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E-books: Devices, Text, Markets
This
page covers electronic
books: information devices such as the Rocket eBook and
the GlassBook that display electronic texts downloaded
from kiosks, using WAP or over the plain oldfashioned
vanilla web.
overview
While there's been much hype, e-books have not made a
significant impact on the market. As we noted earlier in
this guide, media attention has focussed on high download
figures for a small range of atypical authors, rather than
whether the downloaded texts are actually read and whether
anyone (apart from journalists) is making money from them.
We'll be providing more information in this part of the
guide shortly. A starting point is the study
by Andersen Consulting for the International Publishers
Association on The Future of eBook Publishing:
publishers should be courageous, develop standards
as quickly as possible ... and presumably hope for the
best.
Our assessment is that the future lies with e-texts,
rather than e-books (ie with standard formats for
presenting electronic versions of print rather than
particular items of hardware using proprietary software
that's tied to particular retailers or publishers).
Academics and nonprofit groups have been publishing
electronically for the past decade: e-text as such is not
new. However, the proliferation of personal digital
assistants (PDAs) such as the Palm have encouraged
marketing of electronic readers that look much like a
book, including a leather binding on some products.
Those readers haven't gained significant market acceptance
and we note that several developers such as Librius,
after hyping their products, have abandoned the hardware
in favour of creating/marketing e-texts.
the devices
Devices such as the Rocket eBookwill be the
subject of a Caslon report appearing later this year. In
the interim, we have provided links to the major products
(commercially available or merely mooted), along with some
other pointers.
NuvoMedia's Rocket
eBook has gained the greatest market share - first in
the field, paperback-sized, aggressively marketed
(including by investor Barnesandnoble.com,
the subsidiary of retail giant Barnes
& Noble and global publisher Bertelsmann).
The bulkier Softbook
is looking increasingly like an also-ran; like NuvoMedia
its producer was taken over in mid-January 2000 by the tv-guide
giant Gemstar, currently rumoured to be merging with
Barnes & Noble.
The Glassbook
is a competing product in a similar format. It formerly
had strong links to Microsoft but at the end of August
2000 was taken over by Adobe. The Librius
was scheduled for release in 1999 but abandoned; the
company now offers books on the smaller Palm and Windows
CE personal digital assistant.
The EveryBook
is a large-format double-screen device with a memory
claimed to hold up to 1,000 titles
bodies and projects
The 'breakthrough' meeting on electronic books was Electronic
Book 98, a major conference organised by the US
Department of Commerce and the Video Electronic Standards
Association. We recommend looking at the papers from the
conference and material from the Kent State 'FuturePrint'
symposium mentioned below.
The E-Books
Organisation is an industry-dominated body with an
information clearing house and promotional function. Electric
Book is a website with information about electronic
books and online newspapers, journals and monographs. Kent
State University is hosting ongoing "virtual
symposia on the future of print media", with
presentations by hardware/software vendors and publishers.
The Xerox Affordances
of Paper project explores why we continue to use what
one wit described as "dried tree-flakes encased in
dead cow", particularly large documentation systems
such as those found in hospitals and the armed forces.
Interestingly, Amazon.com
will sell you everything from petfood and hardware to
antiquarian books but is not actively flogging e-books.
The E Ink
Corporation, as the name suggests, is investigating
'electronic ink' projects, in particular devices that have
the flexibility of a sheet of newspaper. Call us party
poopers, but we expect to be wrapping our garbage in
copies of the non-digital Financial Review for some
time to come.
From a less visionary perspective Xplor
International (these days you're apparently not
serious in the digital publishing game unless there's an
'X' in your moniker) provides a venue for information
exchange under the umbrella of the Electronic Document
Systems Association in competition with the Collaborative
Electronic Notebook Systems Association (CENSA).
The more narrowly-focussed EBX
Working Group is an ad hoc body developing a standard
- closely aligned with Glassbook
- for electronic book exchange.
standards
EBX operates in competition with the Open eBook
Authoring Group (OEB),
aligned with the Rocket eBook and similar devices in
developing an XML-
and HTML-based specification for use by publishers and
hardware developers. The Group recently released version
1.0 of its specification.
The Open eBook Forum (OEF)
is seeking to encourage PDF-based standards.
Of potentially greater impact is Microsoft's announcement
of ClearType,
proprietary font display technology claimed to
significantly increase screen readability, and new Reader
software for PCs and handheld devices.
ClearType's been criticised as too rubbery, providing
insufficient protection against unauthorised
copying/redistribution - perhaps the major impediment to
the growth of the electronic book market.
alliances
In North America retailers, hardware and software
developers, and content creators/publishers are aligning
and realigning. On 6 January Barnesandnoble.com and
Microsoft announced a strategic
partnership, with the etailer to establish a
"unique superstore" in the middle of this year
for selling thousands of eBooks online. Parent
Barnes & Noble will sell eBooks and eBook hardware
through its 972 bricks-&-mortar stores across North
America.
By the end of August that dance was off. Microsoft is now
the very best friend of Amazon.com and Adobe Systems
(having absorbed the Glassbook) has an exclusive
relationship with Barnes & Noble.
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