Tom Evslin, Dot Com Pioneer Talks about Blooks

Blooks - More choice for readers; more opportunity for authors
Wednesday, November 30, 2005, 8:30 p.m. ET - FREE
Guest Expert: Tom Evslin, Hackoff.com

Book publishing is undergoing the same Internet-induced disruptive change in marketing, promotion and distribution that has confounded the traditional music industry. Readers benefit from increased choice and online access to content including fiction; authors will benefit from reduced barriers to publication.

Blogs are both a new distribution platform for fiction and a new marketing and promotional channel. Although some readers will always prefer a book they can hold in their hands, online books can have interactive features which traditional books don’t including reader interaction, subscription by email or RSS feed, and linked online support material.

hackoff.com: an historic murder mystery set in the Internet bubble and rubble is written by Tom Evslin, the exCEO of an Internet company who is a well-known blogger. The blook (book on a blog) includes a faux company website, an online store, a wiki, and a user forum. Although the book will have a hard-cover edition, the Internet is its first distribution platform and the basis for its publicity campaign.

Tom Evslin was founder Chairman and CEO of ITXC Corp. The NASDAQ-listed company grew from startup in 1997 to the world’s leading provider of wholesale VoIP. Evslin conceived, launched, and ran AT&T’s first ISP, AT&T WorldNet Service. WorldNet popularized all-you-can-eat flatrate monthly pricing for Internet access. Evslin has been blamed and praised for this ever since. He is unrepentant. At Microsoft, Evslin was responsible for Microsoft Exchange and for overcoming the lead Lotus then had with cc:mail and Notes.

Evslin’s software company, Solutions, developed the first commercial EFT software. Solutions was the first developer of commercial communications software for the Macintosh and developed Glue (a predecessor of Adobe Acrobat). blog.tomevslin.com is a popular read.

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Comments

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I'm really looking forward to this conversation. A few years ago Wired magazine ran an article that claimed "Blogs are to words what Napster was to music." That claim seems prophetic now.

Posted by: Denise Kotula | Monday, November 28, 2005 at 10:21 AM