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The Evolution of Reading In the Digital Age
Doofus writes "'Print is dying. Digital is surging. Everyone is confused.' is the subtitle of Craig Mod's thoughtful discussion aboutthe evolution of reading material from printed dead-tree to flowing digital content. I stumbled upon his blog post from a related NYTimes article, Former Book Designer Says Good Riddance to Print. He breaks reading material down into two basic categories: 'Formless,' in which the content and meaning of the writing has no dependency on presentation, and 'Definite,' in which layout and presentation play a role in conveying meaning. Mod makes the point that as digital presentation improves, devices such as the iPad will bring authors newer and improved platforms upon which to display Definite content. Despite this, he says, some works will be better consumed in physical print because 'They're books that embrace their physicality or have stood the test of time. They're the kinds of books the iPad can't displace because they're complete objects.'"
Like pop-up books. Or scratch-n-sniff.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Also known as PDF and anything but PDF. PDF and fixed layout where it's needed, but please stop producing novels as PDF. They don't reflow nicely on smaller screens.
The main problems with e-readers is A) books are expensive B) there are no libraries. How many people actually -buy- all the books they read? Yes, occasionally there is the odd book where the waiting list in the library would give me a copy sometime in the next decade and I will buy a book. Or the odd book on sale at Barnes and Nobel for $3 that is a hardback, and occasionally I wish to annotate a classic work of literature so I will buy it, but for the rest, I just go to a library. As for newspapers, I generally don't read any. I don't see the point. Any community event traditionally advertised in the local paper is easily found via Facebook or Twitter. National or international news is best found online where you can see all sides of the story rather than the one or two expressed via print media. It allows for more specialized interest stories, good luck finding a newspaper with coverage as complete as even Endgadget. Newspapers also rarely follow up stories or allow for user feedback except for some cherry picked editorials.
In short, E-Readers aren't going to replace print media when it comes to literature and print is already dead for most people under 40 for news.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Do people get paid to throw Apple branding around like this? Are any of these issues in any way unique to, or only now forthcoming because of, Apple's late entry into the tablet computing market?
Better known as 318230.
I'm rereading TFA, and it's really even more out-there than I thought initially. I thought he was using the "unusual formats" as a metaphor for something, but does he literally mean books with fold-out charts and translucent overlays? Is the point that primitive? Has he not met the computer? Hasn't he ever seen an interactive presentation? I don't even have to go looking for anything specific, just go to HowStuffWorks and pick something. Many Wikipedia articles will do the same thing, except with animations and videos instead of Flash. Isn't this better than a pop-up book?
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
tl;dr ;-)
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.