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Mike Matas

Co-Founder & User Interface Designer, Push Pop Press

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LIVE CHAT with Mike Matas: Monday, May 2nd, 1PM-2:30PM EST *UPDATE: Extended through May 6th*

Mike is online Monday May 2nd, from 1-2:30PM Eastern Standard Time for a live TED Conversation regarding his TED talk and next-generation digital book, Al Gore's "Our Choice".

Join with questions about:

--How Push Pop Press tried to retain what people love about books when translating into a digital form
--The user interface design for the book
--How the app is different than a website
--Mike's views and thoughts on where computer user interfaces are heading.
--Your own questions

ADMIN EDIT: Mike has asked us to keep the thread open until Friday! He (and potentially some of his colleagues at Push Pop Press), will be checking in occasionally to answer more questions throughout the week.

Related Talks:
Topics: Live Conversation
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  • Sharon Stevenson

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    May 6 2011: Mike, what you, Gore, et al. are creating is an expanded Experience-bequeathing Exposition: an Experion. Or whatever. As such, you're going far beyond provoking the imagination and sense of experience that a treasured book does so often.

    But I believe at least as you've begun with Gore and Choice, you're selling yourselves short. You're way beyond "informing" or "information" that you indicated as your contribution in a post here. You're in the wondrous land of Learning and Knowledge generation. Although I'm hardcore Apple, here I have to give a credit nod to Google and their signature requirements: accessibility and usefulness.

    Particularly for non-experts, ordinary folk, which is vast for Our Choice, the visual tools and ease of use make a convoluted, controversial topic such as climate change, understandable, i.e., assimilable.

    It is learning and knowledge we can use to better our lives, that should be the desired result, product, value of technology. For only with learning creating knowledge and understanding, can we act to make our own lives and by extension our world better and better.

    Certainly Al Gore wants us to above all learn and understand Climate Change and with that knowledge—Act: in this case, vote, write letters, convince others, etc. Many other people working with PPP will want to empower people as well in their own realms.

    Push Pop Press' promise to me is not just "informing," but providing real comprehension through these Experions or whatever you choose to call them. Congrats on an invention of real societal merit!

  • Kimberly Simonton

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    May 6 2011: Will you be designing space for advertisements? (this may have been asked, but didn't see it). I am saying this because the production costs are quite high for well produced content (including photos, videos, flash, what have you, along with rights to content and production time). Most publishers will find this difficult to justify for the majority of their books, as will independent/self-publishers and educators. Something will need to off-set those costs.

  • Lynn Johannson

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    May 6 2011: It's not what it is, it's how it will be used to address eco-illiteracy
    Conversation: I think this app, book, whatever you want to call it has a great potential to address a core problem that underlines inaction on the environment. The majority of the population, in industry, government, NGOs, the public do not have the basics in understanding what they have or do that impacts the planet. In Canada alone a 1% shift in behavior change in small business alone could mean $2 billion savings. This is not 'tree-hugging', this is about optimizing processes, products and services - it's about greening our collective productivity.

    Will your collaboration foster materials that are well written, factual, technically correct. Can it be used to enhance literacy, not just in schools, but as part of a life learning situation? I certainly think it will make it fun - and fun can be dangerously close to the opportunity to be positive and productive. Mike, did you consider the life cycle costs of using this technology over paper?

    I am particularly interested in how it can optimize learning in small business, to help them go green. Can it actually reduce time and optimize learning? What are the costs? How soon will the product be ready to use?

  • deepika yadlapally

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    May 5 2011: Hi Mike
    That's great idea,and looking forward to see the digital form

  • Wolfgang Huang

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    May 5 2011: Hey Mike!

    My nephew wants me to ask you, dose your idea come from the newspaper of Harry Potter?

  • Ausiàs Pomés

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    May 4 2011: Hi Mike! The first time I saw the book running in a video demo I felt I had to download it right away to experience it (and maybe even read it ;). And so I did! I also thought the future of books (and not only books) in tablet devices and similar must be something like this.

    But I noticed and missed some features I consider key when it comes to the "interaction" with your book. I'm talking about selecting text to copy, highlight or search in a dictionary, changing the font type or size, and other features already built into some more traditional eBook readers.

    Do you think some of those features will be added in the final or future releases of your framework? Thanks a lot!! :)

  • Basil Safwat

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    May 4 2011: Regarding "getting rid of the UI" in touch interfaces, how far do you think this can go? Our Choice really benefits from direct manipulation of its content in this way (minimising the use of buttons and icons), but do you think there is potential for use of this approach more widely, for example, in apps where you are creating content rather than manipulating existing content?

  • Peter Roddis

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    May 3 2011: Amazing. This is where the ipad is taking us. My son can't understand how I find it so amazing everytime I use my ipad. He sees it as being current whilst this 50 year old finds it so amazing. The point of this is that this is what he has grown to expect. He spends his life using and playing on computers and learning for him has got to make interactive use of text, images, graphics, sound, video and audio.
    As somebody said below this is a solid step towards convergence.
    Brilliant! I'll stop now as if I use amazing one more time you'll start to think I copied this from a Steve Jobs presentation!
    Peter Roddis
    activesafety.org

  • Thomas Madsen

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    May 3 2011: What do you think of free textbook publishers such as bookboon.com that makes textbooks available for free through ads?

  • Yafang Cheng

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    May 3 2011: will this platform be availlable for other languages soon? Thanks.
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    Jim Haggin

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    May 3 2011: I'm very excited by where digital publishing is headed and would love to try out the Push Pop platform once it's available.
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    James Fritz

    • +4
    May 3 2011: Thank you for making an amazing book and pushing the envelope on digital publishing.

    Since we are in such early state of digital publishing, what is your take on the competition? Ex- Adobe, Woodwing, etc.

  • Mike Reid

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    May 2 2011: I really don't know what all the fuss is about. This app does not work anyway. It requires WiFi which is not mentioned on the Apple website and if you do find WiFi it simply does not work. For your 5 bucks you get a 3 minute speech from Al Gore and a pretty spinning picture of the world.

    DO NOT BUY THIS APP!

    • Kimon Tsinteris 100+

      • 0
      TED Attendee
      May 2 2011: We've heard a few reports of this from users with shaky network connections. We're looking into a software fix but in the meantime follow up with us support@pushpoppress.com. We should be able to get unstuck in no time.
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    Rabi kumar

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    May 2 2011: Its a Best Digital book for our modern generation....

  • Bas Verhoeven

    • +1
    May 2 2011: Publishing to multiple platforms can be time-consuming and expensive.
    What made you decide to make the book available for IOS devices instead of Android or other platforms? Will the book be available for Android devices in the future as well? Will the publishing platform support Android devices?
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    Leo Bi 20+

    • 0
    May 2 2011: Hi there!

    I must say your program brings media rich presentation to a whole new level. It is outstanding.

    The questions I wish to ask are questions to you, and to anyone else you work with, if they would be so kind as to share their thoughts.

    Firstly, why have you (personally) created this?

    Secondly, will you openly share the technology itself, for instance, under open source?

    Thirdly, if you are planning something like opensource, why?
    if you are not considering something like opensource, why not?


    Thanks for your time.

    Leo!
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    Gabor Babicz

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    May 2 2011: Hi Mike! I'm wondering if the one title - one app approach is a working concept if people have many titles purchased. Are you planning a dedicated reader app (that competes with iBooks)?
    Also, what happens when I buy just 10 titles, but those are ~500 megs each? Will it be possible to delete only the assets of a certain title to gain free space?
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    mc narayanasamy

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    May 2 2011: your program was so awesome and even i have lot of questions to ask to you mike and well once again thanks thank you very much mike
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    mc narayanasamy

    • 0
    May 2 2011: thanks mike
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    Mike Matas 200+

    • 0
    TED Attendee
    May 2 2011: Thanks everyone for the great discussion and feedback! Im going to leave this conversation open and answer more questions throughout the week.

    Make sure to check out the first title published with Push Pop Press Al Gore's Our Choice: www.pushpoppress.com/ourchoice

  • Georgios Papadopoulos

    • 0
    May 2 2011: Hello Mike
    i just want to Thank you for your inspiring work
    Take care
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    Carlo Dezerega 100+

    • 0
    TED TranslatorAssociateLanguage Coordinator
    May 2 2011: Hi Mike:

    I was wondering about the cost/scale factors of making an app like this one. It's obviously much more expensive to produce than a simple e-book so are you projecting some sort of profit down the line after you sell x copies or (because it's Al Gore follow-up to An Inconvenient Truth) was this designed as an evangelizing tool?

    In any case, I love the format and I think it's a bargain for the price.

    Carlo
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    Elisabet Gutierrez Magallanes

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    May 2 2011: Congrats Mike the Digi-Book looks amazing!

    Referring back to a comment about user's experience, I believe the experience is all about your own preferences Digi or paper print. That already happened with the photograps.

    Question:

    I consider this is a great tool for tuition, so if the future educational books are built up following this system, does the platform allow upgrades/updates on that material? Let's imagine a History Book, every year the information should be updated: Will the users have access to an upgrade for the latest version of the book?

    Thanks.
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    Jenny Zhang

    • 0
    May 2 2011: At what price tag will your platform be? I wonder if it can facilitate self-publishing just like lulu.com is doing?

  • Ola Karyakina

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    May 2 2011: Hello Mike! Thank you for your program, it's really impressive! And as you may think of traditional books, what do you think about whether they will evolve, and whether there is a niche that you can not replace e-books?
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      Mike Matas 200+

      • +4
      TED Attendee
      May 2 2011: Im sure paper books will be around for a very long time but not as serious way to communicate ideas. Digital books can communicate ideas though text, images, video, audio and interactive graphics but they are also a lot easier to distribute. You don't need to cut down a tree to print the book, you don't need to ship it to a book store, and you don't need to drive to a book store buy the book and you don't need to dispose of it when your done reading it. There is an art to printed books that I don't think will ever go away though. I think printed books will be more about the art of the object rather than the communication of the ideas in object.
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    Vaibhav Narula

    • 0
    May 2 2011: Oops I don't know the a of programming and has never seen a an ipad , still to make a place in this thread I would say great work Mike , do you see your application in future in coming days in the android based or the windows based environment
    ?
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    Jenny Zhang

    • 0
    May 2 2011: Mike, you are making reading fun again. As you said, the most important thing is content rather than the technology. For different content, different technology can be used. As a scientist, majority of our publishing experience is to deal with Journals rather than books. Do you envision a future for PushPopPress to reach massive journal client population?

    What is more, is once a scientific paper can be fun, more kids are going to have a "cool" image of scientist. As we all know, America's general public has quite low respect for scientists, partly, is ourselves to blame. Because we are poor in publicizing ourselves...Your platform, if it can help play a part in that, would be so amazing- and change the whole scientific community's image.

  • francois turgeon

    • 0
    May 2 2011: Hey Mike!!!

    First i want to tell you that i love your Pics
    GREAT EYES!

    i am a publisher (art book, novel and bio)
    Any way that we can work together? Is your apps for others?

    Peace
    F
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