The future of the Book

In the past decade people have been falling over themselves to predict the death of books, of publishers, of authors and of bookshops, even of reading itself. Even the most gloomy predictors of the book’s demise have softened their forecasts. Books may face more competition for audiences’ time, rather as the radio had to rethink what it could do best when films and television came along; the habit of reading for pleasure has fallen slightly in the past few years. But it has not dropped off steeply, as many predicted.

Read more at The Economist

Replacing wallets with mobile phones

Such technology has been around for years. It has failed to take off, however, in large part because so many firms have fingers in the mobile-payment pie, and often block others from grabbing a big piece of it.

Mobile phones have already enabled poor countries to leapfrog a few stages of development in telecoms and, in some cases, finance. Cheap mobile payments will allow them to jump further.

Read the full story at the Economist

Nielsen Will Soon Rate Everything on the Web, From Videos to Articles

Nielsen announced that it’s expanding its ratings system to all kinds of digital content to give both its creators and advertisers a more meaningful way to measure popularity in the online era.The most striking development in Adobe’s new system is that it’s designed for comparing disparate kinds of content. The new ratings, Nielsen says, can rank an online video next to a podcast next to an article.

Read more at Wired