Why supported formats don't matter to me (very much)

[AMacD]

I have a Kindle. The MAJORITY of my books are in PRC format. I try to avoid DRM and Amazon is losing out on sales to me as a result. I don't think my lack of purchase is going to dent Amazon at all, but multiply my objections by thousands and it just might be in their interest to not try and lock the whole barn with only their key.

[rjh]

Originally Posted by Argel

This is one of the crucial points for me, though I realize that it is difficult for publishers.

I don't simply want the right to read a text. This is supposed to be the information age and I want the text of my books to be information in the same way as other data on my system.

The reader is only one 'limb' of that system. I also want to be able to search and copy on my main PC, using the kind of office software around which most of my work revolves. In other words I want my books to become as much a part of my 'digital memory' as my other 'documents' - and as accessible.

I think that this is something that many people overlook - they focus on reading e"books" and don't move away from the paper paradigm of books being separate entities on a bookshelf. Being digital changes everything.

I'm not personally interested in using books as a source of data but certainly want that capability. I also think it is crazy that so much of our culture is locked up in books and hence not easily searchable as so much of the content on the internet is. I know Google are trying to rectify this but really, we're doing things backward here.

But my main interest is integrating "ebooks" with my normal browsing experience. I read a lot of stuff on my reading devices - RSS feeds, webpages, websites, magazine articles, editorials etc, as well as "ebooks" themselves. Almost all of this information is found while web browsing, so ways of immediately getting this into a format and on to a reading device is a priority.

I have an article about this at http://hindesite.wordpress.com/artic...book-workflow/

Of course, this discussion becomes somewhat redundant when in the future we have always-connected devices which changes everything once again. No need to convert files before local storage; more difficult for vendors to segregate their products.

Formats then become as relevant as they are to everyday web browsing.

[Bob Russell]

Let me point you to a thoughtful and interesting response, 'Yes, e-book formats and DRM issues DO Matter—and techies should align themselves with the PUBLIC interest', by David Rothman. David is the originator of the very convenient and appropriate phrase "Tower of e-Babel". That term describes the very real problems of format incompatibilities, and suggests that it is almost single handedly stopping progress on the e-book tower to the heavens for the general public.

I should emphasize that in my comments, I am in no way trying to imply that formats don't matter in the market. They play a very important role in the adoption of e-book readers by the masses. And as dedicated e-book readers become more and more affordable and capable, the format hurdles will become more and more apparent. Even more important (maybe) than the formats themselves is the restrictiveness of DRM schemes. They limit one's ability to read e-books that have been purchased and lead to many user headaches and complications. They also usually limit use of the e-book to specific hardware or platforms, and when support fades for a particular DRM scheme, a DRM'd e-book purchase is more like a rental than a purchase. This will become painfully clear to many people only after everyone has started using e-books and they start to hear about the problems. It may, hopefully, create a backlash from consumers and politicians similar to what we have seen with protected music purchases.

But DRM is a familiar issue and well-debated in many places. What I desire to do in this thread is give a little context to the format issue in real life for technically adept individuals. It might just not be as big a deal as you thought it was. It's not really a big deal for me most of the time. But for others, it may be a big deal.

In the market and with respect to mass adoption of e-books, however, it is a BIG deal. I think that will be naturally borne out by the market, and highlighted by commentary and reviews on products that appear.

Btw, if you have somehow not visited the TeleRead Blog, please be sure to visit. Great site and well worth your time.

[rjh]

Originally Posted by Bob Russell

But DRM is a familiar issue and well-debated in many places. What I desire to do in this thread is give a little context to the format issue in real life for technically adept individuals. It might just not be as big a deal as you thought it was. It's not really a big deal for me most of the time. But for others, it may be a big deal.

No, technically it isn't a big deal for me either, I'm reasonably competent and a lot of my reading material is converted from other sources anyway. However, having to convert because a format is unsupported still makes managing a library more complex, and still wastes my time.

Imagine if before viewing a DVD you had to convert it to a specific format that your player could handle - you'd never watch anything. Its hypothetical, as the market wouldn't tolerate it. We'd think it was crazy.

And I'd suggest that is one reason why mobile video took so long to get under way - the transaction cost of getting the video onto your device was just too high. (Apple as usual have pretty much solved this problem).

Originally Posted by Bob Russell

In the market and with respect to mass adoption of e-books, however, it is a BIG deal. I think that will be naturally borne out by the market, and highlighted by commentary and reviews on products that appear.

I agree but would also point out that to a large degree, people reading MR and Teleread are very much early adopters (even though ebooks have been around for years!) and in this immature market it is possible that we can influence future directions by the actions we take personally. For me, that means not purchasing formats that I would prefer not to support (even though I could convert them) - that sends the wrong message to the publisher, since they do not know what format I'd actually use it in.

Manufacturers sometimes are responsive to market reactions - look at how Sony introduced the original Librie reader (60 day "rental" DRM!), and how they evolved from there. But I'd suggest that they are going to be most responsive in the early stages of a product's life.

[mobile27081906]

Bob, I completely agree that users need to be able to forget about formats and just focus on the experience, the content and the presentation. HTML is an excellent format for rich text, and I would have to go one further and say why convert at all? HTML pages look a lot better than any pages I've seen in an ebook reader, especially in an advanced rendering engine like Webkit (see Stanza or Safari on Windows for reference).

@JasonWalton, HTML does support Dublin Core Meta tags. See the Dublin Core specs for info on how to use DC in head elements. Also, the choice of XML makes it easier for machines but harder for humans, which is the problem we're seeing with EPUB right now. Validation is a nightmare because of XML's namespaces and strict nature. HTML has flourished because of its backwards compatibility and forgiving syntax. I don't think mandating XHTML 1.1, the strictest flavor of XHTML, was a wise choice for the IDPF. Neither was eliminating the script tag. By avoiding the crucial issues of scripting and linking, and eliminating backwards compatibilty with 90% of the rendering engines out there, EPUB forgoes all the advantages that open web formats offer.

Also, EPUB is not a standard. It's based on worldwide standards, but it's still a proposal. The IDPF would like you to think it's as standard as any of the other ebook formats, of which only PDF is a standard. HTML is a standard, and the only reflowable standard ebooks have.

Until ebooks stop seeming ridiculously format-centric and technical to outsiders, they will never take off. We should be happy for EPUB, despite its flaws, and embrace it, and only then can we take the next steps to bring it up to par with the expectations of publishers and consumers.

[Slite]

Originally Posted by mobile27081906

Bob, I completely agree that users need to be able to forget about formats and just focus on the experience, the content and the presentation. HTML is an excellent format for rich text, and I would have to go one further and say why convert at all? HTML pages look a lot better than any pages I've seen in an ebook reader, especially in an advanced rendering engine like Webkit (see Stanza or Safari on Windows for reference).

@JasonWalton, HTML does support Dublin Core Meta tags. See the Dublin Core specs for info on how to use DC in head elements. Also, the choice of XML makes it easier for machines but harder for humans, which is the problem we're seeing with EPUB right now. Validation is a nightmare because of XML's namespaces and strict nature. HTML has flourished because of its backwards compatibility and forgiving syntax. I don't think mandating XHTML 1.1, the strictest flavor of XHTML, was a wise choice for the IDPF. Neither was eliminating the script tag. By avoiding the crucial issues of scripting and linking, and eliminating backwards compatibilty with 90% of the rendering engines out there, EPUB forgoes all the advantages that open web formats offer.

Also, EPUB is not a standard. It's based on worldwide standards, but it's still a proposal. The IDPF would like you to think it's as standard as any of the other ebook formats, of which only PDF is a standard. HTML is a standard, and the only reflowable standard ebooks have.

Until ebooks stop seeming ridiculously format-centric and technical to outsiders, they will never take off. We should be happy for EPUB, despite its flaws, and embrace it, and only then can we take the next steps to bring it up to par with the expectations of publishers and consumers.

Actually, I wouldn't claim that PDF is a standard for e-books, it's a standard for carrying over a formating of publications, preferably in letter/A4 size and precisely conserving the layout and content of said page. That however is NOT that convenient for the current line of available e-reading devices, so let's just leave PDF out of the discussion, m'kay?

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Slite

preferably in letter/A4 size and precisely conserving the layout and content of said page.

Why "preferably"? The fact that most PDFs are created at that size because desktop printers are that size and that's some sort of "default" doesn't make it preferable in any way for PDFs, in my view. I've used for posters, pocket-size books, 6" screen, slide presentations, etc. each with its own size with no particular problem.

[Slite]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Why "preferably"? The fact that most PDFs are created at that size because desktop printers are that size and that's some sort of "default" doesn't make it preferable in any way for PDFs, in my view. I've used for posters, pocket-size books, 6" screen, slide presentations, etc. each with its own size with no particular problem.

Ok, preferably was wrong choice of word, I should have used "usually"