eBooks: Dead or Read?

"So what are the ways forward?
Content providers could drive the market by heavier content investment in pilot projects and stimulate a critical content mass. Unfortunately, the current risk-averse environment to technology investment is unlikely to change the mindset of content providers.

Pricing practices must be more imaginative and creative. Currently some publishers price eBooks higher than the printed book. The consumer cannot yet see that there is any added value in the eBook to reflect a similar price let alone higher price than the physically printed word.

There are prospective commercial opportunities of partnering with traditional libraries, both public and academic, at a time when they are vulnerable to the predatory actions and short sighted, narrow objectives of financial management. They see them as a wasteful resource in both consumption of space, use of personnel resources and actual use versus capacity use. eLending is a natural extension of a library's function. Technical browsing functions and dowloading full text to local readers would bring the technology to the forefront of the potential consumer market.

The magazine and periodical subscription markets provide a continuous and, in the immediate and near term, captive market for introduction of eBook devices and production in digital form. Magazines and periodicals are high visibility, widely distributed markets.

Exploit commercial opportunities through on line retailers such as Amazon.com. It is a very logical step for enterprises such as Amazon to move into eLending. In this vein there are very real opportunities through web based services which offer access to web based titles. Indeed, they could link with libraries to provide outsourced library eBook lending services." [it-analysis.com, via h₂Oboro lib blog]

I agree with every one of these ideas, with the exception of proposing that Amazon move into eLending. It's not their mission, they're not set up for it, and it would distract from what they do best. Libraries, on the other hand....

Oh, and I would add my mantra of standards, bride of standards, son of standards, return of the standards, and standards V.

As part of this month's subscription, I bought The Next Fifty Years : Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century from Audible. I thought it sounded interesting, and maybe you will, too. It's an edited volume of speculative essays by 25 scientists.

One strange thing is that Amazon has incorporated Audible's titles into their system, so you can order the MP3 version, but yet it doesn't show up for this title. Weird.

Lost in Fun World of Robinson Crusoe

"Introducing today's plugged-in child to classic literature can become a daunting task, but a slick CD-ROM program might make it a little easier. Robinson Crusoe takes Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel to the computer screen as an interactive wonderland of adventure for children 8 and older....

The centerpiece of the title is the interactive book that contains text, audio, video and gaming components. The text, though abbreviated, is rich with the feel of Defoe's classic tale. Players can choose to read the story or have it narrated by British actor Martin Jarvis. The work is beautifully illustrated with pictures that come to life with animations showing a 'live' actor against illustrated backgrounds.

As they read, players are challenged through 'hunt, point, click and drag' action to help Crusoe accomplish tasks — such as returning to the ship to gather the tools and wood needed to make a raft that will allow him to salvage more items — for the story to continue....

Tivola has programmed the island to feature nine different locations touching on key narratives of the literary work — Crusoe building shelter, salvaging the wrecked ship, surviving illness, growing grains, making bread, hunting for food, avoiding cannibals, surviving natural disasters and, finally, escaping the island.

The different areas of the island are accessed via corresponding text in the book or from the map at the bottom margin of the book. As more tasks are accomplished and the reader advances, the island map becomes more detailed, showing the player beautifully drawn 360-degree panoramic settings to explore.

The program's sound effects and music are varied with the noises of the island and the sea popping" [Washington Times, via Lockergnome Bytes]

It's too bad it's not portable, because this concept could work well on my Sony Clie, too. However, it's only $20 and comes in PC and Mac flavors. This might make a good demo during my presentations to show how interactive and appealing an ebook could be (assuming it's as good as it sounds).