I don’t know why I keep seeing these articles feigning shock, or those that question the new philosophy or acceptance of putting ads in books. Of course ebooks will have ads. It’s been done for over a hundred years in books and it might even bring prices down, or to zero. And it will also not be all that problematic for many of us. Some of us won’t mind and the rest of us know where there are ads, there are ad blockers. And the more sophisticated advertising gets, the easier it will be to block.
Let me state what I mean. In order to help pay me, a struggling author, more, I can get an ad contract from a company. I make the deal, get the sponsorship money, put the ads in as part of the book maybe in the margins, maybe as a footer message on ever chapter front page, and a few pages at the back (just like every high school sports tournament book you’ve ever seen). This set of ads comes as part of the text, doesn’t change, isn’t all that intrusive and has that home grown feeling. Those who bought my book don’t get too bothered, and at some level connect with it. I’m probably even thanking my advertisers in the preface. The ads are absorbed or ignores as advertising goes. In the end, it doesn’t effect public opinion of my book.
Then you have the latest massive best seller, the head of the long tail. It is published under Big Pub, with ads from Big Pharma, Big Oil, etc. The ads are ever changing, they of course have to stand out, they deploy overlays, begging you to ‘touch’ them. You know, anything to catch your eye, because who gives a damn that you’re reading or what you’re reading.
Then something happens. It begins with some frustration a few blog posts, some bad press about a popular book. People expressing distaste. Then plugins start coming out designed to disable these ads, hosted at a snarky website that you can download instantly. Because the Big Pub ad code is standardized by the partner of Big Pub it just takes a few strokes of code and the dynamic ever-changing ads are routed by the blocker plugins to fizzle out, to turn invisible or are auto-overlayed, display:none whatever technique needed.
How am I able to forecast this? Because I know of the existence of greed. Greed causes people to act irrationally, to force their desires on others. And where one strong emotion like greed is born, on the other side of the universe, there is born the anti-matter of said emotion. The balancing force. Whitehat hackers, or just industrious people who have had enough. They have the distaste for greed. And they will focus their weekend spare time on blocking the bigger annoying ad networks because THEY CHOOSE TO. Because where there are vampires, you need vampire hunters.
While this goes on, others will be distributing the open versions of those texts more readily. And where the ads get too ridiculous, the rational, freedom lovers, commonists, and people who just miss the good ole days, will rally against the greed. And like DRM has in some parts of the spectrum has been beaten down, so will the wrong kinds of ads.
But ads are OK. And they will be OK, until they are NOT OK. And you’ll all know when that happens if you are paying attention. So stop acting so surprised about it. Books are predominantly niche products and many are written by intelligent people who care about their outcome. Which means there’s a chance that you actually will read books with ads you kinda like. Because the author had some say about it. I wouldn’t bet my farm on it, but I’m optimistic.
I remember when I was little I used to wonder what it would be like to have everything I ever wanted. What would the world be like if I could have it all and so could my friends. Would it be boring? Or would we always have something interesting to do? After a lot of thought later in life, I’m certain that at least having access to everything is better than being left wanting.
In the digital content universe, we figured out a way that we could duplicate and share to our hearts content. Duplication is a requirement for our computers to work, during the transfer, memory and storage processes. But THEN we began to suffer through a period in which people put locks and chains on information after they realized that now that we truly can have everything, that simply can’t be allowed to happen.
Even worse, for those of us who have enjoyed owning books all our lives, and being able to give them away, share them in our own right for as long as they’ve existed, the ebook industry movement, faced with a flexible product has gone and made it LESS flexible than the physical book.
With a lot of feigned fanfare, Amazon, the maker of Kindle has introduced a feature, previously only available through a competitor, the Nook. The Kindle software will now let you loan the ebooks you own to your friends, (as long as the publisher allows it). Your friend can borrow the ebook from you for up to 14 days, one time only. After 14 days, the book vanishes somehow.
Only the conniving would spin this inherent and built-in weakness as some kind of benefit rather than the big negative embarrassment it actually is. Sure on the one hand, we want to get those who made the book paid. But on the other, why do we insist on pretending that these digital files are subject to the physical limitation of real property. Reality says digital files can be copied infinitely at no cost. Reality for ebooks is even better as their storage is so minimal in most cases.
If you agree with this direction and go through the system like the mindless consumer they hope you are, and you’ll buy the Amazon Kindle ebook, you’ll pay near the full price of the paper book despite getting nothing of its benefits. And you can’t REALLY share your book with people. And you can’t really give it to somebody either. Because if you could give it to somebody digitally, then they own it and could give it back to you. And that is where the current industry says “whoa whoa, that’s not the kind of behaviors we can really manage or support, so we’ll just not allow it.”
Because we can’t have pesky reality creeping into our ebook sales numbers can we?
The solution to this problem only works when you can in your mind, fully reorganize book publishing as you think you know it. But even then it’s a messy mess. Unfortunately, so is the current path we’re on. Readers have to have the same rights with ebooks as we do with paper books. Anyone preventing this disrespects people and the reality of the world we live in. It disrespects rational thought and is greedy, malicious and unconcerned. Layers of this kind of ignorance that creates systems of digital product commerce are just weak legs holding up a flimsy table top. One that is unsustainable when faced with any kind of disruption. It’s especially sad being within the industry involved in the spreading of knowledge.
The XO-3 is the next product plan developed by the One Laptop Per Child educational project begun by Nicholas Negroponte from MIT. Marvell, is a leading chip maker for low power devices. This is a good partnership.
Thousands of the XO-1 Laptop have been distributed to children in developing countries. A tablet with Marvell technology on the inside and Pixel Qi screens on the outside is right for this project.
Colin David wrote a post called “Your Library Is Dying” in a web magazine Splice Today. David reminds us that our libraries are woefully underprepared and or untrained in the latest social media. Librarians aren’t familiar with many of the new information resources like blogs and RSS feeds or how to conduct advanced web searches in order to help patrons. They might not have an inkling on the ebook revolution.
It’s an interesting read, even if it might not match your experience in your library. I think it’s a really mixed bag across libraries. I’ve been able to visit many libraries in the two cities I’ve recently lived in. They seemed in some branches to be well equipped. I think libraries try to be very diverse. Is your experience like mine? My libraries have a decent collection of DVDs, now replacing the many VHS tapes (thankfully), with selections in features, documentary, educational and kids. They have a sizeable number of PCs equipped for Internet access. They have a great deal of books and sections with new releases, both in print and audio.
My libraries also hold events with authors, they mini galleries on display, their meeting rooms can be reserved and often are, they have computer classes on basic subjects. Seasonally they offer tax preparation and have awareness programs e.g. for Black History Month or Asian-Pacific Heritage Month. They show feature films and even film series in whatever branch has the cinema-style venue.
Libraries are designed to be very diverse. They attempt to reflect the culture and community around them and attend to those diverse needs. They also as you might sense, are constantly running activities as a test bed to see what sticks. Like any business, they will play up or downplay them as interest waxes and wanes over time. If nobody attends the Hitchcock film series, then they won’t likely be holding it again next year.
It’s not necessarily the library’s job to teach since they aren’t schools. Nor are they community centers. They also could be forgiven for being behind the times if none of their patrons were requesting the latest and greatest information, programs resources etc. If they are giving their patrons what they want and satisfying people coming in the door, are they doing a good job while still dying?
Regardless, you can only carry on without evolving for a few years before you start to lose the older patrons while not gaining younger ones. Younger patrons will want to use it to perform in school and take multiple library resources to synthesize new ideas or output an intelligible paper. Adult patrons will be seeking to research specific subjects, to become someone by supplementing a career path. Very young and much older patrons might just be looking for entertainment and interesting things, maybe even an escape or a meeting place for discussions with peers.
You might agree that a library needs to change with the times but also believe that young people who only used their web-connected phones will miss out on a lot of the tactile benefits of books and the atmosphere of a library, you are not alone. The library can serve the connected culture while maintaining a non-electronic classic atmosphere.
I think you’ll find that most libraries have been looking at these issues over the past 5 years or so. How they act on them will depend on their funding, their staff’s abilities and from their education and experience from other libraries. As dull as some libraries can be, they can come from a very creative place. So the problem solving to maintain relevance will occur. And there are many commercial partners and resources available to bring things like ebook and audio rentals to beef up the library offerings so they don’t have to go it alone.
Following a favorite author on Twitter, @DaveCullen, we saw this page at Oprah.com. When your book collection becomes unruly. It’s time to purge. They have a useful checklist of what might make a book worthy of keeping or tossing when you must regain some space. But they fail to mention a very clear solution to the problem of annoying book clutter. Ebooks barely take up any space. Your home library compressed properly probably fits on a 16GB Flash drive.
Initially I wrote this discussing the possibilities and challenges with book scanning. But except for somebody willing to completely destroy a book by stripping the spine in order to feed into an affordable excellent home document scanner, it’s simply too annoying a process to recommend to most people. The books you are thinking of getting rid of are mostly the ones you don’t really want all that much. Otherwise you’d find a way to make space for them.
If you’ve been collecting hardcovers for years and have a beautiful library, you keep those and save space another way, downsize your bed or something. The problem of books for people are the ones they aren’t using, they’ve partially read and didn’t care enough to continue for the time being. Nothing wrong with that. In that case you simply don’t need that book. If you wanted to read it, you could pick it up at the library.
So the answer really is, to get our public libraries to the state where you can borrow books, all books on demand. This could be many years away though. Right now, borrowing ebooks from the library you need a specific device type and the books available are very small. A company called Overdrive powers many of these systems in place at libraries now. I’m not even sure the rationale behind the available books actually. Maybe every library website is just showing the boring titles that aren’t checked out in an scroller. I do know this, the system is based on artificial scarcity. People will “return” a book and then you can check it out. This is ridiculous. Say what you want about government money systems and how it’s all artificial. But an artificial scarcity of information is just disgraceful. “The book is right there, why can’t I borrow it?” Because somebody made an agreement somewhere and it was decided to give one group the control over the information. I’m willing to entertain the thought that libraries should be able to transmit freely working for the public good outside of the control of copyright.
The situation is sad enough to make you want to create or contribute to a pirate culture for books. At least until balance can be achieved again. Until then, desperate times, desperate measures. Scanning looks like a better idea because at least I have the power and the control there. I’m not subjected to the whims of Overdrive and whatever legal limitations are being imposed in these library partnerships. (Note I’m not blaming Overdrive, but the system is a farce when you can get access to all the books whenever you want, at least for a temporary amount of time, that doesn’t amount to permanent download ownership.)
Let’s take a look at another favorite author, Lawrence Lessig and examine the copyright / credits page of his book Free Culture published by Penguin.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Ok, nicely done. Now let’s look at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, of which Lessig is a contributing member and their Fair Use FAQ.
4. What’s been recognized as fair use?
Courts have previously found that a use was fair where the use of the copyrighted work was socially beneficial. In particular, U.S. courts have recognized the following fair uses: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research and parodies.
In addition, in 1984 the Supreme Court held that time-shifting (for example, private, non-commercial home taping of television programs with a VCR to permit later viewing) is fair use. (Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984, S.C.)
Although the legal basis is not completely settled, many lawyers believe that the following (and many other uses) are also fair uses:
Space-shifting or format-shifting – that is, taking content you own in one format and putting it into another format, for personal, non-commercial use. For instance, “ripping” an audio CD (that is, making an MP3-format version of an audio CD that you already own) is considered fair use by many lawyers, based on the 1984 Betamax decision and the 1999 Rio MP3 player decision (RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia, 180 F. 3d 1072, 1079, 9th Circ. 1999.)
Making a personal back-up copy of content you own – for instance, burning a copy of an audio CD you own.
So the courts have ruled in favor of making personal backup copies. “MAKING” backup copies, not trolling the internet for rogue PDFs and ePub files. There’s no ruling in favor of getting the ebook source from a torrent website or newsgroups just because you own the physical book. My opinion, it’s just a legal issue. My ethics tell me it’s perfectly fine to get the ebook file available somewhere and as long as I’m not sharing it, it’s a convenient backup for me. Not everyone sees it that way. But I wouldn’t feel at all guilty about it. For me to obtain it though, remember it means somebody else is infringing copyright. Unless there in one of those countries who doesn’t recognize it.
If you MAKE your own book scan as a backup. You could freely destroy the original and your digital backup becomes your main copy. And since the only way to store a digital backup is in within a personal “retrieval system” then keeping a small library of backup files on USB, SD cards or what have you, is the only choice.
I write this knowing that it’s within a very strange and sometimes incomprehensible framework known as copyright law. And of course I’m no lawyer and cannot be trusted. Books shouldn’t be so troubling though. We were all fortunate that CDs were digital content widely distributed on a physical entity. Ripping them to a compressed digital file (mp3) to make portable became so easy, it is now most likely an included feature in your computer’s operating system.
The answer ultimately for the public’s future is within portable connected devices, with cameras, scanning and downloading books. The other thing is to make these books more affordable and in more hands. Either we want to limit potential, or we don’t. If libraries get to where they can’t maintain their inventory due to funding, and books aren’t there, we have to supplant that with downloads. And these downloads need to be instant. Because people have projects, deadlines, interests. I’m not gonna wait for the 89th person to “return” one of the two available copies of the John Steinbeck book when my kid’s paper is due. If somebody isn’t getting paid, we work that out without stifling the entire population by artificial means from getting to books to make said population richer and more capable.
Plastic Logic announced today that their Que reader is dead. They, like us, and like many others knew that nobody is gonna spend over $800 on a Que reader for business, when iPads, netbooks and even the Kindle DX offer similar or much more capabilities for nearly half the price.
“We recognize the market has dramatically changed, and with the product delays we have experienced, it no longer make sense for us to move forward with our first generation electronic reading product,” said Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta. “This was a hard decision, but is the best one for our company, our investors and our customers.”
They took too long to figure this out or make the announcement. And too bad for those attendees at D7 who were told they were getting the device for free. Bummage. Plastic Logic should probably just continue with the product as is and just drop the price. Nobody said it wasn’t going to work., just the price is wrong. My thoughts lead me to that’s exactly what they’re doing and the Que 2 is really just the Que 1 minimally altered to appease their accounting department standards.
I haven’t been too friendly about Plastic Logic and their Que Reader. Now Wired reveals there will be more delays making it, giving the Que the embarrassing title of vaporware and in my opinion making even less relevant than ever. They struck me as pioneers of their device at first. They had the large screen and had begun working through media publishing channels and to make it compatible with the most formats. When they announced the price, it was evident that either their product is just too expensive to make after all the refinements or they were fully out of touch. It’s unfortunate but by branding and pricing their Que reader as a business tool, they are up against Apple and Apple’s iPad. Plastic Logic announced their product years in advance and have been surpassed by Apple and a lot of other copycat reader companies who actually shipped.
It’s a good lesson I wouldn’t have wanted to experience as a company first hand. But there are still things that Plastic Logic has going for it. The plastic substrate still sets it apart from the others. But plastic and less breakable doesn’t make it a better choice overall. The flexibility of the screen doesn’t mean it can withstand heat or cold. They also have a nice big screen, which sets it apart from most, but not all readers (KindleDX). Unfortunately a bigger screen doesn’t automatically mean it’s built in every way to best utilize business documents. It’s just one factor. The iPad and any other tablet with good battery life and a decent size are probably better suited. Why? Because people can edit, resize, scroll and markup a document faster on a tablet. A reader with slow refresh is going to be just clunky enough to be annoying when navigating through it when contrasted with a tablet or netbook.
All this wouldn’t matter if they weren’t trying to get $700-$900 out of the device. A Kindle DX is $489 and I can almost guarantee it will also lower in price by the time the Que comes out, or that same day. But the problem is the iPad and any decent tablet coming out in the next six months. Because the 9″ screen size, the ability to add apps, the instantaneous feedback, the editing ability all make a tablet better. And a tablet prices are cheaper for all that you get, even without 3G internet. A tablet will also give you more hard drive space and the operating systems are built to let you add programs that can open more documents. Need to read CAD or UML files? Tablets will do it. An e-reader? Not so much.
I’m not trying to simplify the challenges involved, but it is very simple that being both late expensive don’t help your current and future goals.
I have a few recommendations that can increase appeal. But the chances that Plastic Logic will feel compelled to do this is probably unlikely
Release the product at $450 and get it out ASAP
If it’s software and not hardware causing the final challenges, release and then get busy on firmware updates
Include a large book pack and 3 or 6 month magazine subscriptions for free.
Upgrade the storage to 10 GB to diverge from KindleDX
Make the reader water, temperature and shock resistant out of the box
Consider opening the device to make it a hacker friendly to attract another niche or two
Get the devices in the hands of a few celebrities or celebrity CEOs. (Try to where iPads haven’t dominated)
Sell / License the technology to earn money through other channels to bring prices down
Apple has the brand name and the interest captured already. Amazon has the attached book store and Kindle app proliferation on other platforms. The rest of the e-readers like the Nook, Alex, Kobo and others have a little foothold either with their own stores or simply compete on price. Sony has nice all-around affordable readers and spaces in many retail outlets covered. Plastic Logic has a sleek looking large reader that is overpriced and so far has people waiting entirely too long. A Wi-Fi iPad or a netbook from ASUS or Toshiba is a much better buy for corporate types. At least you can edit docs, skype chat, watch movies and store a lot more on a netbook. Given that iPhone and Blackberry have document viewers, the case is even less for an expensive business reader. E-Ink and similar technology compete on battery life and a better-for-your-eyes reading experience. But that’s pretty much it. They are all underpowered and do a lot less for a power user than a real computer or a smart phone.
It will probably be over $1000, but this is a nice looking device by Toshiba called the Libretto W100. Unlike Samsung who is waiting for who-knows-what to post their own pages of their upcoming tablet, Toshiba is all over showing with official pictures and detailed information.
So what does the Libretto W100 have?
Dual 7″ Multi-touch screens
802.11 N Wi-Fi
Full Windows 7 Home Premium
Webcam
Lightweight at 1.5 lbs
Bluetooth Toshiba Bulletin Board software (for notes and organization)
The screens look quite beautiful, as expected from Toshiba. The video below demonstrates an ebook displaying on both sides. It’s the hinge that looks burly and engineered well. Let’s hope that fans of this device can get their hands on it. Once again I’m wishing if only it had a Pixel Qi screen. But it looks like it could make a nice companion device to have, more protected than an open tablet.
Things we wouldn’t know if it weren’t for Slashgear:
Pentium U5400 processor
62GB Solid State drive
2GB of DDR3 RAM
Battery Life
single USB 2.0 port
microSD card reader
built-in accelerometer
ReelTime document browsing software
A lot of tablets lately are at or above the 9″ screen mark, but for many people this size is more of a burden than a feature. Many want something bigger than a phone, but still portable. And everyone wants flexibility. The Archos 5 tablet is a 5″ Android device that offers a lot of versatility in a handheld package. It has nearly all the capabilities you’d expect in a tablet, and more. Archos has been responsible for a lot of media players over the years and the French company knows how to make devices. They also have a history of supporting more of the open media formats.
Here’s a descriptive video of the Archos below. This 5″ format is interesting. You can put it in a shirt or coat pocket easily. It’s big enough to read on, same size reading area as a mass market paperback and bigger for fat fingers to chat and text than a phone. The Archos built-in GPS allows you to subscribe to a full and enhanced mapping system. The TV antennae dock and ports for connecting to HDTV is unique and useful.
Other things to care about
Archos 5 has the ThinkFree office included so documents from your email attachments will be accessible on the road. The battery life is going to be 7 hours of video playback and over 20 hours of music playback (screen sleeping presumably). Price starts at under $200 for 16GB and includes expansion with MicroSDHC cards. You can go as high as a 500 GB version (but will have a spinning HD.) There’s also an Archos 7″ and 9″ tablet. At this writing, the 7″ is sold out. The 9″ runs windows and has a much shorter battery life.
Buggers
No camera on board. That’s unfortunate. It’s also running Android 1.6 and no mention of updates to the faster and Adobe Flash supported Android 2.2. The app store is not the official Android marketplace so you might be limited in your downloads. No mention of multitouch, looks like a resistive touch screen. No mention of a stylus. This is a short list and all tablets have downsides, many more than this.
I don’t know why I keep seeing these articles feigning shock, or those that question the new philosophy or acceptance of putting ads in books. Of course ebooks will have ads. It’s been done for over a hundred years in books and it might even bring prices down, or to zero. And it will also not be all that problematic for many of us. Some of us won’t mind and the rest of us know where there are ads, there are ad blockers. And the more sophisticated advertising gets, the easier it will be to block.
