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What Will It Take For eBook Adoption?
zmcnulty writes "Gizmodo has a new weekly feature that appears to be off to a great start: their first 'Feature Creep' writeup (by Sanford May) is an excellent overview of some of the obstacles standing in the way of adoption of eBooks, and more importantly, a handheld device that supports them. We've probably all heard of the Sony Librie's lukewarm reception, but if you're not familiar with the somewhat stunted eBook market, this is an excellent essay to get you on your way."
Good books that people want to read and which will only be ported to this medium.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I'm going to go to my grave preferring paper, regardless of what technology comes along between now and then.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I will buy an ebook when I can read it as comfortably as a normal book. High contrast, high resolution, readable in daylight.
E-books fail for me because I would rather read somewhere else than infront of my computer screen.
I spend all day at work in front of this screen, why would I want to read a book on it when I can sit in a nice relaxing place without fans humming away or a CRT brightly lit in my face..
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It needs to be as cheap, or cheaper than a book. Hardy, so it can survive getting wet/dropped. And readable, like a book, not a flickery CRT or expensive LCD. Let's face facts, it's not going to happen for a while. It's a materials problem, not a software or standard hardware one.
Although a good idea, I dont read e-books because I really cant stand reading large documents on a screen. It is much more comfortable for me to read on a page. Also, who thinks that e-books are such a good idea? We have paper documents going back 3000+ years (papyrus to be exact). But already disks from 10 years ago are obsolete. Electronic storage media is going obsolete so fast that I dont think I trust it to hold a record of humanity.
Openness.
I should be able to buy an E-book and used it on ANY reader, my palm, my Zaurus, My Wince device, I should be able to also read it on the PC,MAC,etc...
If e-books are not in a standard and universal format then they are absolutely doomed.
The best ebook reader I had was a Rocketbook. only because I had a program to create my own Ebooks for it from guttenberg texts or other ebooks I cracked so I could convert them.
Although the device has more technical books in it than anything else.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, nothing can match the tactile feel of pages in your hand. It's just something that i will always like.
;)
Now, for reading docs on a computer screen (ebooks included), i wouldn't have thought i'd ever like it much....until i got dual displays. One for holding whatever i was reading and one for doing whatever i was doing. It's made my life much easier. i still don't really enjoy reading a book on screen though. Just something about it i don't like.
Maybe it's just me, but when i get a really, really, really tough bug, i'll print out the code and go for a walk, reading the code with pen in hand. Dunno why that helps sometimes, but it sure has solved some very sticky stuff for me in the past. i might be just odd though
* A reader that is light, inexpensive, with excellent graphics, that can easily be read in the sun.
* The reader must allow me to upload any text, not just from its own selection. This includes raw text files, html files and pdf. If I can't use it for papers, references and public domain/copyright expired works, it's not much good for me.
* The books need to be _mine_, in the same way that dead-tree versions are today. I can keep the copy for as long as I want, I can make backups to my hearts content, and I can sell it on, or give it away if or when I tire of it. No tying it to a particular reader in other words. I would not appreciate having to rebuy my library, just because my reader up and died.
* Neither books nor reader is to require any kind of interaction with the manufacturer or seller in any way, once I purchased it. I on't want to feel tied down, and I don't want to feel like I'm just borrowing the thing, not owning it.
I'm waiting...
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
This is a little tainted because the inital DRM efforts, in addition to being almost completely useless, were also extrememly draconian. It's no wonder people weren't buying the readers if the industry is treating them with that much hostility.
One more thing I'd like to point out. I don't know how well it's doing in the grand scheme of things, but the Baen Webscription Service doesn't seem to have killed their paperback production, even though their books are completely without DRM.
I read the internet for the articles.
Rampant piracy.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I've always thought that if they could get school textbooks realeased on these things at reasonable prices ($20 instead of $90), there would be an instant market that would nearly guarantee success. It amazes me this hasn't been done yet. It's possibly the ideal market for these devices.
1) VERY SMOOTH scrolling with no blurs, no matter how complicated the diagrams.
2) The ability to control the content with just your hands - no keyboard, mouse or touchpad - you should be able to hold it like a book and read it - maybe a tap on the lower right corner to advance to the next page and on the lower left corner to go to the previous page.
3) Eliminate the need to sit facing a vertical screen.
4) Minimize the dialogs. A book doesn't ask you if you want to save the file.
5) Make the text search work through voice recognition.
6) Hardly any boot-up time.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I like RealBooks (you know the kind with PAPER, etc...) because...
*Major Reason: Looking at a monitor screen (any screen, LCD, CRT, whatever) for too long tends to make my eyes red and sore. My eyes dry out easily, and I find that I blink much less when looking at a computer screen, so that is going to always be a problem for me.
* I read VERY fast. (Approx 1,500 WPM). With a book, I can finish a page, switch to the next, turn the page, repeat, while ebooks generally need to be scrolled downwards, (or pageDown) which results in a slight delay while I find my place again.
*Spacial recognition: Partly due to the fast reading, I don't read word-at-a-time, I read paragraphs at a time, and the screens on handheld readers don't show ENOUGH text- I generally finish the entire window in less time than it takes to tell it.
*it's so much easier to just flip to where I was- I tend to remember that the bit I wanted to reread was "about halfway through, on the left hand side..." while ebooks make it hard to do the same... "my slider bar was about 2/3 down" can change depending on the size of the window you're reading it in...
All very personal reasons. I have a few ebooks on my PC, but unless I cannot find the same book in tangible form, I won't sit down and read them.
> There will come a day when there is a generation of folks who use ebooks and consider printed books cumbersome and an anachronism.
Dear God, I hope not. I think the loss of the book would be a giant leap backwards for civilization. Call me nostalgic, call me romantic, call me old-fashioned, but I think there's something soul-satisfyingly and fundamentally *right* about books. E-books and text files are fine and wonderful for random mail, documentation, technical info, you know - just data. But there's something about writing (and I mean "writing" as opposed to "just typing," to paraphrase Truman Capote) that I think demands the container of a book. It's a statement, I think. It's the physical manifestation of the words inside that somehow says "this is important stuff! Worth killing a tree for, even!" I think that making a book is what sets literature apart from just being data, the same way that a handwritten letter will always mean more than an email.
E-books mean the loss of the inside cover, which means never opening an old book and seeing a note from that girl you dated in college. And that, my friends, is a vast loss for mankind.
actually more then anything the internet has ruined the publishing market.
the way i see it there are 3 types of books
1. story (Fiction and non-fiction)
2. self-improvement (better sex through yoga, and how to make your garden greener, C++ programming)
3. reference books (history, dictionary, encyclopedia books)
how the web has ruined them
1. read reviews and small portions of the books (to see if you want to buy it)
2. forums. every hobby and skill has a forum for you to find out information on
3. web dictionarys, web encyclopedias, wiki, research published on web, etc.
i don't have any numbers to back me up however i would take a big guess and say between 1995-1998 book purchases for reference material and hobby/skills type books dropped.. ALOT.
the good stories you can wait out on until they become movies. so the only reason to read anything today on a paper format is for
1. astetics.. you like reading paper
2. "multiple monitors" keep different books open to different pages to have more infomation in fron t of you without having multiple monitors/windows open
3. you genuinly like to read. this is different for each person because frankly i can't read paper anymore.
Getting people to buy e-book readers when there are only a limited number of titles seems to be one of the most frequently memtioned stumbling blocks. From a corporate perspective, I think e-TEXTBOOKS might be the best way to create this market.
Students:
1) are usually more willing to try new technology,
2) have better eyes and are less likely to complain while current graphics capabilities improve (how many times did your Mom insist you needed more light to read by when you were perfectly comfortable),
3) are in a sufficiently controlled environment that the DRM issues could be addressed, and
4) frequently need texts which are in the public domain (at least English and History students.)
Once the paradigm becomes familiar to a significant market segment, it will naturally expand to other areas of the literary economy.
According to the article:
Nobody is going to get really hot for eBooks until the display technology supports full color, even if they don't need color for what they'll publish and read.
This seems false. High contrast, high resolution, ease of use, affordability -- these are the sorts of attributes of books that are important. I hardly ever read a book that's printed in color. Not that I mind color, but it's just not all that important. A good layout artist can do wonders in black & white. This is just as true with an ebook as a traditional one.
My problem with eBooks is that it is blaringly obvious when you are using them. When I grab a book & start to read, I want to get lost in the story. When I grab my PDA & start to read, I tend to get lost in the tech. I find myself thinking about scrolling correctly, wishing there was more screen, screen brightness settings, etc. In short, I find myself thinking about everything except the story.
A traditional book is the simplest technology available to get the job done. It's cheap & "platform" independent. There's nothing to think about. You just pick it up and read.
The only way I see eBooks taking off, at least for myself, is if my life somehow makes it nice to always have a book available (or multiple books). Say I take a lot of short trips in taxis or I have lots of 5-minutes breaks before meetings. Then it would be great to have a book on my PDA to fill that time.
Given that situation, I would see eBooks more as an addition than a replacement. For example, right now I'm reading two books. One at home & one at work. If I could add another "anywhere" book on my PDA that might not be a bad idea. But I still wouldn't want to replace the other two because a paper book just works so darn well.
I've had lots of authors tell me the same kind of thing about writing.
:
"There's something so inhuman about writing on a keyboard, writing with paper and ink is so satisfying..."
I'll switch to e-books the day when
- there are books available (obviously; and that will take *years*)
- they have a solid state flexible screen with a "mission to mars" kind of form factor or something equally useable
- you can add and remove your own data and easily hook the device to the rest of your computing stuff
- the battery life is counted in weeks and not in hours
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
- When the display resolution is as good as paper.
- When the contrast of a display in all lighted conditions is as good as paper (current displays are better in total darkness).
- When battery life is not an issue at all - 24 or more hours on a charge, and less than 30 minutes to recharge.
- When you don't have to worry about breaking an eBook by dropping it or sitting on it.
- When replacement cost isn't an issue for your eBook reader.
- When using an eBook is as easy as grabbing a dead tree book off the bookshelf.
- When an eBook can be folded up or rolled up and stuffed in a pocket - like a paperback or magazine.
- When the pricing of eBook content reflects the significantly lower production and distribution costs involved.
And to sum it up with a simple, one-sentence rule:
eBooks will dominate the market as soon as a typical user doesn't hesitate to swat a fly with the eBook instead of the paper version.
That will indicate that eBook readers have finally met most of (if not all of) the criteria I set above.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
the same way that a handwritten letter will always mean more than an email.
I think this is an excellent analogy. Handwritten letters are still being written (at least by me), yet email has become a great tool for communication, too. And it's the dead-tree format, be it letters or books, that one wants to keep.
I read a lot of ebooks on my Palm. It's great for the train, or flying (except for takeoff and landing, of course), waiting for the wife to finish her gym class (okay, so this may be a bit foreign to you lot). I even read proper literature as ebooks, thanks to Gutenberg and the Weasal reader. Yet, I still have walls full of paper books.
The printed book (handprinted or typeset) has been around for nearly 1000 years. It won't die that quickly.
Besides, as Cory Doctorow says, when we read the ebooks from him or Baen, we buy the paper versions, too. So, let's support those who are trying to popularise ebooks with their own works!
Some more professional examples. I just bailed on referreeing a paper for J. Chem Ed in which the most recent reference was Einstein, 1905- most of the rest were ~1850. (My small college library doesn't stock the references, and I didn't have time for a loan) But with time I could have gotten all of them. Our library here has been digitizing an illuminated Qu'ran from ~1500, and we'll do a ~1300 Book of Hours soon.
Do you have computer data 20 years old? Can you still read it?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I don't think the ebook will ever catch on. People truly do love the way a book feels in their hands. I wonder if any studies have ever been done on this?
It will take nothing less than the complete elimination of DRM.
People will not change formats unless the new format is more convenient than traditional books. DRM makes books inconvenient and eliminates the benefits of having electronic versions of books.
If you cannot cut and paste interesting passages and send them to your friends, why would you give up the smell of paper?
Why would you want 50 books in your pocket if you knew that you would have to pay a fee every time you accessed one of them?
Why would you want a dedicated device that did not allow you to move the book to your computer at home or at work (whenever and however many times you wanted)?
Why would you want a book that would become inaccessible to you the next you upgraded your (MS) OS or when the company that produced your reader went out of business?
Why would you want something that exposed you to Federal litigation if you tried to access it outside the bounds of a long unreadable license?
Why would you want a copy of a public domain work with an ominous copyright notice attached to it? (My copy of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica actually has a copyright notice attached to the Constitution of the United States of America).
There are numerous benefits to electronic formats, but the vast majority of those benefits are eliminated by DRM. I doubt anybody will switch until those benefits are allowed. The publishers need to find another business model... like editorial consulting or something where they would derive their revenue from helping authors and not monopolizing information. But I will definitely die of old age before that happens.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
You're old-fashioned.
What you say about books/e-books could easily be said about letters/e-mails. Now obviously letters still have their place, but that place is shrinking - and rightly so.
The e-book generation will never miss that romantic note on the inside cover, but they will think it sad that their grandparents now have to rely on a couple of dusty letters and photos of the girl they dated in college, whereas they have video clips to do their sighing over.
The problem isn't so much the asshat professors as it is the publishing company. Lets remember these asshat professors are some of the same people that have given us so much open source code and other benevolent contributions to society.
Textbook publishing is big business, the publishing companies just have to learn how to move to electronic publishing and make it work. It's just like the RIAA, their business model will NOT last forever. Sooner or later someone will provide electronic books, asshat professors and other authors will figure out that there is no need to pay publishing houses huge amounts of money, proofreaders and editors will become independant contracters that just get emailed copy, and the publishing industry as we know it will come to an end.
It's amazing to me how so many of the issues here on slashdot boil down to the same thing. The recording industry, movie industry, publishing industry and software industry have all sprung up over the last 100 or so years as middle men between the musicians, actors, authors, coders and the consumer. They server very little purpose. Now with the massive influence of the Internet all of these creative people are beginning to have no use for all of the managers and marketing people that are just taking a cut of the profits. Eventually, I expect most creative/IP type of products to be available on the net by the creators for a minimal fee.
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> There will come a day when there is a generation of folks who use papyrus and consider carved stone monoliths cumbersome and an anachronism.
Dear God, I hope not. I think the loss of the carved stone monolith would be a giant leap backwards for civilization. Call me nostalgic, call me romantic, call me old-fashioned, but I think there's something soul-satisfyingly and fundamentally *right* about carved stone monoliths. Papyrus and parchment are fine and wonderful for sending orders to underlings, ordering supplies, sending bills, you know - just data. But there's something about carving (and I mean "carving" as opposed to "just scrawling," to paraphrase my neighour Ugg) that I think demands the solidity of a carved stone monolith. It's a statement, I think. It's the physical manifestation of the words inside that somehow says "this is important stuff! Worth hauling all the way out of a stone quarry for, even!" I think that making a carved stone monolith is what sets literature apart from just being data, the same way that a sealed cuneiform tablet will always mean more than an papyrus note.
Papyrus mean the loss of the carved monolith storage hole, which means never walking up to an an old carved stone monolith and finding an old mammoth bone cooked by that girl you dated in mammonth hunting school. And that, my friends, is a vast loss for mankind.
As for perils of the current system... *shrug* It's because it's easier to test people for facts rather than understanding. Safer too. It's easier to defend yourself against a student who claims you're discriminating against them on basis of gender, race, sexual orientation, or male endowment when you've got the test to show that they missed 37 of the 50 multiple choice questions than in a situation where you're having to explain that their class project demonstrated little original thought and didn't express itself clearly. That said, I'd prefer the project. Make people work together in arbitrary groups and have them grade each other in the end as to how much effort they each put in.
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While I agree with your basic premise (middle men going bye-bye) I will play devil's advocate and say that the reason we have middle men is marketing. If a consumer doesn't KNOW my book is out there, how will they find it? How will they know to look for other authors/artists/etc.? How will they be able to discern if the ebook they're thinking of downloading is wonderful prose or 5th-grade drivel? Look to the current content of the web, and how difficult it is for your mom to decide if the medical advice she got from imarealdoctorhonest.com is going to cure her or kill her. Middle men serve SOME purpose, yes?
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