Are books dead yet? After all the recent news we've heard about the
slow down in e-book sales, you'd think the answer is a definite NO. Meet Seth Godin, who not only sees a quick end to the paper book, but also a renaissance in how we're going to communicate ideas in the future.
Quote:
Books, those bound paper documents, are part of an ecosystem, one that was perfect, and one that is dying, quickly.
Ideas aren’t going away soon, and neither are words. But, as the ecosystem dies, not only will the prevailing corporate systems around the paper book whither, but many of the treasured elements of its consumption will disappear as well.
|
What are the disappearing treasured elements? Seth has a list: the bookstore, the library, the "traditional" publisher, single tasking, reading for pleasure, the bookshelf, and, what he calls, the Pavlovian response.
Yet, despite what appears to be the end of the world for every book loving person, Seth isn't all that pessimistic:
Quote:
Yes, we're entering a new golden age for books, one with more books and ebooks being written and read today than ever before. No, books won’t be completely eliminated, just as vinyl records are still around (a new vinyl store is opening in my little town). But please don’t hold your breath for any element of the treasured ecosystem to return in force. [...]
I called this post, "An end" as opposed to "the end." As always, we'll reinvent. We still need ideas, and ideas need containers. We've developed more and more ways for those ideas to travel and to have impact, and now it's up to us to figure out how to build an ecosystem around them.
|
Link:
An end of books
Related: Poll: 3 out of 4 Americans prefer paper books,
Trend Watch: Paper books back in vogue