Stubs: A Digital Scrapbook

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I'm really excited about this project. For a number of reasons.

Last week Melissa surprised me with a scrapbook to house all the concert stubs I've saved throughout the years. It was a thoughtful gift; live music has always been one of my great passions and the old stubs represent, to me, treasured memories shared with great friends.

The hard copy book sparked an idea: how can i get this music memory book online to share with the same friends who attended these shows with me? I wasted little time scanning, cropping, designing and researching.

Building the book was a blast. I had forgotten plenty of details from many of the shows (shocking) and in several cases I had to find the show on the Web to see who the opening act was. Not only did I realize how many good bands I've seen live, but memories from the shows proved to be a narration of my life journeys over the past 15 years.

An equally important discovery during this project was the free digital publishing platform Issuu. I hadn't used the site/application before, and I truly think it could play a part in revolutionizing the magazine and newspaper industries. Nearly every published media has a digital edition, but Issuu provides the least complicated, least cluttered, most seamless application I've seen. Best part--it's free. All you do is take PDF versions of the pages you've built, combine them into one document and hit "upload." The rest of the work is done for you.

From there, you can embed the book into any website just like you would upload a YouTube video. Viewers can flip through the pages without downloading any files or viewers; and one click enlarges the book to full screen. Once you publish more than one title, you can embed an electronic bookshelf onto your site that houses a number of books. Readers can browse the titles and pick the books they want to read from your shelf. No more downloading PDFs or PowerPoint presentations--no more paying for services like NxtBook--all the information can be presented on clean, intuitive, free digital pages.

Take a moment to browse my first digital book, "Stubs," at full screen and let me know if you are as stoked about the new medium for digital presentation as I am ... or if you and I were at any of the same shows!