Bob Russell
05-22-2006, 04:45 PM
Commentaries about books are fun. Especially when they provide insight about their future form as audiobooks and e-books. There was an interesting view presented today by Shore Communications called The New Life of Books: New Packaging, New Features, New Channels (http://www.shore.com/commentary/weblogs/2006/05/new-life-of-books-new-packaging-new.html). It seems to have come out of the author's experience at the recent BookExpo.
"As outlined in last week's Library Journal article (http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6332156.html) ideas for packaging books more effectively in digital form are beginning to include not only text but virtually any media that can be encapsulated in digital packaging, including links, comments and community features. Other tools such as Osoft's rechristened DotReader (formerly ThoutReader) emphasize the role of premium books as but one source of media that people can to share with their peers to be productive in a Web-centric distribution environment. All of these developments, though, seem to be at odds somewhat with the editorial processes that create books as we know them today."
He makes the interesting point that we are going to be targeting reading material to a generation that is more and more accustomed to getting their information in new ways, like on-line from the web. Sounds to me like a generation more likely to accept e-books!
"As outlined in last week's Library Journal article (http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6332156.html) ideas for packaging books more effectively in digital form are beginning to include not only text but virtually any media that can be encapsulated in digital packaging, including links, comments and community features. Other tools such as Osoft's rechristened DotReader (formerly ThoutReader) emphasize the role of premium books as but one source of media that people can to share with their peers to be productive in a Web-centric distribution environment. All of these developments, though, seem to be at odds somewhat with the editorial processes that create books as we know them today."
He makes the interesting point that we are going to be targeting reading material to a generation that is more and more accustomed to getting their information in new ways, like on-line from the web. Sounds to me like a generation more likely to accept e-books!