05-23-2009, 07:25 PM | #1 | |
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TIMES: The future of books and electronic reading
Interesting article from the Times:
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Personally I don't want any bells and whistles attached to my books, it just seems wrong somehow. |
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05-23-2009, 07:34 PM | #2 | |
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From Book and Beyond
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05-23-2009, 07:37 PM | #3 | |
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I just don't see how it can get any more pointless. If I wanted a multimedia experience on my computer (and I think they tried this one before) I'd want a CD-ROM or something like that. They're just confusing the market with attaching the words e-book to these bloated monstrosities. What we're really paying for is bundled 'marketing'. |
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05-23-2009, 07:48 PM | #4 | |
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i think there's good and bad in this article.
i agree that the "books and beyond" proposals seem like a step backwards. however, one day we will have devices with multi-media capabilities, which won't require you to view these types of books on your pc. for a novel, i'm not sure many people will be interested, but think of the possiblities for textbooks and reference books : you could have a biography of a musician with music embedded in the book to play, or science books with films showing various scientific phenomena, or books about filmmakers with clips from their films... i wouldn't mind having a book talking about the golden age of film from the 30's with short clips of all the great films of the time to illustrate the text... and this part seems particularly encouraging, with some solid numbers as well. Quote:
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05-23-2009, 07:49 PM | #5 |
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05-23-2009, 08:10 PM | #6 |
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Most of this sounds like a bad idea, but I don't think I would mind video on textbooks where appropriate (for example, a chemical demonstration in a chemistry textbook) or perhaps some music in a musical theory textbook. We include pictures in textbooks already, after all, right? Of course, this assumes internet connections go up on par so that the extra media won't be a bandwidth problem, or there are at least alternative versions to use in that case.
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05-23-2009, 08:21 PM | #7 | |
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No thanks. It's very simple for me. Give me a novel with cleanly formatted text that's portable, without DRM and at a reasonable price and I'm your customer. If I wanted a rich-multimedia experience, books would not be my first port of call. |
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05-23-2009, 09:34 PM | #8 |
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I think it was Sony that tried to do this with their music CDs in the late 90's, early 2000's. Buy a CD, put it in your CD player, it played like a CD. Put it in your computer and it became a full multimedia experience. Sometimes. When it didn't completely crash.
This has got to be one of the worst ideas ever. I'd rather publishers spend more time and money in getting a decent quality ebook on the market at reasonable price than all this other garbage. |
05-23-2009, 09:36 PM | #9 | |
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05-23-2009, 09:52 PM | #10 |
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05-24-2009, 01:26 AM | #11 | |
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BTW: I have never and will never use(d) the MP3 function on my eReader! And personally, I don't want my eReader to become some kind of InternetTablet (but with color, touchscreen and WiFi I see this coming...). |
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05-24-2009, 04:54 AM | #12 |
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With the current technology available, this "rich media" content may only displayed on PCs or notebooks. It's nothing any of the dedicated reading devices could handle.
So what's the point? I didn't ever like to use my PC for reading, additional content won't change that. There's plenty of content for a PC if I want to enjoy a "rich media experience". Although, given a future reading device, with full color in 16M, high resolution, I wouldn't mind a nice trailer or some animated illustrations in the inside. Adding some video interview, why not? But right now, nope? Just the delusions of some marketing managers. |
05-24-2009, 12:29 PM | #13 |
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It bears repeating on this forum: more people (48%) view ebooks on a PC or laptop than any other kind of device.
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05-25-2009, 11:17 AM | #14 |
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05-25-2009, 11:39 AM | #15 | |
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Half of ebook readers being on laptops is meaningless, as a marketing datum, without knowing how many they're reading, how many they're buying. If that half is reading 1-4 ebooks/year, and the people with dedicated ebook readers are reading 10-50 ebooks/year. How many of those PC/laptop readers are only reading free ebooks? I think of myself as "almost only reading free ebooks." I don't think I've bought more than a dozen ebooks in the last year--a small handful from Baen, and another cluster from Fictionwise, some of which are short stories. But in my office of 40+ people, I believe I'm the only one who's bought *any* ebooks--although I know a couple of them have downloaded & read publishers' freebies, and one is taking classes online that involve downloading & reading PDF textbooks (which are heavily DRM'd; he has to put his name & password in to unlock the view; they can't be 'ported to a mobile device.) |
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