Computerworld: The Coming Ebook Revolution

Andrew Savikas
February 7, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2) | Listen

Last week I linked to a phenomenal piece over on ArsTechnica on the future of digital books (and in the process neglected to thank Peter Brantley for the link). Today Mike Shatzkin (a co-author on the StartWithXML Report) passed along a pointer to another great article, this one from Computerworld's Mike Elgan listing six reasons that ebooks are about to explode . His reason #5 mirrors the theme of this year's TOC Conference, which starts on Monday:

5. A rise in books written for electronic reading. The shift from print to electronic will change the nature of the book itself. Many books will be shorter. They'll be more timely and culturally relevant. They'll be more colorfully and engagingly written. And they'll go after young readers like nothing before.

Elgan left off what I believe is the most important aspect of writing for electronic reading, which is hyperlinking, but the thrust here is that all publishing is becoming digital publishing, and existing publishers ignore or delay dealing with this at their peril. Or as Elgan puts it:

Like the move from silent pictures to "talkies," the transition to electronic publishing will prove fatal to laggards. Those aggressively pursuing and developing e-books will rise to take control of the publishing industry.

I agree completely, and am reminded of a line from Michael Porter's seminal article, Industry Transformation:

Because early experiments can be highly inﬂuential, companies that hope to be eventual industry leaders must think carefully about the precedents they set during this period.

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2 Comments

bowerbird said:
February 7, 2009 5:33 PM

criminey...

now you're calling that article "phenomenal"? oh, please...
it was bad enough when you described it as "extraordinary".

look, it was a slightly interesting personal account. that's all.
it had a few acute conclusions, but nothing out of the ordinary.
pleasant enough, i'm glad i read it, but i didn't learn anything.
nor do i think anyone who's familiar with e-books would have,
even if they haven't been paying more than minimal attention.

and as far as i can remember, this is the first time i have heard
from siracusa in a role where he made comments on the topic.

there are many people who have made _sharp_observations_
and deep commentary through the entirety of the last decade
-- one favorite is bill janssen -- so why honor this summary?

-bowerbird

Anonymous said:
June 7, 2009 4:44 PM

People dreaming of the utopia that technology will bring always make analogies like "talkies" versus silent films. But what about the digital audio tape pushing out the audio CD? The turbine engine replacing the internal combustion engine? Television replacing the radio? Electricity that's too cheap to meter? For that matter, where's my flying car?

E-books still have some barriers, including cost of the viewing equipment, sucky displays on the viewers that are out there, and, gosh, reader preferences.

E-books will come, no doubt about it. They might drive down sales of paper products a bit, but paper products aren't going away. New technology doesn't always eradicate the old. For instance, you can still buy pencils, sand clocks (two-minute egg timers), straw hats, etc. I don't know why some people seem to feel such a need for e-books to take over and paper books to just go away and stop bothering us.

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