Just what on earth can we do with our lifetimes of photos and old family movies? Use them or lose them, I say. And to be used, you have digitize them. And that means a huge amount of work, which I have spent a lifetime postponing.

As I see it, specifically, you have to:

•  Cull and sort the photos and movies.
•  Digitize them.
•  Create a system on your computer, so you can find the digitized pix.
•  Do something with them. Like narrated videos, like Web pages, like print books on CDs that can be reprinted (forget scrapbooks, which only one person can inherit.)

Doing something is a huge task. Many thousands of my memories are jumbled in boxes, which are stuffed in a cabinet with the door shut tight. This doesn’t count the 7,396 digitized but untagged pix, which are jumbled in my computer. 

Jumbled = worthlessness. My nephews will trash them all if I die tomorrow, and well they should. If I, who am retired, doesn’t have time to deal with the mess of my memories, why would they? Who cares? Well…I do, some days. 

Hercules’ plan to clean the stables

Here’s where I am in my plan of action:

1) Cull and sort the photos and movies.

• Start small. Leave the cabinet closed for the moment.

2) Digitize the visuals.

• Try scanmyphotos.com. My Kansas rebel friend, Gene Carter, says he’s used them twice and they’re “very supportive and flexible.” Also affordable.  I have a book of prints, plus a scattering of digital pix, of an ancestor-tracking trip that I did in Ukraine about 10 years ago. That might be an easy way to start try the system.

3) Get ready to create a system so that I can find the digitized pix. 

• First I had to get a HD with space to store thousands of pix. I bought an iMac with 750G. Pause for installation. 

• Second, Apple geniuses advised me to upgrade from iPhoto to Aperture, the Mac app for professional photographers to file their photos. Pause for installation on both my old laptop and iMac mothership. Pause to get a Time Capsule (combo wireless and 1T backup device. Long, very frustrating pause to get two computers and Time Capsule synching. Still not working.  

• Third, the geniuses suggested that I tag photos and set up “smart folders” which sounds terrific, but apparently I’m not smart enough to figure out how to do. Pause for 1 to 1 tutoring at Apple Store. That’s next week.

4) The system, specially created by me, a traveler, by Susan Fifer Canby, the queen of organizing and the vice president of information services at National Geographic. Details: 

•  Start with a year or a range of years, followed by a place, followed by names of people and details. For example with the Ukrainian pilot.  2002 Ukraine Uman Omenson DJ nephew trip 

5) Do something with the visuals. 

• Create a video of the Omenson ancestor hunt. (The story of the search isn’t as wild and weird as Everything Is Illuminated, but our story has compelling moments.) The video can be part of some Web pages that would also have other photos, links to references, a scanned pdf of the researcher’s report. And, by 2011, these pages can be laid out for a colorful e-book reader.

In truth

Who knows knows whether I’ll get around to tagging 66 years worth of pictures, let alone creating stories, especially when I love racing forward more than looking back.

When I waver, though, I think of the honeymoon album of my grandmother’s sister, who died in childbirth in 1903, a year after her wedding. The photos in the album are of the place in Florida where the couple honeymooned, with no explanation and no people. This album was treasured for 90 years by the child of my grandmother’s sister, who survived her death. I inherited it from him, and he inspired my life. How can I dump his album down the trash chute? 

I don’t want to leave my nephews with that guilt trip. Besides…they have the ancestor treasures in fireproof files back home to deal with someday.

E-Books Take 2 by Zachary Petit for Writer’s Digest answers Yamil e Sousa Dutra’s questions about the history, the business, the future of e-books. However, it doesn’t answer when Brazilian textbooks will become digital. In the United States, the digital push by law school professors is in  the beginning stages.

I predict that most major magazines will report on e-books in their year-end stories.

Petit’s key points:

Industry veteran Bob Sacks, president and publisher of Precision Media Group, believes …“E-books are the future—exclamation point—for many reasons,” Sacks says. “There was a point eight years ago in which they started and crashed. That’s not going to happen this time. We’ve passed the point of no return.” 

~~~

If you’re a literary technophobe, the numbers can be frightening: According to the Association of American Publishers, e-books accounted for $7.3 million in estimated net sales in 2002. In 2005, $43.8 million. In 2007, $67.2 million. That’s a 55.7 percent growth rate since 2002.

UPDATE @ 5:34 pm: The Miami Herald posted the latest e-book numbers, predictions today in an article with the news hook: Miami Int’l Book Fair. Says Kindle sales probably 380,000 — higher than I mentioned.

Says another use of technology is BookSwim, which I’ve never heard of, “operates in a similar way to Netflix — it rents books at a small fee, ships them for free, provides free return shipping containers, and doesn’t charge late fees — has seen its profits rise in 2008.”

The Herald didn’t mention  the Gen2 e-readers which are coming on the market now–Sony 2, iRex 2, (Kindle 2 a rumor), and will push acceptance.

Question

From Brazilian pal, Yamil e Sousa Dutra, a lawyer trained in both the US and Brazil:

 Cathy, Have been reading your blog (the one on e-reading, etc.). I was really interested in that piece on the use of e-books at the Law School classes. We do not have, as far as I know, e-books available in our libraries, however, with more and more kids going into the e-world this will soon be here, I assume. Could you send me a good article on the e-book industry (history, procedures, marketing, etc.)?  Um abraço,  Yamil

Short answer

I don’t know of such an article. Let me check around. I need to read it, too. The biz mag/newspaper articles I’ve read have hooks based on some news in the industry, like the flurry of stories after Citi’s tech guru estimated that Amazon was going to sell 300,000 Kindles this year, which is the same trajectory as Apple had with the iPod. (Amazon doesn’t release Kindle sales numbers.)

Must be some major coverage that I haven’t seen because it’s clear that the publishing industry is in the digital transition. CH

Yesterday’s news about Sky TV and the Times of London Online joining forces points up a difference in US and UK rules for cross-partnering of media. 

A few months ago, the Washington Post fielded its own video broadcasts from the national conventions. By law, they couldn’t team with a cable news show or network, which would have been  a win-win for both media companies.

There’s a compelling reason the obvious efficiency didn’t happen. Congress vigilantly guards against a few individuals controlling access to the news.

When the Federal Communications Commission established tough rules about cross-media ownership in 1975, it wanted to ensure a diversity of news in every media market. This was the era when most people watched the broadcast networks: NBC, CBS, ABC. Today, newspapers are struggling, cable TV has shattered the dominance of the Big Three and the Web has changed everything.

What hasn’t changed is Congress’ vigilance. 

In December 2007, the FCC announced that it had loosened the restrictions in order to help newspapers. By April, the Senate Commerce Committee voted to stop the changes, according to an article in US News & World Report that gives good background on the issue.

The one-ownership person most mentioned by Congress was Rupert Murdoch, described by Wikipedia as  “a global media mogul.. Among Murdoch’s properties: the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and Sky Television.

In May the Senate passed a bill blocking the rule, and in June, the change died in the House Appropriations committee. [Details.]

Sky News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and the venerable Times of London announced today that they are going to partner to “develop innovative and compelling video content” for their websites.

Apparently the British law doesn’t prevent TV and print from collaborating as the US anti-monopoly laws do when the media dominates its market.

Times Online, which has more than 20 million unique monthly visitors, will include daily co-produced and co-branded videos. Times Editor said that in the time that “we have been developing our partnership with Sky, the number of people watching video on our site has trebled.”

Sky video and Times’ specialists commentary immediately will begin daily business coverage. 

Award-winning Sky multimedia producer, John Jelley, has been working at the TImes since May on setting up video and multimedia facilities. A Sk producer has been sent to work at the Times for up to a year to “develop and manage the project.  

We have another report about independent developers turning the iPhone into a reading device. AppScout notes that ComicZeal is taking advantage of iPhone’s glowing color and wifi connections to reach its fans. “Available as a $1.99 download, [ComicZeal's] app lets users download and read copyright-free comics from the golden age. The comics themselves are free.” 

Currently, ten comic books are available.  [Correction: there are couple of hundred comic books available in about ten series. Thanks, oldbeamer, emolina@bitolithic.com

ComicZeal readers have the same iPhone viewing advantages as with Web pages and audio books: Pages can be landscape or portrait, you can pinch-zoom, fingertip scroll, and iPhone remembers where you left off a book when it shuts down

I nearly always buy Progresso soups. I never have purchased Select Harvest. Campbell’s ran this ad in the November issue of AARP. After all the articles by Dr. Andrew Weil, et. al, everyone knows that more is not better. I’m going to try Select Harvest. In the meantime, I’ve been making my own soup, but that’s another story and doesn’t have anything to do with a brilliant, persuasive display of information.

And by the way…didn’t/doesn’t Campbell’s do Healthy Choice soups. I never even tried that brand.

Scroll to watch video.

I’ve been silent on this blog because I’ve been in Berkeley, focused on learning Digital Storytelling. The Center there, which started the movement 15 years ago, has a formula for creating a three-minute videos which you narrate, illustrate with stills and/or video clips, and enhance with a soundtrack. 

At my birthday dinner on Tuesday night, family friend Regis asked me different three times: “What are you going to do with this?” 

 ”Um…maybe teach some workshops…create some videos…”

“For who?” 

“Maybe just me,” I said, slowly, “Maybe Geographic Traveler…I just know that writers have to know how to create and use video and audio, and quickly. When e-reader devices finally get color (est. 2010-2012), readers won’t settle for just text and pictures– the Internet already has trained us to expect to read + watch + listen + respond.

Will text eventually get downgrades into mere captions for video? I don’t think so. We all skim-skip quickly through text, and I, for one, feel trapped by a video producer’s pace. On the other hand, when multimedia is done right, all my senses feel content.

My friend Yamil Dutra from Brazil sent this NYT article about Beatriz Milhazes, an artist in Rio, for a birthday gift, knowing that her paintings are similar to ones that I live with in my home. The video is too long — 7+ minutes, and the clips of a grey Rio under overcast skies don’t show why her colors “from the nature…” are so vibrant.

Clearly this was a daily news sort of interview, so reality is all right. I lived in Rio one November and it was overcast. What’s also right about the TImes’ multimedia package, is that the text and the photos made me curious to know more. And more is what I got, in a way that no text can do. In a blink on video, I knew Milhazes. I knew her look, her voice, her environment and her feelings about her art.

If Regis had asked me this afternoon about what I’m going to do with Digital Storytelling, I could talk about depth for interviews. And I could tell him that I still read the article.  Most of it.

Newsweek launched  four books about each of the presidential and vice presidential candidates on  Amazon’s Kindle starting yesterday, Oct. 15. The “books” are a collection of articles that already have been published in Newsweek, which is owned by the Washington Post. 

Amazon expects the model to broaden. Ian Freed, an Amazon vice president in charge of the Kindle told Newsweek reporter  Richard Pérez-Peña.  ”This could start to change the way at least some books are published.”

Pérez-Peña noted the advantages for a quick turn-around for a topical book when there are no printing and distribution costs. It was only a month ago when Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, approached Amazon with the idea. 

Kindle now offers more than 180,000 book titles and 40 magazines and newspapers. 

UPDATE: Oct. 9, 2009

Cambridge Network’s article about the new generation, flexible, full color, video display e-paper adds depth to the initial announcement.

Oct. 6, 2008

The UK’s Technology Strategy Board has awarded a £12m ($21m), three-year grant to scientists in Cambridge to create flexible-screen, fully interaction e-paper with a color process called electrowetting that enables speeds which can display video, according to the Guardian on Oct. 2.

Two backers of the project are forerunners in the field: Plastic Logic, which recently announced a document-sized e-reader using E-Ink’s b/w technology,  and Liquivista, a spin-off company from Philips Research Lab. Two other Philips’ e-paper spin-offs are iRex’s e-reader and Polymer Vision’s Readius, the cell phone with plastic e-paper which pulls out. 

iRex has a larger upgrade about to hit the market, and Readius plans to begin selling its device in Europe this fall. Both use E-Ink.

Readius demonstrated a color e-paper prototype about five months ago in San Diego.

E-Ink execs have said they’ll have color by 2009 and video in 2012. The latter would be one year after the UK grant ends, presumably when the product has been developed.