Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
My PDA, for example, can handle just about any ebook format, and I have MobiPocket, Plucker, eReader, PDF, Word, RTF and plain text volumes, as well as standard PDA functions, documents and spreadsheets, media viewing, MP3 playing, and games. But that capacity has a price in complexity. For eBooks, I need to maintain half a dozen viewers and recall which book is in which format read by which viewer.
Yes, netbooks and media players will become an increasing segment of the market, but I don't expect dedicated readers to go away. Properly implemented, they have two key advantages: simplicity, and eInk screens. They make it simple to get content and easy to read it, on displays many folks find preferable to backlit LCDs. I really don't think you'll see those displays on netbooks or media players.
Dennis
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The big key as I see it is battery life. Has to improve before netbooks/IPhones/tables are the preferred option.
But the complexity problem bring us back to the "Tower of Babel" format issue in a huge way. People need devices that "just work"--that means simplified formats, commonly available readers that run on just about every OS and device.
As far as PCs, etc go, we really are already there: PDF and web browsers (for HTML). Just click on the file, open it and start reading.
HTML is just fine for many books, especially fiction, and PDF is going to be needed for books that are truly layout sensitive. (Ahi is right on this issue when it comes to highly complex books).
I don't see much momentum within the PC industry to include Epub readers as standard software for new devices. THAT would go a long way towards making the format an industry standard.
However, I believe that the fact that you can DRM-cripple an epub book (thanks, Adobe, nice going!
) and sell them to people WITHOUT THEM KNOWING their ebooks are DRM-crippled means there's the risk of a huge backlash against that format. (It wouldn't even be epub's fault, which is the shame of it).
I hope the publishers realize this and change course for *their* sake.
MP3 became the industry standard not because the publishers wanted it but because the consumers wanted it. They didn't care about lost fidelity. They just wanted something that sounded *good enough* and that they could back up, load onto their MP3 player (and well, yeah, maybe share with a few friends...but I think that was almost a secondary consideration).
People got really annoyed when they were told they couldn't load their music on a different device, so they started looking for ways to circumvent the publishers' DRM.
I honestly *hope* that music piracy would've been a lot less of an issue if the record companies had listened to consumers and enabled MP3s and eliminated DRM earlier.
But because they dug in their heels and nagged the customers about how what they were doing was illegal, the customers flat-out revolted. Piracy en masse was born.
I believe publishing can garner a lot more goodwill by recognizing that and adopting consumer friendly tactics before it is too late.