The iPhone-friendly Stanza e-reader keeps on winning new friends. Book Glutton, known for its shared annotations on its Web site, is the latest publisher to partner with Lexcycle, Stanza’s developer. Image is of a BG book seen in Stanza, and other pictures are here.
Reminder: The ePub standard is Stanza’s flagship format and can be read by other programs. But partner publishers are actually making their content downloadable from within Stanza—an important step toward easy-to-use Kindle alternatives. That is why I keep mentioning Stanza and will do the same for similarly useful products, especially those without DRM. BookGlutton news release follows.
BOOKGLUTTON PARTNERS WITH STANZA TO OFFER IPHONE BOOKS NOVEMBER 25, 2008 - BookGlutton has partnered with Lexcycle to offer content through its iPhone application, Stanza. Starting today users will be able to download select works from the BookGlutton catalog and read them in Stanza on the iPhone or iPod Touch. The Stanza application is free, as is the work BookGlutton has chosen to offer through it. "This was an easy decision," says Aaron MIller, co-founder of BookGlutton. "It's a win-win situation. Stanza gets more content and BookGlutton gets more exposure. Both companies use the emerging EPUB standard, so integration was fairly simple. " There are a number of categories under BookGlutton in Stanza's Online Catalog that users can choose from, including Science Fiction Stories, Top Reads from the BookGlutton Site, Random Recommendations and Alphabetical Titles and Authors. "We'll be expanding those categories over time" says Travis Alber, CCO. To access BookGlutton's e-books through Stanza, users who have the software installed should go to the Online Catalog and scroll down to BookGlutton. This link will take users to the available categories. This is a new direction for BookGlutton, which usually focuses on community reading online rather than downloads. Launched earlier this year, BookGlutton.com creates community around books in an online e-book application called the Unbound Reader. Visitors to BookGlutton.com can select a book and discuss the content with each other from right inside the book, on a chapter-by-chapter basis. About Lexcycle and Stanza Lexcycle is a private company that strives to bring the digital reading revolution to readers around the world. With over 500,000 users in 70 countries, Lexcycle's Stanza is the highest rated and most popular electronic book reader for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch devices. About BookGlutton Launched in January 2008, BookGlutton is a cross between a book, a computer and a book group -- a web-based digital reader that lets users discuss books from the inside. BookGlutton has turned books into conversations using web 2.0 technologies, allowing people around the world to connect and chat about books on a page-by-page level. The Unbound Reader is built entirely on open web standards, is free to use, and allows both shared comments and real-time chatting on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Visit http://www.bookglutton.com.
