The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Nov. 21, 2009
eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971
37 Months to The End of the World Via Mayan Calendaring
on December 21, 2012 [some now saying October 11, 2011]
Leaving 3 years 1 months, 12 1/3 seasons or 37 months.
Not to worry, I will still make long range predictions,
such as that there will be affordable petabytes [2021],
and enough eBooks to fill an entire petabyte around the
same time.
40 Years Ago The Following Just Got Started
The Lunar Landings
The Internet
Sesame Street
Wendy's Hamburgers
Only about 1/3 of Project Gutenberg readers are U.S.
We Recently Published Our:
200th eBook in Italian
250th eBook in Spanish
400th eBook in Chinese
500th eBook in Finnish
600th eBook in German
and our
400th eBook on PG of Canada
and
1800th eBook from Project Gutenberg of Australia
Our 1500th in French is expected right about now.
It is the four volume set of de Toqueville's "Democracy."
Our All Time Hottest Requests!!!!!!!
FLASH RAM
I am looking for the earliest flash RAM possible.
The ideal piece around which to center this collection is
one of the 8 megabyte USBs.
The very earliest were PCMCIA cards, such as used for the
Poqet computer, etc.
The earliest USB flash drives were DisgoDizgo, M-Systems
and these were OEMed by IBM, HP, etc. They are particular
in a recognizable fashion because their snapon connectors
resemble the connectors of jigsaw puzzles.
We received two examples of RAM actually labeled "Flash,"
for the H-P 95 pocket DOS machine from 1991, and a sample
of Fairchild bubble memory, as well, from down under.
Thank you, Mate!
POWERPOINT
We need someone who can do PowerPoint illustrations.
One in particular, building a 3-D box of 1,000 dominoes.
Additional Newsletter Services
In addition, we will provide the PG Canada Newsletter and
totals from PG of Australia, Europe, PrePrints, etc.
These totals do NOT include 75,000+ at
httpwww.gutenberg.cc
Where there are eBooks representing over 100 languages.
As you may have noticed, I cheated by a few days on the
date of this Newsletter so I could include #25,000 so I
should warn you that the monthly totals will be larger,
this month, and smaller next time.
The Project Gutenberg Statistical Report
[As of about noon Central Daylight Time]
Various totals from the ~30,000 at
httpwww.gutenberg.org
and our other Project Gutenberg Sites
day | cnt
----------------+-----
Sat 2009-11-14 | 6
Sun 2009-11-15 | 4
Mon 2009-11-16 | 6
Tue 2009-11-17 | 9
Wed 2009-11-18 | 3
Thu 2009-11-19 | 6
Fri 2009-11-20 | 5
Thanks to Marcello Perathoner!
Here are the current language totals
for languages with 200 or more eBooks.
Grand total for today: 30399
25587 English en
1498 French fr
614 German de
515 Finnish fi
451 Dutch nl
404 Chinese zh
371 Portuguese pt
268 Spanish es
218 Italian it
Compared to Last Month's
Grand total for today: 30194
25408 English en
1493 French fr
613 German de
515 Finnish fi
449 Dutch nl
402 Chinese zh
361 Portuguese pt
267 Spanish es
217 Italian it
Total increase: +205
Previous increase: +254
Earlier increase +281
and
Total increase +294
and Previous month +287
All Reported Languges
Not counting PrePrints, Canada, Australia, PG Europe
Thanks to Greg Newby!
///
And From Project Gutenberg Sites Worldwide
Grand total for today: 30399
25587 English en
1498 French fr
614 German de
515 Finnish fi
451 Dutch nl
404 Chinese zh
371 Portuguese pt
268 Spanish es
218 Italian it
30,399 up 205 PG General Automated Count
1,823 up 15 PG of Australia
662 up 6 PG of Europe
2,008 -- 0 PG PrePrints, Reserved [42]
417 9 Posted #400 on October 10
[No additional news from PG of Canada]
[Note previous estimates were 50 too high]
[We now have numbers for July thru August]
July: 14 (Title 349 to 362)
August: 16 (Titles 363 to 378)
September: 17 (Titles 379 to 395)
October: 13 (Titles 396 to 408)
November: 9 [up to November 21]
======
35,311 up 235 [Including correcting above estimate by 2]
Note There are perhaps 100 eBooks not listed here
that are already in circulation from Project Gutenberg.
Note PG Canada includes English, French, and Italian.
///
Here is how we ended 2008
27,616 PG General Automated Count
1,726 Project Gutenberg of Australia
554 Project Gutenberg of Europe
225 Project Gutenberg of Canada [Estimated]
[202 up to December, no current report]
2,431 PrePrints [Counting the 307 Chinese eBooks +111]
====== ======
32,552 Grand Total [Counting those PrePrints]
Here is how we ended 2007
The combined PG projects had produced a total of 26,161 titles.
The most number of books posted...
...in one day was 65 on the 26th December
...in one week was 151 in Week 18 (week ending 9th May)
...in one month was 477 in November
We averaged
338 per month [Over 4,000 for the year]
78 per week
11.13 per day
99 titles were newly REposted to the new filing system, bringing us almost
to the 2,000 mark.
Here is a small selection of project milestones;
TOTAL Original Project Gutenberg eBooks equals about
the number of books in the average U.S. public library
32,500 on 20082121 [Counting the 307 Chinese Preprints]
[And presuming 3 after official count]
32,000 on Calculating
31,500 on 20081021 [not an error, 1,777 PrePrints]
30,000 on 20081021
29,500 on 20080919
29,000 ~~ Calculating
28,500 ~~ Calculating
28,000 ~~ 20080516
27,500 on 20080405
27,000 ~~ 20080229
26,500 on 20080126
26,000 on 20071224
25,000 on 20071012
24,000 on 20070710
23,000 on 20070415
PG-AU
1,700 on 20081010
1,600 on 20080208
1,500 on 20070407
PG Canada
175 on 20080930
100 on 20080325
110 on 20080417
///
Many thanks to all who have helped us reach our 39th year!
Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg
The Project Gutenberg Monthly Newsletter--Nov. 21, 2009
eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since 1971
Rather than including this with the monthly statistics,
we are preenting this as a separate email to make this
easy to save and reference.
From:
http://www.wattpad.com/about
In 2006, we set out to revolutionize the way people publish and read written
material. Today, Wattpad is the most popular ebook community for readers and
writers to discover, share and connect. With over 4 million downloads, Wattpad
is also the world's most widely used mobile ebook application. Using your web
browser or mobile phone, you have instant access to hundreds of thousands of
novels, short stories, fan fiction, poetry, essays and more. With just a few
clicks, you can share your own written work with people around the world. With
the growing demand for ebooks and mobile reading, this represents a great
opportunity for writers everywhere. Your work is just waiting to be
discovered!
The Wattpad Team
Ivan is one of the co-founders of Wattpad. He is the technical guru
behind the scenes. The cool features you see on here are most likely done by
him. On the rare occasion that he is not working on a new feature, he loves to
read fantasy, mystery and science fiction stories (on Wattpad of course). He
is also pretty good writer. Check out his stories on his profile.
Allen is one of the co-founders of Wattpad. He handles the business
side of things. Like most Wattpaders, he loves to read. He is working on his
first story in his spare time. Check out his profile and see if it's ready
yet.
Eva is responsible for our international and community efforts. When
she is not chatting with Wattpaders scattered across 24 time zones, she enjoys
reading romance stories on her Wattpad iPhone app. Check out what she's
reading on her profile.
///
Here are some notes forwarded from Allen:
> Founded in 2006, Wattpad's vision is to revolutionize the way people publish
> and read written works. The material on Wattpad is created by the community
> of users. Anyone can publish what they have written - a romantic story, a
> fan fiction, poetry or a novel - and read by anyone. All the content can be
> easily accessed on Wattpad's website (www.wattpad.com), mobile site
> (m.wattpad.com) or through the Wattpad application that supports over 1,000
> phone models including Nokia, BlackBerry, Apple iPhone, Google Android,
> Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Sanyo and more.
>
> Wattpad has experienced explosive growth since its inception. Wattpad is
> now the world's most popular ebook community where readers and writers
> discover, share and connect, delivering billions of pages from its library
> of over 200,000 ebooks created by the community. Wattpad generates more than
> 3.5M visits and 30M page views per month from its websites. With over 4
> million downloads, Wattpad is also the most widely used mobile ebook
> application in the world.
>
> ==
>
> In more lament terms - we are "YouTube for ebooks" and "MySpace for
> writers". We want to provide a friction-free way for writers to publish
> their content without any intermediary. Writers can retain copyright of
> their works, although they can also specify that their works are public
> domain or CC. We DO NOT welcome copyright infringing material. On average
> we have 20K uploads per month. Due to the high volume it is impossible for
> us to investigate each upload and verify that it is not copyright
> infringing. As such, we work with large trade publishers to implement
> filters to ensure that copyright infringing uploads are blocked. Today, we
> have over 150K "signatures" in our filter. Our community of writers and
> users also report inappropriate uploads to us. This "wiki-like" model has
> been very effective.
>
> We also invest a lot in our international and mobile effort. We support
> over 20 languages. Also, since the beginning we recognize that majority of
> the world's population cannot speak English or don't have a desktop
> computer. That's why we want to support all the major languages as well as
> virtually all phone models. Today, half our traffic is from mobile. Our
> traffic is also equally split between developing and developed countries.
>
> Unlike project Gutenberg, we are a for-profit organization. That said, I
> don't see there is any problem in helping the world to eliminate illiteracy
> while making a profit at the same time.
Across the U.S., thousands of libraries are embracing eBooks. No longer the familiar home of tomes and periodicals only, these foundations are now using new technology for more than just computerizing their catalogues. Libraries, like so many other businesses of the book, are eager to attract the digitally savvy new generation. This downloadable wave has been a gradual transition for the library, and the books of yesterday are not yet extinct. The New York Public library currently offers over 17,000 eBook titles, just a fraction of their 800,000 circulating print titles. Comparing these numbers, it’s obvious that eBook acquisitions still represent a small percentage of their budget.
Those on the leading edge witnessed a watershed breakthrough milestone this week as the first reports came in indicating that the greater new mobile access to the Internet…great…greater…greatest.
The most obvious bell they heard ringing was the sound of iPhone apps, with a first time ever report that there are now more eBooks apps than game apps for the iPhone and related hardware.
This only a half year after Steve Jobs, one of my heroes, said that it was not in Apple’s interest to support eBooks because no one reads.
“The Time’s They Are A’Changin’.”
With ~4.5 billion active cell/mobile phones in the world plus the fact that laptop computer sales surpassed desktop computer sales years ago, it should have been obvious that the majority of Internet access would be from mobile devices…right?
The pundits seem to have missed this one. Sometimes even Steve Jobs.
People are reading eBooks, and doing everything else on the Net from a majority of devices that are now mobile.
If you have a web site and haven’t yet figured out that you need to do a mobile version of that website, you are probably losing traffic.
1.2 billion cell/mobile phones were sold in the last four quarters and that was even in the middle of this huge recession.
Netbooks have taken off as the next big thing.
University library employees tell me that every other student there is on a laptop computer…50%, in a building filled with books and that so much traffic is going through that it slows the huge bandwidth of a major university location down to slower that what you get at home.
Across the U.S., thousands of libraries are embracing eBooks. No longer the familiar home of tomes and periodicals only, these foundations are now using new technology for more than just computerizing their catalogues. Libraries, like so many other businesses of the book, are eager to attract the digitally savvy new generation. This downloadable wave has been a gradual transition for the library, and the books of yesterday are not yet extinct. The New York Public library currently offers over 17,000 eBook titles, just a fraction of their 800,000 circulating print titles. Comparing these numbers, it’s obvious that eBook acquisitions still represent a small percentage of their budget.
Those on the leading edge witnessed a watershed breakthrough milestone this week as the first reports came in indicating that the greater new mobile access to the Internet…great…greater…greatest.