Music, movies, television shows, and books have all developed strong digital presences, but what about the comics from which so many of them take their story lines? Relatively new to the digital world, some comics publishers feel they finally have a delivery device for their content in the tablet, and they've got plans for how to develop digital comics. What's less certain is how readers will react to those plans, and whether digital comics will help reverse dwindling comic book sales.

DC Comics, publisher of comics involving well-known heroes such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, is hoping that its digital goals for 2011 will result in the return of what Hank Kanalz, senior vice president of digital, called "the lapsed reader." At WonderCon in San Francisco last weekend, he explained that he's hearing from retailers that "former comics readers sample the story digitally, and then go into the store to buy the trade." Trade here refers to the trade paperback, the comics term for the softcover collected editions of multiple comics, often of a single story line.

Kanalz credited this to the company's restrained but ultimately encouraging embrace of digital distribution during the first year of its Comixology app and DC Comics' availability on the PlayStation Portable. DC has been doing print and digital same-day publication for 2 of the more than 40 comics that it publishes monthly. One is the bi-weekly series "Justice League: Generation Lost," which features members of that superhero team from the late 1980s and early 1990s. The other is "Batman Beyond," which stars a younger Batman and an older, infirm Bruce Wayne based on the 1990s cartoon of the same name.

At least for those two series, Kanalz said that DC hasn't seen any decline in print sales, and that the digital sales jump between 8 and 12 percent with each issue.

The company is looking to provide some digital-only comics, too, Kanalz said. Along with a comic book that will bridge the company's hit game "Batman: Arkham Asylum" and its sequel, "Batman: Arkham City," it will provide digital-only eight-page interstitial stories that take place between each issue of the Arkham City prequel comic. Eventually, Kanalz said, those interstitials will be collected in the trade alongside with the main comic, but at first readers will only be able to get them online.

CNET sister site GameSpot has a six-page preview of "Arkham City."

San Diego-based IDW is another publisher that says it saw a positive first year of comics on tablets, and has hopes to expand. The company is best known for handling licensed properties such as Transformers, GI Joe, and Godzilla, although it's also currently host to Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the "Bloom County" comic strip and the children's book that's been adapted into a movie, "Mars needs Moms." IDW CEO and publisher Ted Adams said that day-and-date aren't a big part of what his company is looking to do.

"We simply haven't seen a big consumer demand for day-and-date," and he noted that many of IDW's comics go digital a month after they've been released to comics specialty stores. What IDW wants to focus on, he said, is providing richer content experiences. Through its partnership with iVerse, a digital comics app that competes with Comixology, IDW has been creating brand-specific apps. "Store-front apps for the big brands are doing well for us, and we're branching out into creator-specific apps for high-profile artists like Ben Templesmith."

Like DC Comics, IDW is available on the PSP. The company has been exploring adding enhanced content to the comics, although Adams was careful to add that he wants to enhance and not distract from the comics reading experience. "Like with DVDs, we've done audio commentary tracks for our Joe Hill comics." It's easier to do on the PSP rather than on an Android device or on the iOS, he said, because "the PSP has the tech built in." Many of the comics apps for Android and iOS don't yet support rich-media content.

He added that Android devices factor big in the company's goals for 2011, as does the coming Galapagos tablets from Sharp. Just as Marvel's Comixology app was featured on the first iPad when it debuted in 2010, IDW's comics will be featured on Sharp's tablet when it launches, expected for sometime in the third quarter 2011.

Marvel Comics, which currently leads the monthly print comics sales charts, and Image Comics, which publishes "The Walking Dead," both declined to comment for this story.

Related links
• Digital comics come to life on tablets
• Comics come alive at WonderCon (photos)

Although no publisher interviewed for the story would confirm plans to do so, it's not unreasonable to expect premium pricing for digital comics that come with extra features like audio tracks, or the ability to look at the black-and-white version of the artwork. Currently, digital comics have been priced as low as 99 cents each during discount sales, all the way up to $3.99 for some day-and-date comics.

The variance in pricing has a lot to do with Apple taking 30 percent off the top of any in-app sales, says Dark Horse's director of public relations, Jeremy Atkins. In fact, that's what's lead Dark Horse to develop its own app, which will be available in a few weeks at digital.darkhorse.com. Dark Horse decided to develop its own app because, according to Atkins, "it's about control. We want the reading experience to be as similar to our print comics as possible. And frankly, we wanted to be able to pay our creators more."

In addition to Apple's cut, Atkins said that Comixology and iVerse take an additional 10 to 15 percent. From a digital comic that sells for $2, that means that the publishers and the creators have to share around $1.20.

"Digital comics represent a tiny, tiny piece of the pie," Atkins said, but added that "digital comics readers are content customers, not 'comics' customers." These content customers may be driven to Buffy comics because they're fans of the TV show, or Star Wars comics because of the movies, not because they have any inherent interest in comics per se, he said.

Dark Horse's app will still have to kick back 30 percent to Apple when readers buy their comics on the iOS version, although the company hopes to drive readers to buy from its Web site because the comics there will be cheaper than in-app. As with Comixology, which offers its apps and a browser-based comics reader, Dark Horse's books will be available to buy and read from its app and from a Web site.

Not all publishers are jumping on the digital bandwagon. Cory Casoni, director of sales and marketing for Oni Press, which publishes the successful indie hit "Scott Pilgrim," almost revels in his company's measured approach. "We have digital plans," he said amid the noise and brisk sales at the Oni booth on the WonderCon floor, "and we'll unveil them later this year and in early 2012. We are nefariously, giddily crafting things."

The big issue, he said, is what the comics community is going to choose when it comes to digital.

"Right now it's so cool to see everyone messing with digital formats, services, and different devices. But I don't think that any one company has a good sense of what its readers want. We know that there's a future in digital and that there's a need for it." In particular, he said, Oni's excited about using digital as a preview for readers to see if they want to invest in an entire book. However, he said that his company has had success doing that with print, pointing to the 2010 Free Comic Book Day giveaway of the comic, "The Sixth Gun," which he says drew massive attention to the new comic and resulted in many readers continuing to buy it.

There's also the fact that many features that people are used to with digital entertainment, such as social networking, have yet to be introduced to digital comics apps in a robust way. It's a lot easier to share something cool that you love over Facebook and Twitter when there's a simple, intuitive way to do it.

Along with Oni, some comics creators are also more measured about their digital enthusiasm than some of the publishers they work with. Richard Starkings, creator of the "Elephantmen" comic and a comics letterer who has been selling his fonts online since the mid-1990s, agreed that the publishers aren't concerned about digital versus paper. At least, he said, they're less concerned about it than they are about getting into the iTunes Store.

"Comics have broken out of the back alley that we had been selling from. iTunes is the new marketplace, back issues [of comics] are now continually for sale at cover price next to music and movies. iTunes is one-stop shopping, and it means that we're now in W.H. Smith's in a big way." He added, "iTunes will start dictating comics taste."

He's not worried about Apple's 30 percent cut, either. "Somebody will contest it."

Berkeley Breathed, who doesn't work in comic books specifically but whose "Bloom County" strip was read by 80 to 100 million people daily during its heyday in the 1980s, and whose strips are being collected by IDW, said that he got out of newspapers because they were collapsing. "I've always been behind new tech, instead of dismissing it outright," he said with a wry smile. "But there's a rush to having a massive audience and that's not there in comics anymore."

I'm a bit of a Craigslist junkie. I've used it to buy everything from a piano to a loft bed to a go-kart, and to sell or give away a host of unwanted items.

But despite its spartan interface--or perhaps because of it--the service isn't particularly user-friendly. For one thing, it doesn't let me save individual listings. And adding photos to my own listing means copying them over from my camera, resizing them, and on and on. Hassle city.

That's why I'm jazzed about apps like Lifelike Craig HD, which can turn an iPhone, iPod, or iPad into a kind of mobile Craigslist companion.

For starters, Lifelike Craig gives Craigslist a decidedly newspaper-style makeover, with ad pages that look like they came straight out of the Classifieds section. (It reminds me of how Early Edition gives the newspaper treatment to RSS feeds.) If you've ever turned your nose up at Craigslist's ugly, all-text listings, you'll appreciate this visual flair.

Like Craigslist itself, the app provides some nice filter options for your search results. You can search in the title only or the entire post; limit results to ads that have accompanying pictures; remove ads that include specific keywords; and specify a minimum/maximum price range.

But here's my favorite feature: the ads you tag as favorites appear circled in red "marker" on the main listing page--just like in a real newspaper. This is a killer way to keep tabs on the ads you've looked at and/or want to revisit.

Lifelike Craig lets you sign into and manage your account, deleting or editing your ads as needed. Even better, you can use it to create new ads, complete with photos. (If you have an iPhone, iPad 2, or current-gen iPod Touch, you can even snap photos right on your device--a huge time-saver.)

For just $2.99, Lifelife Craig makes Craigslist easy, mobile, and, to my thinking, a lot more fun. Of course, it's not the only Craigslist app out there. Other options include Craigslist Pro (99 cents), CraigsEZList Pro ($1.99), and CraigsMobileList (99 cents).

If you've tried these or other Craigslist tools, hit the comments and let me know which one(s) you like best!

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Bumping up security, stability, and adding a few new features, Microsoft's Mac Team announced on their blog today that the first major update for Office for Mac 2011, dubbed Service Pack 1, will be available for download next Wednesday. The major new feature will enable syncing from Microsoft's Outlook to Apple's Sync Services.

Calendars, contacts, notes, and tasks will all be available for syncing to any Apple device, including iPads, iPhones, and iPods. One limitation to be aware of, according to the announcement on the Microsoft Mac Team blog:

"MobileMe will no longer sync with MacOS Sync Services as of May 5th (or now if you have already moved your account to the new version of MobileMe calendar). As a result, Outlook 2011 SP1 calendars that sync with Sync Services on the Mac, will NOT be synced with MobileMe calendars."

Basically, this means Mac users who have MobileMe will not be able to sync over the air. Instead, they will have to sync manually by plugging their device into their Mac.

A few other upgrades available in the Office for Mac 2011 SP1 update include:

"Outlook support for Exchange based server-side rules; Outlook Redirect button (you can redirect the message to the intended recipient and the replies will go to the original sender); Outlook Resend button; Outlook edit of existing messages; and Solver integration support in Excel."

Stay tuned to CNET for an official review of the Office for Mac 2011 SP1 update as well as any issues that may arise after it. Are you looking forward to the update? Do you use iWork instead? OpenOffice? Let me know in the comments!

Originally posted at MacFixIt

Back in the good old days, Microsoft's Silverlight merely had to take on the mighty Flash Player.

Now Microsoft's browser plug-in has a very different challenge than Adobe Systems' rival technology: Web standards. And Microsoft, through the release of IE9 and presumably its successors, is helping to bring those standards to the real world.

Nevertheless, Redmond's engineers believe Silverlight has a future as a browser plug-in, and at Microsoft's Mix conference next week, the company will be trying to advance that future.

At Mix11, Microsoft plans to release a beta version of Silverlight 5, and augmenting browser abilities is one of the primary roles Silverlight fills, Microsoft executives said in a blog post.

"For plug-in based experiences, we believe Silverlight delivers the richest set of capabilities available to developers today," said Walid Abu-Hadba, corporate vice president of developer platform and evangelism, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .Net developer platform, and S. Somasegar, senior vice president of the developer division.

Silverlight 5 brings a wealth of new features to programmers: hardware-accelerated video playback for better performance and battery-life preservation; hardware-accelerated 3D graphics; crisper text with advanced formatting; remote-control support; faster start-up; 64-bit browser support; the ability to run Silverlight programs outside the browser; and new digital rights management abilities.

The three executives have no illusions that HTML5--along with improvements to other Web standards such as Cascading Style Sheets, Scalable Vector Graphics, WebSocket, and JavaScript--are a real force for programmers. But they're not for everybody, and Microsoft reiterated Adobe's argument that plug-ins can bring technology to the Web earlier than standards.

While much has been written about a diminishing gap between the capabilities of HTML5 and capabilities provided by plug-ins, plug-ins will continue to evolve and so there will likely be a gap of some degree, and it will cyclically contract and expand. Contraction occurs as the standard specification "catches up" with the plug-in technologies, and then expands again as the next wave of innovation pushes the boundary further forward.

That's a fair argument. Plenty of technologies have arrived in Flash first, with Web standards trailing years behind. HTML5, with its built-in video, isn't due to be finalized until 2014, for example (though elements of it are already in browsers today).

But the trickle-down argument isn't complete for a couple reasons.

First, browser programmers these days at Apple, Google, Opera, and Mozilla are bubbling with ideas, and more to the point, they're implementing them in browsers. Microsoft's IE9 team, while not as eager to be bleeding-edge, is actively involved in defining those standards, too, and its work with hardware acceleration has advanced the maturity of Web applications. The Web-standards gang are not such laggards as in years past. Plug-ins long have been a major source of browser crashes, and now that browser makers have some momentum to reduce their reliance on plug-ins, they're moving ahead fast.

The Microsoft developer executives acknowledge the reality: "The market momentum behind adoption of HTML5 as the path forward for broad cross-platform reach continues to gather momentum, and with Internet Explorer 9 Microsoft is chief among those leading that charge." But they make that point more as a lead-in to their point that there's no single perfect programming technology. While it's true that Silverlight is an answer to some software challenges, the tremendous reach of the Web standards--and the strength of Android and iOS development environments--mean that Silverlight is not the answer for a huge swath of programmers.

Related links
• New CEO wants faster, more relevant W3C (Q&A)

Second, there's the mobile world. Flash is a reality here, but only on a small minority of higher-end handsets right now, and even it's often a rough experience. If it catches on more widely, programmers still will have to work around its banishment from Apple's iOS devices. But though Flash has challenges with mobile, Silverlight can only aspire to those problems. It's not even a part of the debate on mobile, and let's face it--a cross-platform programming foundation that doesn't work on a huge number of influential mobile devices is seriously weakened.

Silverlight, by virtue of its essential role in Windows Phone 7 apps, does have potential role in the mobile market. WP7, though, trails iOS and Google's Android.

Microsoft famously understands developers and understands their importance to the success of its products. When it comes to Silverlight, though, the company still has a lot to prove.

Originally posted at Deep Tech