The new life of books

Bob Russell · 05-22-2006, 06:45 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. It seems to have come out of the author's experience at the recent BookExpo.

"As outlined in last week's Library Journal article 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!

Jorgen · 05-24-2006, 02:32 AM

"Sounds to me like a generation more likely to accept e-books!"

I never understood sentences like this. The problem with ebooks is not that they are not paper books. Lots of people would like ebooks, but the cost and/or complexity (eg. PDAs) of the readers hold them back. When dead cheap, uncomplicated readers without DRM arrive ebooks will take off.

05-22-2006, 06:45 PM	#1
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	The new life of books 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. It seems to have come out of the author's experience at the recent BookExpo. "As outlined in last week's Library Journal article 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!

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05-24-2006, 02:32 AM	#2
Jorgen Connoisseur Posts: 74 Karma: 84 Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Spain Device: Sony prs-650, iPod, BEBOOK Mini, Nokia n810, iPaq	"Sounds to me like a generation more likely to accept e-books!" I never understood sentences like this. The problem with ebooks is not that they are not paper books. Lots of people would like ebooks, but the cost and/or complexity (eg. PDAs) of the readers hold them back. When dead cheap, uncomplicated readers without DRM arrive ebooks will take off.

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