Photograph by Cheryl Gerber for The New York TimesThis intriguing image accompanied Jennifer Conlin’s piece, “Living Apart for the Paycheck,” in last Sunday’s New York Times. Though the article focuses on how the sour economy is literally splitting families up so they can make ends meet it introduces some potential book-related applications for the Skype technology which allows users transmit their voice and image over the Internet.
The image shows Gautam Ghosh, an assistant professor at the University of Pennyslvania, reading to his kids who, along his wife, are living in New Zealand. That’s a 9,000 mile gap and a 16 hour time difference!
Though I have never used Skype and am not too familiar with what the technology can and cannot do it does seem like it presents some great biblio opportunities.
If, as the article says, more and more families will be faced with time apart from each other as they try to make ends meet in these difficult times than perhaps libraries should be looking into developing skype enabled reading rooms.
or how about a skype-type program in the prisons which would allow inmates to read to their children while they are serving their time. Remember, the kids are innocent.
Then there are the potential opportunities for authors. Offer skype sessions to book clubs, schools or even conduct one on one conversations with readers. Ebay, which owns Skype, also owns PayPal, it doesn’t seem to much of a leap to enable commerce opportunities.
If a book club is reading your book why not offer a 1/2 hour Q&A via skype. Figure out how much you want for your time and if the book club can come up with it then you got a deal. They can pay via Paypal and away you go. It provides an additional revenue stream for the author while providing a peak experience for the reader.
Poets and authors can give readings on skype with links to buy the book at their local bookstore. For small groups author’s can work with their local bookstore to provide personally inscribed copies of their work; similar to the LongPen strategy but without the robotics.
Or imagine having your favorite poet read a poem at your birthday party or your wedding or a book artist using skype to promote their work to potential customers or librarians.
It will be interesting to see how this technology develops.