We've watched with interest as a few new digital publishing-related startups have launched seemingly out of the blue over the past few weeks. Thin Reads, a fantastic new website that runs reviews of e-singles, is definitely one of our favorites, and we're clearly not alone; the site has been enjoying a ton of mostly glowing press. (Click to see what Mashable, Paid Content, and MediaBistro's GalleyCat have to say about the new site.) But there's another interesting and brand-new startup known as Blackstrap that hasn't been getting quite as much love lately. In fact, we hadn't even heard of it until we...

  Rick Marazzani believes readers should be able to share and discover e-books through their friends' personal libraries just like they do with print books. That's why he built Ownshelf. Ownshelf, a free web service that launched in beta Friday, provides readers with a cloud storage platform to share e-books with friends and family. Think of it as a simpler Dropbox intended specifically for e-books, but with a social element built in to foster discovery ...   Read Full Article Source: Mashable * * *  ...

Assuming you're interested in the confluence of HTML5 and the monetization of digital publishing, you'll definitely want to check out this recent Mashable article, which covers a panel that took place at the Mashable Media Summit last Friday, November 30. Thinking Outside the App, as the panel was titled, appears to have essentially dealt with just one question, which Mashable reporter Laura Indvik puts forward in her post: "Given the amount of traffic publishers are seeing from mobile web-browsers, coupled with improvements in HTML5 ... does it make sense for publishers to continue to invest in native apps for tablets and smartphones?" Panelist Rob Grimshaw, the...

Poor Barnes & Noble has been taking a real beating in the e-reader blog space lately, so I thought I'd share a link to a recent Mashable story that actually offers a bit of positive B&N and Nook news. The lede graph of reporter Lauren Indvik's piece tells the rather unfortunate financial B&N story we've been reading about everywhere over the past few days: "Sales of Barnes & Noble’s line of tablets and e-readers declined in the company’s fiscal 2013 first quarter ending July 28, the bookseller reported Tuesday."  But then, there's this: "[Barnes & Noble's] digital content sales increased 46%. That was...

On Mashable, Lance Ulanoff posts about the trend toward self-publishing through Amazon and other e-book shops. Amazon, he writes, has a huge potential audience, and both known and unknown writers are finding audiences for their books there. And Apple just unveiled iBooks Author, which makes creating e-books easier than ever. Of course, there are concerns over quality, especially given that many e-books may not have been professionally edited. Whether you use Amazon or Apple, these platforms tear down the traditional publisher barrier and put control firmly in the hands of you and me. I wonder how...

Doonesbury the other day had an amusing take on the print-vs-digital conundrum that is currently affecting newspapers. But in a way it’s not so much a laughing matter. Mashable has a fairly long report looking at the problems newspapers are having now. A rebound in advertising purchases that increased spending on the Internet, TV, and radio bypassed newspapers and magazines, whose ad revenues still fell. As a result, newspapers have been losing money, and hence losing employees. The problem lies not in a stubbornness to evolve and recognize value in digital media, but a lack of resources. As a result of cutting, newspapers...