A Blogosphere Handshake: Tom Meet Jason Wilson, Jason Meet Tom Glocer

Jason Wilson and Tom Glocer have a couple of things in common. Both are publishing executives and both are bloggers. Recently Thomson Reuters CEO Glocer wrote:

When I started blogging over five years ago, one of my staff suggested that it could be ghost-written and then run through Legal, Marketing, Communications, etc.  With the exception of good ideas which I borrow freely, the text is unfortunately all mine.

Don't you mean fortunately, Tom? Had Glocer taken up his staffer's suggestion, no one would read his blog. There's already enough pablum generated by "Legal, Marketing, Communications, etc." from TR in the blogosphere that's not worth reading.

Unfortunately, Glocer rarely posts on his blog. No doubt he doesn't have much time to think about writing something for his blog. He is, after all, running a global publishing empire. Recently, however, Glocer was on a flight to Singapore and did have a moment to write a post about writing posts for his blog. He mentioned that he typically drafts posts as an email to himself using his iPad. That got me thinking about TR Legal's plans for the iPad. Earlier, you see, Glocer had opined about the iPad in a blog post. Upon its launch, he wrote in iPad and Beyond:

What the iPad represents for me is a trail of breadcrumbs along a path to the future of media. ... what is really exciting to me is the direction that Apple is pointing.

Since then, we've learned that TR Legal "loves the iPad" at least for WestlawNext. But what about for ebooks? Will we be seeing the Company moving into the ebook market by way of iBooks, Kindle, etc.? 

Glocer and Wilson have never met face-to-face although Glocer's staff would like to eliminate his Little Capital state practitioner-oriented legal publishing house by buying Jones McClure Pulbishing. Perhaps they will meet in the blogosphere. Glocer could, for example, comment on a recent post Wilson wrote about the prospects for ebooks by Big Capital legal publishers on his rethinc.k blog. In iOS4, folders & the race for an eBook app, Wilson writes:

[G]iven the legal publishing business, it was highly unlikely that publishers were going to put books on Kindle, iBooks, or the upcoming Blio reader or make DRM-free versions available for Stanza or Ibis. Giving up that kind of revenue split [with ebook distributors like Apple and Amazon] and loss of account information just doesn’t sit well with an industry accustomed to selling directly to the consumer (unlike trade). A good case in point would be Thomson Reuters, who has exactly one eBook app for Black’s Law Dictionary, out of a catalog of thousands.

Whatchathink Tom? You can comment to Jason's post here. [JH]

A Blogosphere Handshake