Death to political correctness (up to a point).

What to expect when you're expected

The above "book trailer" promotes a spoof on the obligatory (in America at least) "What to Expect..." series of self-help tomes for pregancy and beyond that begins with "What to Expect When You're Expecting". You see what they've done there?

Given that making sense of conflicting books about parenthood is the hardest part of actually being a parent, I can only welcome efforts to ease the 21st century fear of children with a little humour. And having read the whole book for free here, I can confirm it's pretty funny, even if you're not a fetus.

So, why do women have sex?

Because they enjoy it? Wrong, or so it seems according to this book, reviewed by The Guardian here. An excerpt from the article:

Meston and Buss have interviewed 1,006 women from all over the world about their sexual motivation, and in doing so they have identified 237 different reasons why women have sex. Not 235. Not 236. But 237. And what are they? From the reams of confessions, it emerges that women have sex for physical, emotional and material reasons; to boost their self-esteem, to keep their lovers, or because they are raped or coerced. Love? That's just a song. We are among the bad apes now.

Life is full of surprises, eh? I can't see this one making it onto many coffee, or bedside, tables.

A Completely Novel way to publish books

I just heard about completelynovel.com on the excellent Guardian Tech podcast and immediately thought of Laurence, who has written the first book of a mind-blowing fantasy adventure for "young adults" but doesn't know what to do with it. The site offers what it calls "social reading and publishing", in other words, a place to publish your books online and let users make comments and recommendations to each other. Best of all, fans can even buy themselves a hard copy with the site's on-demand printing service. Sounds perfect for budding publishers - give it a go, Loz.

Google to print 2 million books on Espresso book machine

We are pleased to have spotted the Espresso book machine way back in May because now Google has signed a deal to print off out-of-print books on demand. Read more here.