My posts on the future of eBooks, describing a vision of tomorrow’s eBook platform (the Miranda Proposal), is a futurist’s view based on years of immersion in the evolution of digital media. But in this closing post of the series I want to calm those who worry about a world of “dancing, singing, and shamelessly social eBooks,” while also presenting some very recent data about paper books, eBooks, and eReaders. Read the series: “The Miranda Proposal: Tomorrow’s eBook Platform”: Prologue part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 Epilogue First, despite these essays, I do not believe that there is going to be a single, inevitable path to describe the future of books. The eBook will evolve in many ways, and we will see different, concurrent, unexpected, and not always complementary adaptations. Just as there will always be those who love quietly paper books, so will there be those who embrace the social reading, interactivity, and creative new applications of tomorrow’s eBook platform. The Miranda Proposal describes an overarching eBook platform and a set of features that will transform books into rich, social, digital multimedia. But several have told me that their reading experience is one of private transportation, with the print book being the perfect vehicle. I share that love of print books as well. And if my ten-year-old daughter and her friends are any indication, that love of print could well survive for generations. (If you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll enjoy this YouTube video from Pearson, which dates from 2010 but is particularly relevant now.) There are, however, compelling reading scenarios that call out for rich media today. Consider how advances in eLearning are converging upon the humble textbook, changing the way students interact with knowledge. Imagine a student clicking through an eBook to a video mini lecture, an interactive illustration, or complementary research. Or reaching out to a live network in realtime for assistance with complex concepts. Imagine members of that network getting “points” for serving as teachers, leading to “mentor badges” that they might even list on their CVs. Unlike a novel, a textbook doesn’t typically transport you; it is a...
Read MoreThe Future of Books
I previously wrote that it is high time for eBooks to evolve, and of course this begs the questions why, how, and by whom? I’ll answer all of these in a series of upcoming posts, but let me first address why even book lovers should not decry the inevitable ascension of the eBook. Read the series: “The Miranda Proposal: Tomorrow’s eBook Platform”: Prologue part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 Epilogue I am a book-lover myself; my home office is a library with almost every square foot of wall space dedicated to bookshelves. I believe that old hardbound books are beautiful. I collect rare books on a few particularly arcane topics. And I keep literary paperbacks not because I want to hand them down to my daughter (a romantic notion that is fast fading), but because every time I look at them I recall fondly the memory of having read them. But book-lover that I am, I see a time coming when I will clean out many of my paperbacks; that age is slowly coming to an end. Yes, book sales are still strong today, but as anyone who has worked in the news industry will tell you, change is in the wind. Today we buy books and, like cast-off college textbooks, we sell them back on eBay and Amazon in order to fund new purchases. My daughter is already plotting how she’ll spend the money she’ll make selling back her American Girl and Magic Treehouse books (for new books and perhaps a few new games). This sort of buying and selling of physical media is inefficient; it is simply a means to reduce the cost of new purchases, and a way to keep the Postal Service in business. The ultimate expression of what we are trying to achieve is the eBook, which wings its way silently, instantly, and digitally into our hands. Such is the digital future of all media: news, movies, music, books, magazines. Digital media is downloaded directly into our lives and crosses easily from one device to another, always within reach. This is not to say that the paperback...
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