Cyberlibris blog

Iphone, Cyberlibris et salon du livre de Paris

Jeudi soir et vendredi passés au Salon du Livre pour le lancement de notre nouveau service sur iPhone. Beaucoup de démos, de présentations, de questions et surtout un enthousiasme formidable tant des auteurs, que des éditeurs (plusieurs nouvelles maisons d'édition se joignent à Cyberlibris) et des lecteurs. Epuisant mais passionnant. De retour lundi pour la journée complète.

Ce qui est sans doute le plus marquant, c'est la facilité avec laquelle des personnes plutôt réfractaires aux nouvelles technologies (ou intimidées par elles) ont adhéré au principe: têtes médusées par cette idée pourtant simple de se promener avec sa bibliothèque dans sa poche.

"Vous êtes sûr que c'est un téléphone?..." nous a-t-on dit. C'est vrai, c'est surprenant, un téléphone qui est une bibliothèque, une bibliothèque qui est un téléphone...

Une des plus belles images sur le stand de l'Outre-Mer: des conteuses créoles qui commencent à lire Raphaël Confiant sur l'iPhone!

Et, enfin, le test ultime: comment fait-on pour y accéder? Un abonnement mensuel, quelques euros par mois... Têtes ravies qui en disent long.

Les semaines de travail intensif et les longues journées recueillent leurs premiers dividendes!

Cyberlibris launches in Spain and Sweden

2008 is about to close: Another year of intense collaboration with publishers (both sides of the ocean), academic institutions, commercial partners and, last but not least, thousands of individuals who have collectively expressed their interest and trust in what we have been crafting step-by-step since 2000.

The community of subscribers using one of the many Cyberlibris (www.cyberlibris.com) digital libraries span a wide range of countries and continents: France, Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Algeria, Morrocco, Senegal, Congo, Brazil, Haïti, French West Indies etc... It is always a good feeling when you see that books are digitally travelling reaching people in remote places who more often than not have a limited access to bookstores, print books, libraries.

The feeling is exactly the same when you see French or Belgium students interacting digitally with books and with each other and, for that matter, spending less time in front of photocopiers. It is also a privilege when faculty members revert back to us to tell us that they have discovered books in their respective fields which they did not know about. It is even more rewarding to see faculty members' bookshelves shared with students who are no longer restricted to a single required text. No more text rationing for odd and undefendable reasons: The diversity of opinions, expert knowledge, reading styles is now a common currency traded by professors, students and librarians.

In this (re)discovery process predicated on a no-brainer subscription model, publishers are in an ideal position to observe that the classical (physical) best-seller hierarchy is more often than not turned upside down. Subscribers vote with their mice and in the course of doing so books and authors that had been crushed by the physical system regain a lease of life. A lease of life that has led in many cases to new editions of their books which were not supposed to take place to say the least. Another great feeling indeed!

2008 has been a great year not only for pure academic reasons. Thousands of individual subscribers, individuals, families, kids, public library patrons, have communicated their enthusiasm for this very simple notion of having access to a digital library (too) from home or from wherever they are. A fascinating move indeed from institutions with a clear agenda to individuals charactererized by their diversity of tastes, horizons, opportunities, constraints etc... And a rewarding one which has enabled us to spread the gospel abroad.

In 2009 Cyberlibris will launch (fully localized) in Spain and Sweden. South and North! Spanish and Swedish publishers have joined the hundreds of French and international publishers who endorse Cyberlibris business proposition. Again, this is a great motive of satisfaction to see that something that was conceived and built "locally" is about to fly under different latitudes: After all, attitude beats latitude!

This does not mean of course that homeland has been neglected or forgotten. In 2009, new services and new applications will be launched spanning many publishers, many territories and, of course, many people: litterature, novels, essays, theology, science etc...

2008 has been a very rewarding year. We learnt a lot and still are. We listened a lot too. And, we know all too well that each day is another day. No, we don't know whether or not 2008 has been the year of the e-book, whether or not 2009 will be. And, frankly, we could not care less: We do not believe in universal schemes, one size fits all proposition, consultants predictions and the whole (tech) shabam. Forecasters cannot even explain the past... 

To all our (institutional and individual) users we want to express our deepest gratitude. Without them 2008 would not have been what it turned out to be, a year where the dream we had in 2000, namely to let subscription-based digital libraries inside each home, came true.

We are also grateful to the publishers community who has ventured with us to an unchartered territory that the music industry, among other content rightholders, did not want to explore: That of a different and complementary business model whereby, among other things, rich and varied collections of books can be accessible under a simple, flexible, subscription based and reasonably priced formula. This is the same model that will apply in Spain and Sweden.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All!

From the best minds of finance, marketing, economics....

What if you were to find in one place, in one go? :

• Deborah J. Macinnis ,Professor of Marketing at the Marshall School of Business, USC,
  

• Joanna Shepherd, Professor of Law, Emory Law School,
  

• Martin Gaynor, E.J. Barone Professor of Economics and Health Policy, Northwestern University,
  

• Jack Meyer, Professor of Economics, Michigan State University,
  

• Narayan Naik, Professor of Finance, London Business School,
  

• Dominique Hanssens, Bud Knapp Professor of Marketing, UCLA,

• Yakov Amihud, Ira Leon Rennert Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance,

• Howard Kunreuther, Cecilia Yen Koo Professor of Decision Sciences and Business and Public Policy, The Wharton School,

• Aswath Damodaran, Professor of Finance, New York University,

• Robert C. Merton, John and Natty McArthur University Professor, Harvard Business School,

• John H. Cochrane, Myron S. Scholes Professor of Finance, University of Chicago,

• Rajnish Mehra, Professor of Finance, University of California, Santa Barbara,

• Donald Kuratko, The Jack M. Gill Chair of Entrepreneurship, Indiana University,

and many more....

The contributions of these bright academic spirits are available online full-text in Cyberlibris Academia thanks to Cyberlibris partnership with Now Publishers. Just type the name of the authors in Cyberlibris search box or, even better, just type Now Publishers in the search box and you'll get immediate access to 46 magnificent pieces of work.

Powered by ScribeFire.

OpenID = Ex-Libris = Bookplate = Forget about DRM?

From openid.net:

OpenID: OpenID is a free and easy way to use a single digital identity across the Internet.

From Wikipedia:

Bookplate: also known as ex-librīs [Latin, "from the books of..."], is usually a small print or decorative label pasted into a book, often on the inside front cover, to indicate its owner. Simple typographical bookplates are termed 'booklabels'.

What if instead of putting people in DRM jails (which is what the book industry seems to be heading for despite the music painful e-adventures), e-books were without DRM but carrying the OpenID of their owners?

This is a simple idea which is not really new: Ex-Libris have been around for a while!

Instead of penalizing e-book buyers and readers with ineffective DRMs, why not make them proud and responsible owners of the content they download?

Vox Academia: And the Golden Palm goes to...

Vox Academia has been live for almost six months now. We want to thank all the contributors and readers who have made it a rising success. 29 contributors have registered so far and many of them do post chronicles on a regular basis.

Since the 2007 Cannes Festival is currently taking place, we have decided that we too can attribute "palms" :-)

As a matter of fact, we have decided to grant two sets of palms: a static one and a dynamic one.

The static "palm" ranking is based on the number of visits since the inception of Vox Academia. This ranking is of course only a partial picture as the old chronicles have, other things being equal, more chance to be in the ranking that brand new ones.

That's why we come up with the dynamic "palm" ranking. In a nutshell, this ranking is based on the observed trend of current consultations. It means that if the trend we observe now stays the same, this is the ranking we may reasonably expect in the near future.

So much for comments! Let's turn to the results.
 
VOX Academia / Cyberlibris Hall of Fame:

The SP (static palm) Ranking:

1. The Golden Palm goes to Olivier Germain for his chronicle: "M6: Une Petite Histoire de (la) Stratégie".
2. The Silver Palm goes to Didier Joos de ter Beerst for his chronicle"Réseaux et Guildes au Moyen-Age: Le Renvoi d'Ascenceur"
3. The Bronze Palm goes to Marianne Hauchecorne for her chronicle "La Symbolique des Couleurs Côté Web"

The DP (dynamic palm) Ranking:

1. The Golden Palm goes to Didier Joos de ter Beerst for his chronicle "Réseaux et Guildes au Moyen-Age: Le Renvoi d'Ascenceur"
2. The Silver Palm goes to Aïda N'Diaye for her chronicle "Travailler Moins Pour Gagner Plus?: Qu'est-ce qu'une Méritocratie?"
3. The Bronze Palm goes to Bernard Paranque for his chronicle "Valeur Travail - Valeur du Travail"

Congratulations to all of them! Congratulations to all of you and pass on the good word: Academic conversations are not boring! They are fun and informative.

Do yourself a favor: Become a chronicler on Vox Academia and/or convert friends to become both chroniclers and readers!

Who said academic conversation was boring!: Vox Academia is live!

We said we would do it. We've done it. Vox Academia is live! Vox Academia is the place for academic chronicles.

It is the place for starting academic conversations and, indeed, from what I've seen already these conversations are far from boring!

So, join Vox Academia and let's have a buoyant worldwide academic conversation!

Books: A Truly Bright Collective Future

Once upon a time there was a writer who was solitary at his desk. All his life had been dedicated to books. From dawn to twilight, his pen was chasing the right word, the definitive sentence. Days were passing by. Each new day was a step towards his Magnus Opus. Was he happy? Nobody knew, not even himself. Were King Arthur and his knights happy? They knew about one thing only: The Holy Grail was what their lives were all about. There was no place for sorrow or happiness. Pain for sure. Our writer believed in what they believed: Lonely perspiration will get you there, to your Magnus Opus. His publisher shared the same faith although, from times to times, he doubted the Magnus Opus would ever see the public light. The Magnus Opus seemed like a never ending story. No publisher, even the shrewdest, knew how not to lose money on a never ending Magnus Opus copyright.

Sometimes the publisher would hear some silly stories about books that were written online, crowdsourced, the product of multiple anonymous pens. How can it be? By what stretch of imagination could books end up as a collective knowledge factory, always at work, where you cannot distinguish between writers and readers. Why would the Magnus Opus be exposed to all eyes, to all brains while it should have been kept as a genuine secret until publishing time?

Are books dead? Should the writer give up his cherished solitary desk and strive for something else?

No, books are not dead. They are different. Why? Because we are different too. The Magnus Opus is not dead either: It will become even "more Magnus" simply because we are more and as a crowd we are able to transform perspiration into inspiration.

No, we won't pretend that each of us is a good as the solitary writer at his desk, only that we can make him or her even better should he or she and his or her publisher accept us in his or her writing cabinet. 

Writing and publishing should not remain solitary exercises. Otherwise they'll become a dry land of failed and lost opportunities, the opportunities many of us were willing to share thanks to the many digital tools our voices can embrace.

Life is not perspiration or inspiration, solitary or collaborative, closed or open, all rights reserved or no rights reserved. It is all of this. And, in all of this, books, writers and publishers have a bright future, the future of our collective collaborative wisdom.

What they knew about finance in Genoa in 1298

It is a striking fact that finance academics are not very interested in history and that history academics seem to have a fairly restrictive view of finance.

This is sad: The two fields have much to learn from each other. My co-author, Didier Joos de ter Beerst, and myself have been fascinated by a contract that was signed in 1298 in Genoa between Benedetto Zaccaria, a powerful merchant and admiral, and two Genoese financiers, Enrico Suppa and Baliano Grillo.

To the point that we have conducted an in-depth research about this contract (Didier was able to get a copy of the original version). This contract is a masterpiece of strategy and financial engineering and a great source of inspiration for economists, finance and history scholars.

After months of reading, struggling with the contract, going into intense discussions, we wrote a paper that has already been presented in several conferences. Lastly, Didier presented the paper at the XIVth International Economic History Congress in Helsinki.

If finance, options, derivative and structured products are your pet topics, if you have an interest in insurance and banking; if you are keen on history, especially medieval history, we think you will enjoy this paper.

The latest French version forthcoming in Revue du Financier is here: article_zaccaria.pdf

The current English version (IEHCPAPERBRIYSJOOS.pdf) is fairly long (worth it ;-) but still at the rough draft stage (with typos, sorry!)) We include a shorter (IEHC.ppt). A French version will be published soon.

We'd be delighted to receive your comments!

Ad click fraud: Google is on the hook!

I have always been skeptical on the CPA model. They're been much hype and money around Google Adwords: People talking about Internet ads becoming relevant, non intrusive and what have you...

And now one discovers that all this may be the base for significant fraud and advertisers being charged way too much by Google.

I let you build your own opinion on this by having a look at the following documents Reportonthirdpartyclickfraudauditing1.pdf and Download tuzhilin_report1.pdf .

Have also a look at John Battelle's account.

I am not an expert on this issue but a little voice tells me that this story is far from being over even though Google has already agreed to reimburse $90 million to advertisers.

Microfinance: The untold truth

Microfinance and fair trade are trendy these days. Rich people somehow feel guilty towards poor (South) people. Poor people do not enjoy the same access to financing opportunities as the North people. Moreover poor people  can't sell their products at what has been called fair price.

Microfinance is about lending small amount of money to poor people who have a project in mind (What_is_Microfinance.pdf ). What is funny is the gullibility of far too many people with respect to microfinance. Microfinance is a good thing, it makes them feel less guilty. They see it as an alternative to allmighty (destructive) capitalism.

All this is pure crap! Microfinance is finance at its best. It is easy to lend to poor people in poor countries because you are almost sure that they will repay. It is difficult to lend to rich people because you're never sure that they will reimburse! How can it be? To answer to this you have to understand what makes lending a difficult task in the first place.

In rich countries, banks lend to people whom they don't know. They try hard figuring out their creditworthiness and more often than not ask for collateral. Economists talk about moral hazard and adverse selection to describe the phenomena at stake.

With microfinance, lenders are in the ideal situation: First, they can discriminate among borrowers, they simply don't lend (in many instances) to men (who run with the money to have a good drink). Women are reliable, hence they get the money. To make sure that the money is well-spent contractual provisions often involve the community in which the lending woman live. For instance, if she fails to pay, the community may be on the hook and have to repay for her or be punished by having a more difficult access to the next loan. The community plays a monitoring and a supportive role to ensure success. This is the dream situation for any banker!

History teaches us that the minute growth kicks in, the minute you deal with strangers (who are not all crooks of course), you start having problems and you end up with economics and finance professors!

So next time you hear somebody telling you how different microfinance is from ugly capitalism, do yourself and your friend a favor: Don't feel unnecessarily guilty, don't be gullible: microfinance is just about Economics and Finance 101!