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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.
Cory Doctorow (who reasonably knows a thing or two about electronic publishing) has a pretty good piece disassembling the Gizmodo article here: Ebook column that gets it all wrong
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
And I agree with his interpretation from his article: " Ebook column that gets it all wrong Gizmodo has a new column called "Feature Creep," and they kicked it off with an editorial about the future of ebooks that is striking for its complete disregard for the actual marketplace experiences with ebooks. It's full of hoary chestnuts about ebooks that have been emptily mouthed for 10 years ("Call it digital paper or electronic ink, it's the future of eBooks.") and aside from the occassional iPod comparison, there's hardly a paragraph in there that couldn't have been written in 1997 -- nor one that takes note of any of the events since then (well, to be fair, there's also a lot of puffery stuck in there to promote an ebook company called Vertical that probably didn't exist in 1997, but that's beside the point). Take DRM. The author asserts on the one hand that DRM can work, and that it won't be so invasive that it turns readers (whom the author insists on calling "consumers," an odious buzzword that invokes Gibson's description in Idoru, "...a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed") off. This despite the actual marketplace fact that all DRM becomes invasive (ask any copyright policy maker in a country that allows parallel importing how he feels about the "lightweight" region-coding DRM on DVDs that reverses the laws he was elected to enact). This despite the actual marketplace fact that DRM is generally broken within a few days of engagement with the public, often by teenagers, grad students, or people with ready acccess to sophisticated DRM-cracking tools like Google and the sinister Shift key (for more on DRM, see my DRM talk)" http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/29/ebook_column_ that_ge.html
// Empires come and go we live forever
Personally, I prefer having a physical book in my hand to page through rather then trying to read something on a screen. An actual book just feels more "solid" and "real" to me. But, there are some advantages to ebooks, especially when used as a reference document. The good old ctrl-F makes finding specific information much faster then looking in an index or table of contents. Also, If you forget your ebook somewhere, it is just a matter of connecting to your home computer to download it wherever you may happen to be.
there is something to be said for "the old way" of doing things.
A book is an awesome medium for reading.
And just like that useless article on the segway, you can build the tech, but if it sucks people won't use it.
So that's the answer: build technology that doesn't suck.
Speaking of which, this color scheme is giving me a headache. Seriously. Who's the butthead that thought this scheme up? Can we vote on this?
Sent from your iPad.
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
The eBook industry may be stunted for some, but we're doing just fine selling PDF versions of our Pragmatic Bookshelf titles.
/\ndy
*Many* of our customers choose to buy what we call a "combo pack", that gives them both the dead-tree version and a searchable, non-DRM restricted PDF file. While I think the dead-tree form has the best ergonomics, the PDF is really handy for reading on airplanes, etc.
Paper is better in some ways and eBooks are better in others. Use the right tool for the job!
--
I will buy an ebook when I can read it as comfortably as a normal book. High contrast, high resolution, readable in daylight.
Or at night. In addition, I'd like it to be lightweight, durable enough to stick in a backpack all day long, and be hinged with two screens on the inside so I can read it like it were a regular book.
The universal convenience of the long-established book user interface cannot be underestimated. In some strange, indescribable way, it's more natural for me to read a paper book than it is to read text on a flat screen, clicking a "next" button repeatedly.
Maybe it's just that a book is easier and more comfortable to hold in two hands than my Palm is to hold in one. But my point is: eBook readers aren't going to take off if they're confined to the tablet format. Give me a folding device with screens on both halves so I can hold it in my hand and "flip pages" instead of just scrolling text. Do this, make it cheap enough for consumers, and I'll be one of the first to buy it.
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.
- 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."