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When Will E-Books Become Mainstream?
An anonymous reader writes "IBM developerWorks is running an interesting article dicussing the difficulties faced by e-books and what it might take to help them to 'break out'. What are some other ways to give books a 21st-century facelift?"
1)They must be comfortable to read. E-ink devices, like the Sony Librie can bring this. These devices have high contrast displays, use little power, and work in broad daylight. They are about the size and weight of a standard pocket paperback, but they store far more information.
2)They must be priced competitively. 10 cent chapters. $1-2 books. Free content which is in the public domain or put out by individual authors.
3)They must not be so encumbered by DRM that people find them useless. One major flaw with the Librie was that, like most Sony products, they used a proprietary format developed by Sony. Until recently, it was hard to put your own content on the devices. A lot of the content you could buy also exprired & they were extremely feature-limited (you couldn't copy, search, read on other devices, etc.).
What we need is the iPod of eBook readers. Something which is well-designed & allows us to read PDF, html, and plain text (in addition to any restricted formats.
When they are the same shape, weight, and feel of a paperback or a hardback book. When they can sit on a shelf and look great. When they can hold onto the story for the same length of time that a book can. When they can be read over and over, shared with others freely, and take ink from a pen for notes.
In short, ebooks will come of age and take over when they become paper books with ink on them. Or is there already something on the market that can do this?
Seriously, between audio books (which take up no space at all and are completely compatible with both the listening technology and habits of listeners) and actual books (which again fit the habits of readers) where is the niche for ebooks? I'm not saying that there isn't a niche. I just can't think of it.
Of course, I never saw the need for the walkman either. I'm not exactly a visionary.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.