Indigo's Shortcovers Launched Today: A Good Start, But Room for Reader Improvement

The Shortcovers website and companion iPhone and Blackberry apps launched today (we posted a sneak preview back in January). Put simply, it’s a website for buying ebooks. But there’s a few interesting twists that (for now) set it apart.

Though most of the current content is books, the primary unit of the service is the “shortcover” — things like an article, a blog post, and a book chapter. That means publishers have the option of making individual chapters available for sale (or as free samples). But perhaps the more interesting consequence of that is something they’re calling “mixes,” where readers can combine multiple shortcovers into a single “mix” (think iTunes playlist), and share that with other readers. Though my search was admittedly brief, I wasn’t able to find any for-pay content available for inclusion in a mix.

They also definitely understand the social aspect of reading. Beyond the mixes, readers can also upload their own content, rate content, and share content (via Twitter or email).

On the downside, right now although some content is downloaded locally to the iPhone, most of the service only really works when you’re online. Also, the navigation within books isn’t very intuitive, and the interfaced doesn’t drop away while reading (the navigation and settings bars at the top and bottom remain on screen while reading).

And (sadly unsurprisingly), the reader appears to have trouble displaying complex content like lists and tables, and computer code (the ones I looked at either didn’t display the code at all, or displayed it in regular variable-width font). I’ve sent a note to the Shortcovers folks to try and learn more, but I’m continually surprised with how poorly many of these reading systems (including the Kindle, until very recently) have handled kinds of content that have been part of standard HTML for well over a decade. Here’s some screenshots of the problem:

I’d be more sympathetic if the iPhone SDK didn’t already include the WebKit framework for rendering HTML. Sigh.

But overall it’s a decent start, and an impressive first real entry into the mobile reading space from an existing print retailer.

Several more iPhone screenshots are below:

bowerbird

andrew said:
> I’d be more sympathetic if the iPhone SDK didn’t already
> include the WebKit framework for rendering HTML. Sigh.

um, andrew, if you need someone to vet your posts for you,
i would be very happy to volunteer for the task. seriously…
because if you’re going to make any commentary about the
programming of e-book apps, you clearly need a consultant.

yes, you can use webkit in the iphone. but it’s a mixed bag.
because you have to accept its _liabilities_ with its _assets_.
and, in many arenas which are important to e-book display,
webkit falls short… a browser is a _lousy_ e-book viewer…
if it worked well, we’d all be reading our books using safari.
it doesn’t; that’s why many e-book programmers roll our own.

besides, i believe stanza uses webkit — don’t quote me! –
and they’ve had their share of trouble with table display too,
so even a webkit approach might be harder than you think…
(many tables weren’t designed so as to work on a small screen;
some law of physics about two things not being in one place.)

don’t get me wrong. e-book programs _should_ be criticized.
most of ‘em stink, and even the “best” are flawed. way flawed.
but let’s please make sure the criticism is _well-informed_, ok?

-bowerbird
dgadd

One of the things I love about O’Reilly’s Safari service is that it is what it is billed: I am getting a subsription to their techbooks. I can subscribe to a bookshelf of various sizes, and subscribe to access those books. I am under no illusion that I own those books; but that’s fine, it’s a subscription. It’s billed as what it is.

Shortcovers, on the other hand, is billing itself as a competitor to kindle/ereader/fictionwise etc as a purchaser/downloader of individual books.

Yet their service is exactly like Safari–I can’t download a local copy to my machine/back it up. I only have access to the books as long as:
1) I am online (not on an airplane)
2) the website retains the financing to continue (we’re in a steep recession)
3) the publisher continues licensig the book for digitial distribution

On O’Reilly’s Safari, that’s great–I’m subscribing to a “bookshelf”, not a particular book, to read it while I want to. Or on kindle/ereader etc. I download the book and make a backup.

Shortcovers needs to either switch their model to “subscribe to bookshelf” (I’m fine if they want to take that approach) OR, if they insist on selling the books individually, they need to provide a permanent backup copy that I can read offline.
dgadd

After purchasing a work from shortcovers, my receipt included the terms of service. Here is an excerpt from the Scope of License.

Notice the words “is licensed, not sold, to You”.

Why on earth is this not called a subscription service?

Scope of License:
Any product downloaded, purchased, viewed or any copy of any Submission or Literary Work (collectively a “Product”) transacted through the Shortcovers Service which is accessed by You on any iPhone or iPod is licensed, not sold, to You for use only under the terms of this license, unless a Product is accompanied by a separate license agreement, in which case the terms of that separate license agreement will govern, subject to Your prior acceptance of that separate license agreement. Indigo and its licensors (“Application Provider”) reserves all rights not expressly granted to You. The Product that is subject to this license is referred to in this license as the “Licensed Application.”
bowerbird

these days, it’s getting harder and harder to decide
if the publishers or the authors are more clueless…

-bowerbird