Disruptive Conversations

WordPress 3.5 Nears Completion - First Release Candidate Now Available

Last week Andrew Nacin of the WordPress core team published an update titled "The short road To 3.5" that outlined exactly how close the team is to having a final release. The next day, in fact, the first "release candidate" of WordPress 3.5 was made available for download.

As noted in both posts, as well as the WordPress 3.5 schedule, the goal is to go through a couple more release candidates and then have the final release on December 5, 2012 - only 9 days away!

Whether or not the core team hits that goal will really depend upon how much testing they get (and they are looking for more people to test WP 3.5!) and what the status of the major issues are as the date draws closer.

For communicators/marketers, WordPress 3.5 continues the ongoing series of improvements to the WordPress "user experience" to make it even simpler and easier to use. I don't know that anything in 3.5 necessarily rises to the "MUST HAVE IT NOW!" category, but certainly the improvements look good. I am particularly interested in the rewritten media subsystem that will apparently allow for much simpler insertion and handling of images. One thing that has always bothered me about WordPress' media handling was the dialog boxes around setting a "Featured Image". From the tickets, this seems to be one of many improvements.

New WordPress Multisite Goodness

Another feature I'm looking forward to for new installations is the ability to set up WordPress Multisite in "subdirectory" mode versus "subdomain" mode. To date, Multisite has only worked when you used a subdomain as the base for all blogs. For instance, you might base the blog at:

blogs.example.com

and then your individual blogs would be:

blogs.example.com/blog1
blogs.example.com/blog2
blogs.example.com/blog3
...

This works fine (and is still in 3.5), but if you want to integrate your blogs into an existing web site, you weren't able to easily use Multisite. Now, with 3.5, you will be able to install WordPress Multisite into a subdomain, so that your base can be:

www.example.com/blogs/

and then your individual blogs can be:

www.example.com/blogs/blog1
www.example.com/blogs/blog2
www.example.com/blogs/blog3
...

This then allows you to continue using your main domain for SEO or branding purposes, but still have all the power of WordPress Multisite with regard to letting different groups have their own blogs with separate users, access control, etc. ... and all the other goodness you get from Multisite.

Now, this option can only be chosen when installing WordPress Multisite, so it doesn't help existing installations... but any new servers can be spun up in this mode if that works better.

The Normal Caveats Apply...

If you want to know more of the details of what will be in WordPress 3.5, the Beta 1 announcement had all sorts of good info. There's also a ticket with a rough list of changes in 3.5. All of that info should eventually make its way to the Codex page on WordPress 3.5 as the release date nears. There are some really good changes for developers that ought to improve WordPress performance and help in so many other ways.

You should, of course, not just drop WordPress 3.5 onto your production site, even after it has been fully released. There are changes to the underlying systems and so you should really test it with your theme(s) and plugins to make sure that they all work before you make it live. You also of course want to backup your system and make sure that you have the ability to restore if you need to do so.

WordPress also has a "WordPress Beta Tester" plugin for the more adventurous who want to run a site testing out the newest releases. Again, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for production servers given that things will break during the normal course of development. Rather than use that plugin you can also just download the 3.5 release candidate and try it out.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this new release brings and to trying it out on my own systems. Kudos to the development team for their hard work and aggressive schedules!

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Using iRecorder on the iPhone For Quick Podcasts - With WiFi Transfer

Ever needed to record a quick audio recording on your iPhone and then rapidly transfer it to a computer? There are many recording applications out there for the iPhone, but one I've found helpful is the aptly named "iRecorder".

On Friday I read an email from Shel Holtz that he and Neville had to record this coming week's FIR episode on Sunday morning and they needed our reports by then.

Knowing that today was going to be crazy and also knowing I had a number of tasks to do yesterday that kept me away from my office where my podcast rig is located, I whipped out my iPhone and used iRecorder to record my report. The interface itself is super-simple to use - just one button to push to start recording.

The reason why I like iRecorder, though, is that it has an extremely simple WiFi interface for transferring the recording. I just tap the down-arrow icon in the upper left corner and... ta da... it gives me a URL to hit in my browser:

A quick trip to that URL in my browser shows me all the audio files I can download:

A click on the link and the audio file is down on my computer. Now all I did was bring the audio into Audacity, do a minor bit of trimming and then export it to MP3 to send to Shel and Neville.

Simple. Easy. Fast.

Now, I don't feel the audio quality is as good as what I get on my podcasting rig, but that's understandable... this was an iPhone being used as a field recorder. It was a bit too "hot" for me with some clipping going on. But it enabled me to get a report quickly together and submitted when I didn't expect to have time to do so.

It's a cool little tool... and you can find it in the iPhone AppStore.

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Instagram Finally Becomes Useful With Web Profiles

FINALLY! Photo-sharing darling-of-the-media Instagram finally became useful to me with the rollout of web profiles where you (and everyone else) can see your photos. While I've had an Instagram account for some time, I haven't really used it too much because there was no web interface and so you could only manipulate images via the mobile client. That's fine for some usage... but it's hard to go back and find older images... and extremely hard to share with people who did not have Instagram.

Now, web profiles are here and, even better, they are available at very easy URLs. Here's mine:

http://instagram.com/danyork

The resulting page is laid out very nicely, with images changing periodically:

You can keep on scrolling down to see more and more of the images that you have posted. (And yes, it kind of looks like Facebook... which makes sense since they now own Instagram.)

This is a huge benefit to me because often I have found that I've wanted to go back and find an image I took in Instagram to use in a blog post - or just to show someone. Scrolling back in the mobile app is fine for recent images, but I haven't found it fun if the image was some time back. This web profile page lets me easily scan back through all the images I've posted to Instagram.

Even better - and this is that part I find most useful - you can easily go to the individual page for a photo, such as this one:

Now I can see the image and easily share the URL for the image to people. As far as now using the image in a blog post, I didn't yet find any way to embed an image, and I'm guessing that's not there yet. But that's okay, because I can just do a screenshot of my own image and use it in a blog post. The key is easily getting to see the image in a web browser.

Very cool to see... and as a result of this I expect I may indeed start using Instagram more!

How about you? What do you think of these new web profiles? Will you use Instagram more? (or perhaps even start using it?)

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Brilliant Video - Every Presentation Ever: Communication FAIL

How many of the issues in this video have you experienced while in a presentation? Either one you have attended or perhaps one you have given yourself?

I learned of this today via a link in Facebook or Twitter (I can't remember which) pointing me to a post from Mitch Joel back in January titled "How To Do Everything Wrong In A Presentation". It is related to the book Habitudes for Communicators by Dr. Tim Elmore. I've not (yet) looked at this book but I'm definitely intrigued. In his post, Mitch also recommends three other books, one that I have (Presentation Zen) and two others that I've heard high praise about. All of these kind of books will only make you a better presenter... and I've added these to my queue of books to read.

Kudos to Dr. Elmore and his team for coming up with a funny and brilliant way to highlight so many of the issues we unfortunately do experience in presentations.

How many of these have you experienced?

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Why I Will NOT Be Rushing To Upgrade To Evernote 5 For Mac

The team at Evernote is making a big push right now to let users know about the upcoming new Evernote 5 for Mac. They have even released a beta version for users to try.

I won't be trying it. I'll wait for others to take the chance.

Why not?

Primarily because...

Evernote completely burned me with their "upgrade" of Skitch!

This "redesigned" Skitch took away pretty much everything that I loved about the application. Now I realize that the Skitch development team is different from the developers behind the main Evernote app, but still...

they have lost my trust.

Further, I have been so burned in the past by other software companies that whenever I hear (as I do in the Evernote 5 video) the words "we've completely redesigned the application", I immediately think:

NOOOOOO!!!! THEY ARE GOING TO TAKE AWAY ALL THE POWERFUL FEATURES I LIKE!

Evernote did it with Skitch. Skype did it with their Skype 5 for the Mac that left behind so much of the Skype 2.8 that we all loved. Apple's done it too many different applications to count (ex. iMovie, Final Cut).

So I cringe whenever I hear the words "completely redesigned"!

Now, granted, I do appreciate it when companies take in user feedback and make new versions of their applications. I love it when companies are responsive and make applications better. I just don't like it when they remove powerful functionality (even as I do understand that sometimes they need to do this to re-do the application).

For me, Evernote is a critical part of my daily workflow. I am a paying Evernote customer and use it across my multiple systems and mobile devices.

I don't want that workflow screwed up!

So I will wait for a bit and see what others who are more daring than I say about the new version. I am pleased to see that the initial comments to the beta release post seem to be positive. I'll continue to monitor the flow of comments for a while before I even think about upgrading.

What about you? Are you going to take the plunge?

FYI, here's their video about Evernote 5:

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Yet Another Skitch / Evernote FAIL - Image Sharing/Uploading No Longer Works

In the continuing saga of Evernote's destruction of Skitch, a.k.a. how-to-really-badly-screw-up-a-product-loved-by-its-users, I grabbed a screenshot in the old Skitch 1.x (a.k.a. the version that works) and hit the "Share" button. I hoped to get back a skitch.com URL that I could then simply pop into Twitter to reply to someone.

Instead I got this:

"Skitch.com sharing has moved to Evernote."

Now, in fairness, they have been mentioning that this transition was going to occur for the past bit. So it's not a tremendous surprise.

But here's the FAIL - the "Click here" link takes you to a page on the "Skitch.com Transition to Evernote". But this page simply tells you how to transition your old Skitch.com images to Evernote.

It tells me nothing about how to actually now share an image.

Zip. Na da.

I am left with the mockery of the first sentence: "Skitch is getting even better."

I am guessing that Skitch 1.x users who refuse to upgrade to Skitch 2.0 because it is an incredible downgrade in functionality are probably now just simply... screwed.

I am guessing the easy "Share" function that I use on pretty much a daily basis will now no longer work with Skitch 1.x.

I am guessing that I need to find a new screen capture program that does what I need.

(And yes, I've tried the new Skitch 2.0.1 but it still continues to add many more steps to the easy way Skitch 1.x worked and it still doesn't do all that Skitch 1.x did.)

I am guessing all this because the link that Evernote/Skitch takes me to tells me nothing about how to actually share an image.

Further, I went to look in the Evernote forums to see what users might be saying there and... the site is down for me.

:-(

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Evernote Destroys The Old Skitch With New 2.0 "Update"

This morning brings a collective "What the ______?" moment to the world of many Mac OS X users as we try to absorb the impact of the new Skitch 2.0 released by Evernote. Perhaps the reaction is best summarized by tweets like this:

[Screenshot of that tweet taken, by the way, with Skitch 1.0, immediately resized by dragging the corner, and dragged/dropped into MarsEdit where I'm writing this post.]

And articles are popping up on this same theme:

• TUAW: Skitch 2.0 is like Skitch 1.0 without all those pesky "features"
• TechCrunch: When Updates Make Things Worse: Evernote’s Skitch 2.0

Evernote's support forums are full of criticism and tweets are exploding with commentary.

Perhaps more importantly for Evernote, existing users are well on the way to decimating the app's ranking in the MacOS X AppStore:

Note the difference from before - and realize that those 200 one-star ratings at the bottom includes the 135 from above. So basically you are seeing a complete inversion of the app ranking going on right now.

There is somewhat of an irony to this as Skitch is getting heavy rotation right now as a "featured" app in the Mac AppStore.

A Very Happy - And Paying - Skitch v1.x User

I should preface these comments by saying that I have valued Skitch so much over the years that I have been a paid "Skitch Plus" user. I am also a paying user of Evernote. So this is not a rant of someone who expects something for free. I've paid for this software because it is so crucial to what I do.

Skitch is one of the applications that I use each and every day. Constantly. I take screenshots for blog posts and articles. I resize images and change their formats. I drop them into PowerPoint presentations. If I have a JPG and need a PNG, I drag an image into Skitch v1, change the format and drag it back out. If I want to crop an image, it's a simple action. If I want to show someone remote something on my screen, I snap it and then copy/paste the URL into an IM or email message (or tech support web forum).

I use Skitch all... the... time!

And over the years I have turned many people on to the tool... as have many others judging my the fact that there have now been over 10 million downloads. Skitch has been truly one of the absolute best tools for Mac OS X.

The "Paring Down"

The issue is that Evernote didn't just "update" the application - they pretty much recreated the user interface. As they state in the blog post:

We pared the application down to it’s most-loved, most-used, most-essential features, then made those features as great as they could be. We also focused on creating a unified experience across all platforms. So, whether you’re using Skitch on your desktop or mobile phone, you’ll know exactly what to do.

The problem is that the list of "most-loved, most-used, most-essential" features apparently doesn't include the ones that many of us use. :-(

As an example, here are four features I use the most that are simply gone:

1. Ability to rapidly resize images - In Skitch 1.0, all you did was go to the lower right corner of the window and start dragging it. Boom! Resized image. Super simple. Super FAST! Truly awesome.

   Now it's hidden under Tools->Crop/Resize where you have to go through a dialog box to do the editing. Also, it seems I no longer can enter numerical values if I have an exact size I want to enter. (At least, I couldn't find it.)

   So what was an instant task now becomes a series of dialog boxes and menu choices (or pressing "Option+Command+K" to get to the window).

2. Ability to rapidly crop images - In Skitch 1.0, all you had to do was go to one of the sides or corners of the image and start dragging to crop an image. Super simple. Super FAST! Truly awesome.

   Now you have to go yet again into this Crop/Resize dialog box and go through the steps.

3. Ability to rapidly change image types - In Skitch 1.0, there is this wonderful drop-down menu box that lets you choose the type of file you want to export:

   

   With this one menu, you can export an image to whatever format you want. If I want a JPG, PNG, TIF or even a PDF. Just choose the type and drag away:

   

   Super simple. Super FAST! Truly awesome.

   Now this, too, requires additional steps. You have to go to File->Export where you then go through the standard Mac OS X dialog box to save the file. The choices have also been dropped to PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF and BMP... although those were honestly the ones I pretty much always used.

4. Ability to take a timed screenshot - In Skitch 1.0 there was this truly awesome capability where you could hold down the Shift key while taking a screen shot to get a countdown timer:

   

   This is tremendously helpful if you want to do a screenshot of a menu command, a pop-up or hovering menu, or just anything you want to re-create using the pointer.

   In Skitch v2.0 I can't find this feature at all.

These are just four of the features that I commonly use that I have seen in the 2.0 version after I upgraded one of my systems. The forums are full of other features people used... the menu bar icon... custom hotkeys... the ability to share to your own SFTP server... the list goes on...

Destroying the Speed

Now, as I noted, with the exception of the timed screenshot these "features" are not truly "gone" from Skitch 2.0. They are just now buried in menus and take extra steps.

And that's the point.

The most awesome part about Skitch was that it was insanely FAST.

In a few moments I could have screenshots that were resized, cropped, annotated and then dropped into articles or shared online. Simple. Fast.

And that's gone.

Did We Ask For A Unified Experience?

Why would Evernote do this to Skitch?

I think the answer can be found in part of that blog post that I quoted earlier:

We also focused on creating a unified experience across all platforms. So, whether you’re using Skitch on your desktop or mobile phone, you’ll know exactly what to do.

And therein lies the problem.

I completely understand what they are trying to do - and on one level I applaud them for trying. Make it so that an app can work on the iPad and iPhone very much like the app on Mac OS X. Provide a common look-and-feel so that users can move between them easily. Even better, with Evernote syncing (more on that below) you can edit and use the same images across your different devices.

A very solid strategy that sounds great on so many levels. Consistent user experience. Consistent support requirements (ex. documentation, tech support, etc.)

It's a perfect plan..... for a new application.

And for new users.

Anyone completely new to Skitch will probably try out the app and perhaps love it.

The problem is that to get to that "unified experience", the Evernote/Skitch team had to pare down the Mac OS X app... to get it down to the least common denominator across all the various platforms.

And so we who had come to love Skitch on Mac OS X so much have to lose many of the features that were the reasons why we used Skitch in the first place... so that iPhone/iPad users can have a consistent user interface.

The Evernote Connection

One of the big features of this Skitch 2.0 release is that all your snaps are stored in Evernote. In fact, you can't store them anywhere else... gone is the ability to (S)FTP images to another server. No more WebDAV... no more Flickr support... it's all stored in Evernote. (Well, you can choose NOT to use Evernote and only store your images locally, but the only way to put the images up online where you can share them is through using Evernote.)

This makes sense from Evernote's point-of-view and may very well be attractive to many users.

For me personally, though, there's this basic issue:

I do not need (or want) to store my images!

The vast majority of time my usage of Skitch is to take a fast screenshot to drop into an article, blog post or presentation.

They are disposable images.

I don't need to save them... or in fact I have saved them by using them in an article or presentation. But the image itself is no longer necessary.

So why do I want to clutter up my Evernote account with these unwanted images?

Now I guess that if I proceed with the upgrade I'll have to plan some time to go in and occasionally delete out all the useless images.

I will admit that in some situations it would be helpful to be able to obtain the image from other systems... so I can see some value in the Evernote sync. But I still can't think why I want all my images in Evernote.

What's Next?

So now what?

I should note that Skitch 2.0 does bring some new features that are positive:

• The new "pixelate" tool is something that I've wished Skitch would have for ages. It's excellent to see! (Although I can't seem to figure out how to undo/remove pixelation once it's done. The standard "Undo" command doesn't seem to remove it.)
• The highligher tool is another excellent addition.
• The way you can change the font size by dragging is nice.
• The simple sharing to Twitter and Facebook is welcome.
• As noted earlier, the Evernote sync (and search) may be welcome by some.

Will we as users come to appreciate those features as being useful enough to warrant all that is lost? Will the Evernote team come out with a 2.1 release that adds some of these features that we all are missing?

We've certainly seen other companies make similar moves. Apple did it with iMovie many years back and then recently with Final Cut Pro. Skype made a huge change with move from 2.8 to 5.x on the Mac. Twitter completely rewrote Tweetdeck. In all those cases a great amount of functionality was lost even while new features were added.

New users of Skitch may again find much to like in the new capabilities.

But what about the long-time users? Will they stick around to see if a newer version of Skitch 2.x comes out? Or, as I'm seeing in the Twitter stream, will people search for alternatives:

For me, I'm sticking with Skitch v1.x on my primary laptop where speed is essential. On another system I use less I've made a backup copy of Skitch 1.x but then have gone ahead and upgraded to Skitch 2.0. I'll try it out and see if I can learn to like it (really not sure on that) - plus I can use the pixelate tool.

But... if some other tool does pop up that delivers the power and speed of the original Skitch, I could very easily see myself moving to that other tool.

This "upgrade" has completely burned any loyalty I had to Skitch... and I can no longer really recommend it as strongly as I once did.

It's too bad. Skitch is a truly awesome tool that is an integral part of my daily workflow. It's truly disappointing to see all that power and speed destroyed for the sake of trying to get to a unified cross-platform experience.

What about you? Are you disappointed in this new release? Or do you like the new Skitch 2.0? Are you going to stick with it? Or hunt for a new alternative?

P.S. All the images used in this post were touched by Skitch v1.x. The two tweets and the AppStore image were taken using Skitch, resized and dragged out of Skitch. The three images of Skitch itself were taken with the native Mac OS X screenshot keyboard shortcut that dropped an image on the desktop. I then dragged those screenshots from the desktop (individually) into Skitch where I then cropped, resized and annotated (in one case) the images before dragging them out to MarsEdit for this post. Super simple. Super fast. Truly awesome!

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Google Now Lets You Handwrite Search Queries On iPad, iPhone, Android

Okay, I admittedly find this pretty cool... you can now enter search queries into Google on a tablet or mobile phone just by writing anywhere on the screen!

As Google's blog post outlines, you need to go to www.google.com on your mobile device and then go into the Settings to configure this option. You do NOT need to sign in to Google. You just need to go there in your mobile web browser.

I've tested this on both my iPad and iPhone and found it worked quite well (per the blog post and Help Center page, it also works on Android phones and tablets - and is available in 27 languages). I find it particularly useful on the iPad where you have the larger screen to write on. On the iPhone, maybe my fingers are just too big but I found it tight to write in the regular portrait mode.

I did notice, though, that you can enter one or two letters, pause, then enter another letter or two... and as you do the search window is updated with what Google thinks the text should be as well as search query suggestions. So you may just be able to write a few letters and then tap the correct search suggestion.

Now, the question, of course, is WHY I find this interesting and the answer is that I have had some times when I'm in situations where it's not super easy to type nor do I want to be talking to my phone (i.e. using Siri). With the iPad, in particular, there are times I'm holding it while walking around at an event where typing with two hands would not be easy and voice usage isn't really possible. I could see this potentially being faster than hunt-and-peck typing a query using one hand. Will I use it all the time? No... but certainly I can see it being nice to have this option.

What's also interesting about this feature is that it requires you to go to "www.google.com". It doesn't work with the "search" box that is in the top of Mobile Safari in iOS. You need to go to Google's home page... so Google is pulling you out of using the app (Safari) and into using their web page. If you get used to doing that, Google can of course introduce other functionality - and if you are "signed in" you see your Google+ notifications and can easily access other Google services. Intriguing move by Google.

What do you think? Will you use this capability on your iPad, iPhone or Android device?

P.S. Alas, it is not as all-powerful as TechCrunch asserts with an ability to interpret cursive handwriting. I made several attempts at using cursive and found that in some cases the accuracy was "okay", but clearly not as good as block printing. In fact, Google's Tips for Handwrite very clearly state at the beginning that you should use block printing versus cursive.

And here is Google's video on the topic:

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Oracle Buys Facebook-App-Maker Involver

In an intriguing development today, Oracle announced that it will be acquiring Involver, a startup with a platform to help you rapidly build Facebook apps that work with your Facebook Pages.

I first experimented with Involver a year or two ago when I was trying to add some interactivity to a Facebook Page for my previous employer. Involver had some useful options and while the fit wasn't there with what I wanted to do, I did keep monitoring how they were evolving.

No terms of the deal were announced, although TechCrunch is naturally continuing to try to determine the cost. The TechCrunch piece also has some more information about other ways Involver has been used.

How does Involver fit with Oracle? As both the TechCrunch article and a Business Insider article note, Oracle just recently acquired Vitrue, another social media marketing/engagement platform and has made a number of other acquisitions in the "social" space. For their part, Oracle has published a presentation about Involver that shows Oracle's view of how all the pieces fit together:

Time will tell if the pieces do all fit nicely together, but in the meantime Oracle is clearly looking to be a player in helping enterprises connect with their customers over social channels.

Congrats to the Involver team and I do hope this all works out well for them - and for their customers.

P.S. Involver's Don Beck published a blog post providing their viewpoint on the acquisition.

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As An Author, Why I Truly Hate Ebook DRM

As an author of multiple technical books, and a prolific online writer, I care a lot about intellectual property issues as they pertain to my content. On one level, you might think I would be extremely concerned about people stealing and re-using my content. And don't get me wrong... I am concerned. I choose distribution licenses carefully and I have pursued those who have scraped my content to simply wrap it in ads.

But I do NOT see "DRM" as the answer.

As a reader and as an author, I truly hate Digital Rights Management (DRM) for ebooks and look forward to the day when it ceases to exist. My latest book, "Migrating Applications to IPv6" was published DRM-FREE by O'Reilly and I plan to publish all future books DRM-free as well.

So on this "Day Against DRM", let me clearly state WHY as an author I am against DRM:

1. DRM Is Anti-Reader

DRM starts from the premise that all readers are slimeballs and thieves. That they will steal a book rather than pay for it. That readers are inherently untrustworthy and need to be monitored, policed, checked.

Is that really the relationship I want with my readers?

Do I really think that all my readers are crooks?

With a printed book, as a reader, when I buy a book, it is mine. I have a piece of dead trees that I can read wherever I want. In a chair. In bed. Outside under a tree. In the bathroom. On a train. In a hammock. In a car. At night. In the morning.

Wherever. Whenever.

Beyond that, I can give my book to someone else. I can lend it to a friend. I can let my wife read it. Or my daughter. Or my mother or father. I can... (gasp)... sell that book to someone. Or I can donate it to a library or church or book sale.

It is my book, to do with it as I will.

With "ebooks", the argument is that they are so much easier to pass around. That because it is electronic bits, the book can be emailed or otherwise sent to people. It can be published on websites. It can be sold by people other than the author/publisher. It can "escape" from the control of the author and publisher.

All of which is true.

But is DRM really the answer? Is treating all people as thieves and locking down the content really the answer?

Now, granted, there is a grain of truth in there... some readers will steal a book, but would they have paid for it in the first place? Some people will steal paper books from bookstores and libraries, too! Some people will steal books from other people.

Some people are thieves - but just because of that, does it warrant treating all people as thieves?

2. DRM Locks Readers In To Platforms

Every time you buy a book for the Amazon Kindle, you are just that much more locked in to Amazon's "walled garden". If you decide you are tired of the Kindle and want to try another reader, sorry...

... you can't take your books with you!

They are locked to the Kindle. Now, yes, you can use the Kindle "app" on your PC or other device (like an iPad), but you are still locked in to Amazon's Kindle ecosystem.

This is the beauty and genius of the whole scheme from Amazon's point of view. Make it super-simple for people to buy and read ebooks... and get a whole generation of people locked in to your ereader platform.

And then Amazon gets to use its power as platform to bully publishers and authors so that in the end Amazon gets higher profits. If pretty much the only route to readers winds up being through the Kindle ecosystem, then Amazon gets to dictate how your ebooks get distributed - and at what cost.

Authors get screwed. Publishers get screwed. Ultimately readers get screwed. But Amazon makes a healthy profit.

Lest you think I am purely anti-Amazon, I'm not... they're just the biggest. Barnes & Noble's Nook, Apple's iBookstore, the Kobo reader... any of them can equally lock you in with DRM... and all of them would probably love to have the kind of lock-in that Amazon has right now!

With DRM-free ebooks, we can read them on whatever platform you want - and change ereaders and devices. We are not locked in!

[UPDATE: In a comment to this post, a reader named Markus points out another downside to DRM-enabled ebook platforms - a platform can easily "unpublish" an ebook. The ebook can just "disappear" and be removed both from the online service and also from your own ereader. Remotely. Without any involvement on your part. Gone. Because you are locked into the platform's infrastructure and don't own your ebook, you are completely at the mercy of the platform operator.]

3. DRM Adds Unneeded Complexity

Want to see how badly DRM screws up the reader experience? Check out these instructions for how to get started with ebooks that you borrow from your library - specifically take a look at these slides about how to borrow ebooks with a Nook or Sony Reader.

Hello???

You have to be seriously committed to wanting to borrow ebooks to go through all these steps! It's crazy! And then to have to go through many of those steps each and every time you want to borrow an ebook?

FAIL

And all because libraries must include DRM in order to make the books available to their readers.

This kind of complexity exists with DRM ebooks... except of course for the platforms that make it so insanely easy, at the price of locking you in.

4. DRM Stifles Innovation

We have "ereader" devices and software... we have "epublishing" tools... but we could always use better and more innovative tools. Right now there is undoubtedly someone out there building an insanely awesome reader that will just blow our minds. Or figuring out a way to make ebooks more accessible to people who can't read... maybe converting them to audio in new ways. Or figuring out a way to translate books into other languages on the fly....

Maybe someone's coming up with a reader that will let you display the contents of an ebook inside a pair of glasses so that you could just be sitting there on a train reading a book with just your glasses on.

The inventors and entrepreneurs of the world can be out there doing all this... but then the moment they want to make these products publicly available and working with all ebooks... BOOM... they run into the issue that they have to deal with DRM on ebooks!

That means licensing someone's DRM-reading software.

Which means big bucks...

... and probably kills any type of business model they may have.

Goodbye insanely amazing reader... it will linger on the side as something that can work with DRM-free content like Project Gutenberg books, O'Reilly books... and those from a few other publishers who have gone DRM-free.

Why stifle the innovation?

Why not make it so that the inventors out there can do anything with ebooks? Why not get rid of the DRM so that they can figure out new and amazing things to do with ebooks?

STOP RESTRICTING CREATIVITY!

5. DRM Will Ultimately Impact Sales

People are buying zillions of ebooks right now. More from some publishers than print books. It's a new space... everyone's excited... everyone's doing it. It's incredibly convenient.

Sooner or later, though, readers are going to figure out that they are getting royally screwed.

They will figure out that they don't "own" their DRM'd books. That they have effectively leased them. That they can't use them on other computers or ereaders.

They will be pissed off, angry.

And they may stop buying... or at least changing their buying habits.

Why set readers up for failure? Why?

Why not make it so that they can keep buying and buying and buying?

I know that I personally would buy far more ebooks if I knew I could "own" the ebook. I believe that ultimately more people will be in this mindset.

(DRM proponents, of course, believe that all people are sheep and will just continue to buy through locked-down DRM'd platforms because of the convenience. Sadly, they may be right.)

6. DRM Halts The Spread Of Ideas

Finally, DRM stops the spread of ideas and information. With DRM-free books, they can spread to people who would not have - or could not have - paid for the book in the first place. There are people in impoverished areas who cannot afford ebooks. There are people in countries where ebooks are not available through the major distribution channels. [UPDATE: There are people who would like to borrow an ebook from their library but are unable to do so in some cases because DRM makes it difficult.]

This is admittedly where it gets a bit tricky.

In my case, the kinds of books I have written so far are informational and for more niche technical audiences. I don't expect to ever get rich from them. I don't expect to pay my mortgage, send my kids to college, or anything like that. I might get a few nice dinners out of the proceeds or maybe buy a new computer... but that's about it. I'm realistic because there are only so many people out there who really care about things like IPv6 or VoIP security.

I write to help people understand topics. I write to contribute to the discussions going on. I write to help people learn.

So if someone really couldn't afford to buy my ebooks, can't get them in their region because of distribution issues, or can't borrow my ebook from their library, I'm personally okay if they wind up getting the book somehow. For me getting the ideas out there is most important.

I realize that some authors (and more importantly publishers) may be entirely profit-focused and want to squeeze every single penny out that they can... and so they have a different view.

The point, though, is that DRM prohibits these ideas from spreading where they wouldn't have gone.

In the end...

I guess I go back to my comments at the beginning - I believe that most people are NOT thieves... and if they have the opportunity to purchase an ebook in the channel of their choice for the ereader of their choice at a reasonable cost, they will do so.

I believe DRM is not the answer and that there are other ways and means to pursue those who violate intellectual property rights and copyrights. I don't want a world in which we are locked into specific ereader platforms.

I want readers to be able to purchase - and own - my books. And as a reader, I want that kind of trust relationship with authors and publishers.

So on this day, I encourage you to think about how DRM creates a defective and negative experience for readers... and to:

• Buy DRM-free ebooks where you can. (Update: Here's a list.)
  
  
• Ask publishers and authors if you can get their ebooks DRM-free.
  
  
• Think seriously about the choice of ereader you are using and what the long-term impacts will be.
  
  
• If you are an author, ask your publisher if you can make your ebooks DRM-free... or consider another publisher... or consider self-publishing without DRM.
  
  
• Raise this topic with others, so that they can be aware of the choices they are making when they use ereaders and purchase ebooks.

The future of ebooks is in OUR hands, as readers, authors and publishers. Let's make it a good one!

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UPDATE #1: In the comment thread on Hacker News for this post, user spatten pointed out this list of dealers and publishers with DRM-free ebooks. (By the way, that Hacker News comment thread does make for interesting reading.)

UPDATE #2: Two other excellent posts on the topic have come out yesterday and today:

• Cory Doctorow at The Guardian: Why the death of DRM would be good news for readers, writers and publishers
  
  
• Mike Hendrickson at O'Reilly Radar: DRM-Free Day, forever. - Authors and publishers need to get creative with piracy. DRM isn't the answer.

I particularly liked this line of Mike's post: "Obscurity is more of an enemy than piracy." Tim O'Reilly expanded on this point way back in 2006.

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