From the press release: Copia, the interactive eBookstore, announced that music critic Will Hermes will answer reader questions inside his book, the acclaimed Love Goes to Buildings on Fire. Starting today, anyone who purchases a copy of Hermes's much-lauded book from Copia can use the site's free eReader app to post questions to the author in the margins of the eBook. Hermes will respond to the questions through Feb. 21, 2012. While users have always been able to create and share notes on any eBook purchased from Copia, thanks to the platform's app,...

From the press release: Copia Interactive, LLC, creator of one of the largest, independent, full-featured digital content platforms, announced today the launch of the first of more than 900 independently branded college digital bookstore sites scheduled for rollout prior to the Spring 2012 semester. Copia is the only platform designed to provide a single portal to all of a users’ digital content and social activity, creating a unified experience unrivaled in the market. In addition to Tier-1 content availability, students enjoy a richer, deeper engagement with content and community, both inside and alongside the content, leveraging Copia’s many immersive features to...

Copia demonstrates enhanced ebooks with their new annotated version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  It’s a free download for the Copia desktop reader. Their website says: This Copia Edition of Pride and Prejudice is fully annotated by Susan Fraiman, professor of English at the University of Virginia and noted Austen scholar. Using the Copia eReader, Austen fans can read Fraiman's lively and illuminating notes right in the margins of the book. Ever wonder what shoe roses are? How to tell a phaeton from a barouche? Would you like to know why Austen's opening sentence is so...

For any Dylan fan this looks like a "must have".  From the press release: As rock and roll legend Bob Dylan celebrates turning 70 today, Copia (www.thecopia.com), the groundbreaking social eReading platform and web site, is honoring the event with a gift to fans of the American Icon. Starting Tuesday, May 24 and continuing through June 6, Dylan fans will be able to visit the website and downloadRevolution in the Air, noted Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin's comprehensive, 446-page, song-by-song guide to Dylan's work from 1957–1973."We wanted to do something fun for readers and fans that would pay tribute to one of America's greatest songwriters and...

From the press release. Copia ... announced that it is shipping a touch-optimized client application for Windows 7 tablets of its social eReader, Copia, and has added features to support IE9 for the Copia Web Portal. ... “As a new business Copia is able to quickly create a collection of tier one consumer experiences by tying into Windows to reach millions of customers globally. This encompasses Windows Phone 7, the Web through IE9 and Windows 7 PCs,” said Chris Bernard, Microsoft User Experience Advisor for Copia. “Copia sets the bar for what the next generation of eReader...

The long awaited Copia e-reading platform finally launched, and the big surprise is that the previously announced devices have disappeared. Copia's innovation is that it smushes together a bookstore, reading environments that live across devices, and a social network. As such, it's interesting to look at. Another recent arrival is the App for Mongoliad, the ambitious collaboration between Neal Stephenson, Greg Baer "and friends". It's a serial work built on a custom platform (including both website and apps) that supports multimedia and user-generated content, and it aspires to be a community inside a fictional world containing multiple narratives rather than a novel. It's undeniable that books...

I've been looking forward to this app for a few months. When I heard about The Copia and discovered its dizzying array of models to choose from, I wondered why they were focusing on hardware in this increasingly crowded ereader market when they could accomplish the same social network goals with less startup cost with apps for PCs, Macs, iPads, iPhones, and Android tablets. Apparently, DMC Worldwide had the same thoughts because they've discontinued their ereaders and will be focusing on the desktop and mobile experience. Unfortunately, this app is very beta. As such, do not expect a new social network...

Just got an email from Anthony Antolino. He was the Senior Vice President at Copia and the one primarily responsible for the shepherding of the product. According to the email he has spent the last four years working on the concept. Wonder what's going on....

In an interview with Publishers Weekly a Copia VP said: ... that the decision to cancel the Copia devices came after “in-depth conversations” with their OEM partners—Copia had planned all along to produce its own devices as well as bundle its software on other devices. Lowinger said that Copia’s approach to hardware, “has always been agnostic. To enable our users to better appreciate the value of the Copia platform, it was our desire to power a variety of products that would be enabled by the Copia platform. Discussions over the past several months made it clear that the best way to...

I picked up from a tweet by SplinteredMind that Copia has supposedly gone live today. No press releases or other announcements seem to have been made, but several other sites are saying it went live also. Well, I went over to the site and signed up. That worked, but the site is still carrying a "Beta" notice. The only way to read books, according to the site, is on the iPad or the desktop. The Android, Windows Phone 7, and Copia Touch (whatever that is) applications aren't available yet. There is also no mention of any...

Well, I guess they are still around. Copia, according to Publishers Weekly, is talking to independent bookstores in order to become their online retailing solution. They would provide a turnkey operation which would supply digital fulfillment. According to Copia vp Anthony Antolino, they have been talking to the American Booksellers Association. Publishers Weekly has reported that they spoke the the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association and offered indie bookstores a revenue shave between 30% and 50% of the retail price. Antolino described the new Copia program as a “turnkey retail partner and affiliate program” for indie bookstores. Copia claims that...

We've written about Copia in the past. They are setting up a social reading platform on the web which will be combined with an ebookstore and a series of ereaders. I was very impressed with them at Tools of Change and we reported on their revised devices about a month ago. According to the Wall Street Journal they have revised their hardware platform for a second time. They will be offering, among others, a $99 5-inch color debice this fall “The iPad disrupted pricing strategy for everyone in the e-reader market, and after the price wars with Barnes and...