There have been a lot of stories lately about government attempts to increasingly lock down data rather than letting it open up—in Canada, Bill C-11 granted users a host of new rights and then negated them all with its digital locks provisions; in the U.S., the president himself had to weigh in on the issue of cell phone unlocking before an overly restrictive bill got fixed. Lost in all the 'content must be protected!' rhetoric is the tiny detail that sometimes data aggregation can be a good thing. Two stories crossed my inbox this morning which are highlighted how. Case Study 1:...

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is on the record with a comment over at GigaOM that password sharing among family members is not a big deal. I applaud him for his sensibility in recognizing this. I think too many content creators fail to make a distinction between casual sharing amongst members of a household, and uploading to a torrent for millions and millions of people to consume for free. I am delighted to see a big player like Hastings recognize this. He does concede that multiple users sharing an account is 'not ideal.' But he clarifies that what they are seeing is situations such...

The announcement of Google Reader’s shutdown has caused developers of other RSS readers to prepare themselves for an influx of users. Feedly happens to be one of those developers. Feedly revealed on its blog that it has been preparing to deal with Google Reader’s eventual closure for awhile. The fruits of its labor is a Google Reader API clone it's been referring to as project Normandy. When Google Reader goes away on July 1, Normandy will make the transition super easy for any Feedly user. Feedly told GigaOM it’s possible for other developers to use its cloned API just like Google’s official API. “Our goal is...

We've all heard by now about the upcoming death of Google Reader. Our own Chris Meadows, in his write-up, has even thoughtfully offered some alternatives for those who, like me, are suddenly scrambling to fill the void. But to my surprise, reactions around the Web have been decidedly mixed. Many, like me, had that first 'OMG!' reaction, but then on second thought, weren't too sad at all. Some even saw it coming ... For instance, in this write-up at GigaOM, one of Google Reader's own creators says the writing was on the wall from day one: 'When they replaced sharing with +1 on...

Thanks to Nate over at The Digital Reader for alerting me to this great blog post by author Lindsay Buroker. Buroker runs through a number of Amazon 'tricks' which, for various reasons, are losing steam as powerhouse author tools. Some tools, such as tagging and keyword manipulation, never worked that well anyway because people don't tend to search for books using those methods. Others, such as freebie promotions, are less potent than they used to be because of Amazon's restrictions on these practices. So, what was Buroker's perhaps surprising conclusion? She points out that authors should not lose heart when these things...

"One of the biggest mistakes we as a society in general, and industry in specific make is that we mistake medium for the message. Those who can keep their eye on the message—Amazon and Netflix for example—profit handsomely. On the flip-side you have Flickr." —Om Malik This particular time of year—the stretch between Christmas and, say, the first week or two of January—seems to always result in some sort of consumer-relevant trend story that is repeated over and over again in the media, ad nauseum, until most people simply begin thinking of the story as nothing less than pure...

15 Must-Have Collaboration Tools for Journalists (Media Shift) 3M Expands Collaboration with Penguin (Good E-Reader) The Kind of Journalism we Need is Changing but Can Journalists Make the Transition? (GigaOM) Digital Textbook Study Shows Interactive Features Were Used More than Embedded Videos (The Digital Reader) Kindle Daily Deal: Lit by Mary Karr {and} The Elephant's Child by Rudyard Kipling * * * Follow us @TeleRead  Join us on Facebook...

Barnes & Noble’s new Nook HD tablets, priced starting at $199, aim to stand out from the pack with reader-centric features and enhanced reading experiences for magazines and catalogs. The company’s goal is to drive book discovery and purchasing through the tablets in new ways. Barrnes & Noble’s two new Android Wi-Fi tablets, the 7-inch Nook HD and 9-inch Nook HD+, aim to compete with other moderately priced tablets such as Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Google’s Nexus 7. But the new Nook tablets, starting at $199 and available in October, differentiate themselves most from competitors when it comes to some new...

            Media Chiefs Form Venture to E-Publish (New York Times) The Serious Business of Kindle Serials (Paid Content) 10 New iOS Features iPad Users Should Know (GigaOM) Kindle Daily Deal: Goodbye to All That (and) Pie-Rits, a Pirate Adventure...

New iPod Touch Looks Better for Reading Than Ever (The Digital Reader) Apple Announces iTunes 11 (GigaOM) Kindle Paperwhite Won't See Int'l Release Until 2013 (Good E-Reader) Waterstones CEO: Amazon Deal Great Except for the Bear Traps (Paid Content)   Kindle Daily Deal: The Goddess of Fried Okra [&] Mary Poppins...

Kindle Daily Deal: Seven Books by Lawrence Block Nexus 7 to Reach Germany on Sept. 3 (Good E-Reader) How College Bookstores are Killing College Bookstores (The New Republic) Amid Plagiarism Reports, Coursera Adds Honor Code Reminder (GigaOm) UK Authors Discontent with Publishers (The Digital Reader) ...

From the press release: GigaOM, the leading independent voice on emerging technologies and the disruption of media, today announced the launch of its digital book publishing imprint, GigaOM Books. In keeping with GigaOM editorial coverage and GigaOM Pro research, GigaOM Books publishes e-books about the people, technologies and trends shaping the evolution of technology and media. “GigaOM has always been at forefront of new publishing models,” said Michael Wolf, vice president, GigaOM. “We have a heritage in digital publishing and a crack team of writers who will provide the rich, deep content GigaOM readers expect, but in longer form.” Technology has changed the way...