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Originally Posted by Algiedi
I'm surprised that this "paper vs ebooks" debate is still going on, since I don't think that they necessarily compete with eachother, or at least that they will keep doing so for very long.
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I think the competition is inevitable. We've seen that e-books are already outselling paper books. I think publishers will go where the money is, and less paper will be produced.
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Originally Posted by Algiedi
Right now ebooks are just books that are not on paper. Black and white text, and that's pretty much it. But already we got authors and publishers getting ideas about the really cool stuff they could do with the next generation of ebook readers (or well, even the current one if you count the iPad). Add animations, add a soundtrack, add interactivity - some even start thinking about new ways to think about the very concept of narration.
I truly believe that ebooks will quickly stray from their current mimicking of paper books into a new form, a new media that will be impossible to compare to good ol' books, just like you can't compare a book and a video game, or a book and a movie.
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I can see this happening, possibly, but I don't think it would be a good turn of events. Books are books, and movies are movies. (Sorry for stating the obvious.
) I find the idea of putting sound and animation (let alone video) in books a little disturbing, as it turns the act of reading into something closer to the act of watching TV or a movie. I've got nothing against TV or movies, but they're completely different experiences, and I think the act of reading engages different parts of your intellect that don't get touched by more passive media.
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Originally Posted by Algiedi
But could that just as easily mean that paper books will be abandonned because of their lack of multimedia functions? That could be, if one would only buy a book for its content - but we also buy an object, which can have its own proper qualities. I suspect that focusing on those object-qualities (high quality paper, beautiful illustrations and binding, etc.) will be the next step in paper book evolution, and will allow them to exist and persist.
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I think you may be right here, although not because of any multimedia angle. I think e-books have other advantages (e.g., space, instant availability) that paper doesn't have, and I think that paper books, when they're produced, will be higher quality and price, but fewer and farther between.