Things you can make with a book if it has an API: tag cloud, timeline, map
Imagine a grid with these four quadrants: objective, subjective, fiction, & nonfiction
Consuming content varies by quadrant (for instance subjective nonfiction would be a marketing book, objective fiction would be Clan of the Cave Bear)
Long shadow = anything wrong in your product that you have to live with (like battery issues in hardware)
Version management has been the key to the success of SaaS
API is how SaaS allows customization without supporting a huge array of features
An Internet connection was the killer for the camera - it is why camera phones are now the most popular cameras
There's more stuff outside the book than within
A book is a bundle of content [this idea was present in various sessions at TOC]
The publication date is a false epiphany -- the content continues to grow and have a life of its own once released
Authoring a book is about content and structure and an API connects them and it is as important to the book as the Internet connection is to the camera
API gives content it's own life stream
Start thinking of books as stuff
A book is a collection of ideas
The index is the starting point for an API (they are not the same of course)
Use class names for semantic data [I've mainly resisted editorializing, but I must say I'm not sure about this]
SmallDemons overcame the fact that books aren't APIs by asking publishers for all the content (the ePubs)
Readmill overcame the fact that books aren't APIs by asking readers to upload their ePubs
More new sites that help the whole industry could easily be created if books were APIs -- they wouldn't have to overcome it
Dracula has been turned into an API -- it is broken out into journals, maps, location lists, character journey
Doing this is not hard if you use PressBooks as your CMS [says the man behind PressBooks]
Recommends Mashery for publishers API since it manages users, traffic, uptime for you
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