The Future of Reading

What happens in 5 years when the format changes or the license expires? My ancestors will still have my print books in a beautiful and delightful format 500 years from now.

what an amazing breakthrough in the evolution in reading materials! For five centuries we've seen "books" in almost their original form with few noticeable improvements. Tha paper-back pocket book allowed books for the masses at very low prices, but the book itself has changed very little. Longer and longer books have been faced with either increasing the number of pages or decreasing the text size - both to the distress of the reader.

It seems that no one has bothered to ask "what is wrong with the present format? - it's worked well for centuries, why change it?" As an "aging" reader and one who likes to read, one notices that books lack the readability that they once had - due to text size, the un-weildiness of the book itself, the problem with finding a well-lit comforable place to read and other issues. Books have also become rather expensive. Reading of any kind is just not as attractive as it once was - reading has become a chore. The thought of reading from a hand-held unit with selectable text size and clarity will bring back millions of former avid readers to enjoying books once again.

Thanks for the very stimulating and full-of-hope article/

Donald Bell
5918 Intervale Dr.
Riverside, CA, 92506

951 682 6964

The researcher, the pleasure reader, or even the avid coffee table book lover will tell you that the print copy of a book wil be difficult if not impossible to replace because of its tactile nature. By visual observation, we decide almost instantly a number of things. Are there enough pages/Is this short enough? Will the layout help me or hinder me? Can I use just a chapter of this book to suit my needs? Will this novel scratch my itch for a humorous/scary/romantic tale? The electronic venue does not allow for this complex evaluation of a work, so for many of us these new devices are pointless. The article itself points out the advanced nature of our "high-resolution scanning machines," but it doesn't begin to touch on how advanced our reasoning abilities are, how we take in information constantly and either file it or dismiss it as useless, all in the process of fulfilling our research need. Part of that process is looking through a print book, scanning the table of contents/index/pictures/paragraph headings, and evaluating the text for its tone, level of academia, use of vocabulary, etc. All of this is possible, I suppose, using one of these electronic devices, but how much longer will it take to do? And, I have to mention how Wikipedia, a collaborative research tool of sorts, is considered garbage by most universities and high schools since there is no authority. This idea that the electronic book will allow this sort of authorship will sway not the intelligent human being to buy one of these gadgets. Print books are put through rounds and rounds of quality checks in order to make sure that the credibility of every word is verified... if you're talking about allowing every Tom, Dick and Harry to put his opinion in, then you're talking about muddying the waters to the extent that nobody will want to touch the information because it would take weeks to verify the facts. Long live paper and read Fahrenheit 451 to see how frighteningly close our society is coming to the one illustrated by Ray Bradbury 50 years ago.

Right now if you have a regular 'dumb' cell phone you can download and read hundreds of 'classic' public domain and Creative Commons books for free from http://www.booksinmyphone.com . Free (libre) books for free (gratis). Not a feature full as Kindle and other readers, but hyper portable and just fine for reading a novel.

Kindle misses on one very important component of today's successful technology products: Design. Simply put, it does not appear to be a contemporary product nor a $400 product. There is a minimum design standard that must be met and this is not it. In the age of iPods and iPhones, companies must understand how to use design to enhance the product. Too many marketers focus on the features and not on design or user experience. What would be more successful? See my comments at http://www.greghinzmann.com/?p=231

Why would the Kindle not be back lit?

I am the founder of Bookyards, a free online library that has been on the web for the past 6 years. My comments and observations are too long to be put here. I invite all those who are interested to read my post on this topic at my blog
http://bookyards.blogspot.com/2007/11/future-of-reading-why-amazons-kindle.html

I am the founder of Bookyards, a free online library that has been on the web for the past 6 years. My comments and observations are too long to be put here. I invite all those who are interested to read my post on this topic at my blog
http://bookyards.blogspot.com/2007/11/future-of-reading-why-amazons-kindle.html

NEWSWEEK'S COMMENTS ARE BROKEN.
Dear Newsweek web staff - you may notice that there are many double entries from the same commenter saying the same thing. That is because they took the time to carefully write out a comment, hit submit, and were fooled by your web site into thinking that it didn't "take"...

What is needed here is a more clearly articulated business model that promises a reasonable revenue stream by appealing to a large group of potential early adapters. From a market development perspective, it seems to me that daily newspapers and periodicals subscription services are the way to get Kindle-type devices popularized by catering to a broad-based group of established users. Books, even paperback textbooks, become a part of a ???collection??? for most people (even if only on the nightstand or coffee table) but there are many things we read that are almost instant throwaways (transient information) except for perhaps an article or two or a cartoon. Newspapers and magazines top the list of popular transient information providers. Digital technology is perfect for this???easy portability, instant wireless downloads, instant deletes, easy to copy portions (fair use!), instant search (the best feature of digital information) etc., the list goes on. Plus few people want to highlight or make notes in the margins of newspaper or magazine articles, which is not the case with textbooks. A Kindle-type device is perfect for all of this.

The newspaper industry is looking for a new digital business model to help support their Fourth Estate activities and here it is. Like cell phones, they could offer a free, basic Kindle-type device with a two-year paid subscription, combined with revenue sharing as additional subscriptions are purchased that are compatible with the device (the initial seller would become a de facto subscription service provider, like iTunes for the iPod, imagine iTimes for the NY Times but selling subscriptions to other newspapers and periodicals.) Long-term, as we saw with PCs, familiarity with Kindle-type devices would help expand demand for and acceptance of other things such as textbooks, novellas, etc., which would become more popular in digital format but would probably never disappear altogether. I certainly hope not???without coffee table books where would I set my coffee cup?

One other point; digital books and newspapers are much more profitable than hard copy on a per-copy basis, so there is a huge incentive here for publishers to sell digital information one copy at a time. Plus, subscriptions are renewed whereas textbooks are purchased once in a lifetime. Which would you rather sell? A hard copy textbook or a digital subscription?

go to: YOUJBOOK.COM
to see a more portable model with twenty titles, including color, music, images, on the internet and iPhone Wi-fi ready. Bezos' KINDLE is ten years behind the curve regarding convergence, transportability, and content. Why yet another device when one has a laptop and the iPhone is comprehensive and gorgeous?
J.A. Stone PhD London Founder, javaribook.com
Foun

J.A. Stone PhD (London)
Founder

javaribook.com

i prefer my iPod touch!

Is it just me or is that thing one hell of an ugly thing to walk around with?

Yawn. These come and go. And whether they lose money for years (as Amazon did) or take off, Bezos still gets obscene salary as he litters the planet with yet another piece of toxic plastic and chips doomed to te landfills of tomorrow. Try to make a n honest profit if your company must take into account the true cost of your waste in the price... good luck. "Kindling" is more like it.

I am an avid reader, and that is an understatement. I simply love books. I'm not seeing here what I like about reading, though. I underline, scribble... and sometimes spill things on my books. All these things create a conversation between me and whoever I lend the book to (or more often between me and my future self). Seeing the trail of tears in a dear book is one of the best experiences of my life... somehow that doesn't seem possible with this device. That said,,, I see the value of the device for reference purposes... for doctors and such that need quick references. But as for me, I'll stick to my sticky pages.

Nothing new here. Ourcompany, Academic Consulting has a far superior reader, a more comprehensive system, all designed to bring eBooks to the K-12 school grades. We have been in business since 2001. The publishers won't release their content for electronic reader use because they are afraid it will be replicated illegally, just like recorded music on swap sites. The schools want our system, but will not place orders without the content. Good luck Jeff. You will need it. It sounds easy until you find that all of the content you want is beyond your reach. And if you can get the content, use our system. It is way better than yours. Ours is in color with bookmarks and superior graphics and zooming. Rich Davidson and Harvey Somach, 847-940-4848.

Nothing new here. Ourcompany, Academic Consulting has a far superior reader, a more comprehensive system, all designed to bring eBooks to the K-12 school grades. We have been in business since 2001. The publishers won't release their content for electronic reader use because they are afraid it will be replicated illegally, just like recorded music on swap sites. The schools want our system, but will not place orders without the content. Good luck Jeff. You will need it. It sounds easy until you find that all of the content you want is beyond your reach. And if you can get the content, use our system. It is way better than yours. Ours is in color with bookmarks and superior graphics and zooming. Rich Davidson and Harvey Somach, 847-940-4848.

What happens when Kindle breaks? All devices made by human beings eventually die too. Does your Kindle ebook follow you or is it tethered to a single proprietary device? Since you can not share your ebook, will loaning your Kindle to a friend to read a book you bought piracy? Will that be a crime?