Electronic Books or eBooks are books
that can be downloaded from the Internet into special reading devices (or into
computers) that
cannot be printed, photocopied, printed on paper, or copied in whole or in part
to computer files. Since they are the highest form of copyright
protection, publishers are interested in creating public interest in such books.
This document contains some threaded
messages on eBooks that I wrote in various editions of New Bookmarks.
On December 6, 2010 Google's eBookstore Went
Live with More Than Three Million Titles ---
http://books.google.com/ebooks
After more than a year since we first heard the rumors, Google has entered the
world of e-books. Today, the company launched its e-book marketplace with more
than 3,000,000 titles on the shelves that will be available to nearly anyone
with a smartphone, laptop, tablet, netbook or desktop computer.
For example, type in the search word
"accounting"
Many accounting textbooks are available, but I have not yet done any price
comparisons.
Some of the most popular textbooks that are not available anywhere for
electronic downloading are not available for Google eBooks.
There is indeed a lot to like except one major
objection: Apple has once again opted not to
support open standards and instead chosen to implement interactive iBooks
via a proprietary format that could only be consumed on Apple-only devices.
Clearly, Apple is most interested in locking the
education market into a closed system where iBooks textbooks can only be
produced, sold, distributed and consumed by Apple-only technology.
Also, the iBooks Author app capability to export
interactive multimedia-rich books as plain-text or PDF is a lame face-saving
gimmic.
Shame on Apple for not fully supporting open
standards like HTML5 and ePub3, and for undermining the open Web and Web
browsers in favor of a closed proprietary system.
January 20, 2012 reply from Richard Campbell
One concern I have with Apple's iBooks Author
program is in respect to the EULA
I would prefer that Apple would charge for this
authoring program and allow the standard file format (epub) be sold wherever
the author wanted. Under the current conditions, Apple gets 30% of anything
created with this program.
On a brighter note, it means that individual
entrepreneurs who create their own works will be at a competive advantage
vis-a-vis the major publishers.
Richard
January 20, 2012 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Richard,
As one of the most diehard ToolBook users are you still writing ToolBooks?
It's amazing how iBooks have apparently borrowed almost all the ideas
(such as wizards) from ToolBook with a couple of major exceptions. ToolBook
has relatively expensive licensing fees but will play back on most Internet
Browsers, including 100 millions of Windows machines.
As far as I can tell, iBooks will only play back on iPads which has to
greatly limit the population of users to only those with access to iPad
machines. Meanwhile, Amazon is still winning the high volume user and price
wars on eBook downloads to its Kindle.
I would hate to have to author a textbook with touchscreen keys and a
small screen. I realize there are limited apps for iPad keyboards and screen
projections, but life would be so much simpler if IPads just had two or more
UBS ports and a VGA port.
Also there are many, many readers and authors who want optional hard copy
books. Depending too much upon multimedia for book authoring may be
premature until hard copy books themselves have built in video playback
screens on the inside back cover --- which is not yet a technology that I've
seen developed.
Alternately, hard copy books may one day have UBS-type ports where video
player headsets can be plugged into the binding of a hard copy book. This
might be a neat way to publish hard copy books with multimedia components.
The days of ubiquitous computing are just dawning and this may include a
small computer built into the binding of a hard copy book --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm
Respectfully,
Bob Jensen
PS I disagree with your implication that publishers have lost comparative
advantages vis-a-vis custom (Vanity Press) authoring. Since you teach CVP
analysis you must appreciate the fact that publishers still can add greatly
to the "V" in CVP. You witness this every semester when publisher book reps
walk up and down the halls outside your faculty office. The proportion of
accounting textbook market share held by major textbook publishers may be
declining slightly, but it's certainly not enough of a decline to contend
that major textbook publishing houses do not currently have very important
comparative advantages to authors of textbooks.
It's often said that there isn't really a tablet
market, just an Apple iPad market with a bunch of other contenders fighting
over the remnants. But, starting this week, that is likely to change,
because Amazon is adding a multifunction color tablet to its popular Kindle
line that costs less than half as much as an iPad 2.
This new $199 device is called the Kindle Fire, and
after testing it for a week, I think it's a good—though not a great—product
and a very good value. It doesn't just add color to the Kindle, it adds a
robust ability to store and stream music, TV shows and movies—and a weaker
ability to store and display color photos. And it offers about 8,500 apps at
launch, including Netflix, Angry Birds and QuickOffice. [PTECH-JUMP] Amazon
Amazon's Kindle Fire, pictured, has a more
developed content ecosystem than Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet. A Guide to
Tablets and E-Readers
See specs for some e-readers and tablets on the
market.
View Interactive Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
The new Nook Tablet
More photos and interactive graphics
To be clear, the Kindle Fire is much less capable
and versatile than the entry-level $499 iPad 2. It has a fraction of the
apps, a smaller screen, much weaker battery life, a slower Web browser, half
the internal storage and no cameras or microphone. It also has a rigid and
somewhat frustrating user interface far less fluid than Apple's.
But the Fire has some big things going for it.
First, the $199 price, though the Fire's seven-inch screen is less than half
the surface area of the iPad's display. Second, the Amazon and Kindle
brands, already known and loved for e-readers and more. Third, Amazon is the
only major tablet maker other than Apple with a large, famous, easy-to-use
content ecosystem that sells music, video, books and periodicals. The Fire
can be thought of as a hardware front end to all that cloud content. More
Digital Solution: How a Basic Kindle Fares
Mossberg's Mailbox B&N Nook Takes on Fire (11/8/2011) Amazon Bets Apps Light
Up 'Fire' Sales (11/15/2011) B&N Unveils New Nook (5/25/2011) Video: First
Look at Nook E-Book Reader
Finally, while the Fire, like many other tablets,
is based on Google's Android operating system, Amazon has taken the bold
step of hiding Android. It shuns its user interface and nearly all of
Google's apps and services, including Google's app store. The Fire's
software is all about the content and apps Amazon has sold you and the easy
purchase of more.
When compared to the iPad 2, I suspect the Fire
will appeal to people on a budget and to those who envision using the iPad
mainly to consume content, as opposed to those who see the larger tablet as
a partial laptop replacement. For instance, while the Fire has a decent Web
browser and a rudimentary email program, it lacks basic built-in apps, such
as a calendar, notepad or maps. However, for people primarily interested in
reading books and periodicals, the Fire may seem too heavy and costly when
compared with a low-end Kindle or Nook. [PTECH-JUMP] Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet
The Fire isn't only competing with the iPad and
other general-purpose tablets. It has to contend with a new, low-price,
similar-size color tablet out this week from e-reader rival, Barnes & Noble.
This device, the Nook Tablet, is B&N's second-generation color slate and
costs $249, still less than an iPad. I've also been trying it out for a few
days and found it has some pluses and minuses compared with the Fire.
The Nook Tablet boasts double the internal storage
and a slot to expand it. It has better battery life and a more interactive
approach to children's books. But beyond books and magazines, it lacks
either Amazon's or Apple's large, simple, built-in ecosystem for other kinds
of content, such as music, movies and TV shows.
Instead, Barnes & Noble boasts it offers choice, by
including video apps like Netflix and music apps like Pandora. However,
these same apps also appear on the Fire and the iPad, along with the Amazon
and Apple stores.
Continued in article
"A Kindle Swipes Fine, but Still Hooked on a Nook," by Katherine
Boehret, The Wall Street Journal, November
Despite the advantages of full-featured touch
screen tablets like the iPad, plenty of people opt for e-readers like
Amazon's Kindle, finding them more comfortable in the hand and easier on the
eyes.
This week, I tested the new Kindle Touch in a
head-to-head comparison with Barnes & Noble's Nook Simple Touch. The Kindle
Touch includes several features that Kindle fans have been waiting for,
particularly better navigation. The Nook Simple Touch, which came out last
summer, dropped in price to $99 and received a software update last week.
Navigating these touch screens is a breeze, and
you'll be happy reading with either the Kindle Touch or Nook Simple Touch.
Both feature E-ink, nonreflective screens without backlights—great for long
stretches of reading. These smaller devices are also lighter than a tablet.
More
Kindle Fire: A Grown-Up E-Reader Amazon Bets Apps
Light Up 'Fire' Sales (11/15/2011) B&N Nook Takes on Fire (11/8/2011)
Judging E-Readers by Their Book Readability (6/29/2011) B&N Unveils New Nook
(5/25/2011) Video: First Look at Nook E-Book Reader
Overall, I prefer the Nook for its better price and
usability.
Each e-reader costs $99, but the Kindle Touch comes
pre-loaded with so-called special offers—ads that take over the device's
screen when it's in sleep mode and appear whenever you touch its Menu
button. A Kindle Touch without on-screen ads is $139, or $40 more than the
ad-free Nook. A Kindle Touch with a 3G Internet connection costs $149;
Barnes & Noble doesn't offer a 3G Nook Simple Touch.
Amazon has finally released three new models of its
popular Kindle e-reader: the $199 Kindle Fire, the $99 Kindle Touch and the
$79 basic Kindle. WSJ's Katherine Boehret put the Kindle Touch in a
head-to-head comparison with Barnes And Noble's Nook.
Physically, the Kindle Touch is a bit taller, while
the Nook is slightly wider with a contoured back that's easier to hold. The
Kindle Touch relies solely on tapping or swiping on the left or right of the
device's touchscreen to turn pages. Nook users can turn pages using these
methods or physical buttons on the left and right sides of the screen.
I prefer the option of physical buttons so I can
hold the device and not move my hand each time I want to turn the page.
These buttons are also handy at times when touching the screen isn't ideal,
like after using suntan lotion at the beach.
Though the Kindle does a lot of the same things the
Nook does, Amazon's clever terms make these same actions sound more
whimsical. When using the cloud to sync content and page location across
devices, Amazon calls this Whispersync. Amazon's community-generated
encyclopedia is named Shelfari.
Three notable new features work with Amazon's
Kindle Touch.
X-Ray is a feature that displays book-report-like
data points when someone taps the screen at any point while reading one of
"thousands" (Amazon wouldn't give a more specific number) of titles.
This could be a real boon for non-fiction readers,
but since I don't read a lot of non-fiction, X-Ray wasn't too useful in my
books. While reading John Grisham's "The Litigators," I used X-Ray to read
Wikipedia descriptions of Chicago and Big Pharma. This data can also come
from Shelfari.
The Kindle Owners' Lending Library is available to
Amazon Prime members—Prime costs $79 a year—and lets users borrow from over
5,000 titles. People who use this can borrow one book each month with no due
date. I tried this and found books in the Kindle store listed with "borrow
for free" icons where a price would normally display. I tapped this option
beside "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins, and the book was sent to my
Kindle. An on-screen message notified me that I couldn't borrow again until
Dec. 1.
Finally, Kindle users can borrow books from their
public library via easy, wireless downloads, though these are bound by the
same lending rules as physical library books. I borrowed a book from my
Washington, D.C., public library by browsing available Kindle books on the
library's website and virtually checking out a book after entering my
library card number. I followed a link from there to Amazon.com, where I
selected the "Get Library Book" box, which appeared where "Add to Cart" is
normally found. Your Kindle must be using a Wi-Fi connection—not 3G—to get
these books.
The Nook can only load library books via a clumsy
USB cord transferring process. A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman said the company
plans to offer Wi-Fi downloading of library books early next year.
If you'd rather lend books to fellow e-reader
users, Kindle and Nook can do this. Books can be lent to friends for 14
days, during which time the book's owner can't read them.
Today, Amazon unveiled something radical: the
Kindle Lending Library.
You get to download one Kindle book a month, with
no due dates, free, if you’re an Amazon Prime member and a Kindle owner.
O.K., whoa.
First of all, Amazon Prime used to be a
free-shipping service. You pay $80 a year, and you get two-day free shipping
on anything you buy from Amazon. It was fine, I guess, for people who bought
enough stuff from Amazon to make it worth the fee.
But then something really weird happened. Amazon
decided to compete with Netflix’s movie-streaming service. It started
licensing more and more movies and TV shows — now 13,000 of them, which is
rapidly approaching Netflix’s library size. The price? Free, if you’re an
Amazon Prime subscriber.
What does free shipping have to do with streaming
movies? Beats me. But it must have been a delightful surprise to people
who’d signed up for Prime.
And now this. Free books, including New York Times
bestsellers, for the Kindle. If you’re an Amazon Prime member.
Free shipping, free movies, free books, for $80 a
year. What, exactly, is Amazon up to?
There has to be some master plan, because Amazon is
spending itself silly to pull this off. Because the offer is limited to
owners of Kindles — it doesn’t work if you use the Kindle service on an iPad,
for instance — it is intended to sell more Kindles.
Obviously, the notoriously e-terrified book
publishers wouldn’t sign off on Amazon’s free-book deal without a lot of
reassurance — and a lot of payments. And sure enough, Amazon says that these
free Kindle books aren’t really free. It’s paying publishers for the right
to distribute them.
“Titles in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library come
from a range of publishers under a variety of terms,” Amazon says. “For the
vast majority of titles, Amazon has reached agreement with publishers to
include titles for a fixed fee. In some cases, Amazon is purchasing a title
each time it is borrowed by a reader under standard wholesale terms as a
no-risk trial to demonstrate to publishers the incremental growth and
revenue opportunity that this new service presents.”
Wow. Amazon is actually buying e-books to give you
for free.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Amazon often sells hard copy old books for a penny plus reasonable shipping
charges. UPS just delivered an accounting classic (from 1979) to me for which I
paid a penny plus $3.95 shipping.
Amazon Flies Through Clouds in Search of Books
"Amazon Sees a Good Read in the Cloud: Users can now access all of their
Amazon Kindle content on anything with a browser," by Erica Naone, MIT's
Technology Review, August 10, 2011 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/38298/?nlid=nldly&nld=2011-08-12
Amazon unveiled a
Kindle Textbook
Rental, giving students the ability to rent
instead of buy digital textbooks. Amazon says that "tens of thousands" of
titles from some of the major textbook publishers - including John WIley &
Sons, Wlsevier, and Taylor & Francis - will be available for this school
year.
It's not just the selection that the company is
touting, of course, it's the savings: "now students can save up to 80% off
its textbook list prices by renting from the Kindle Store." Amazon's boasted
savings for students has put the company at odds with brick-and-mortar
college bookstores, and the National Association of College Stores has
accused the online retailer of misleading students
about the potential for savings when buying textbooks from Amazon.
But renting textbooks has becoming a popular
alternative to buying recently, with companies like
Chegg offering students
the ability to rent books just for the duration of a semester. Amazon's new
program is similar, but with the added bonus of being digital rather than
physical, letting students read the e-books on Kindles and on Kindle apps.
Buying Used Textbooks, Still Cheaper Than Renting
The Kindle Textbook Rental program also lets
students configure the length of the rental, from 30 days to 360 days. Of
course, the longer you rent, the more expensive it becomes. A $100 Kindle
purchase can be rented for $40 for a month, but that quickly increases the
longer you keep the book - and most students will keep it for at least a
semester. It's still cheaper to buy used textbooks in most cases, and when
you buy a physical book, of course, you can keep the book or sell it back as
you deem fit.
To make this option more appealing, Amazon has
added a new feature to the Kindle Textbook Rental program, the ability for
students to keep any of the notes they make in the textbooks they've rented.
Typically, when you borrow an e-book, any marks you make in the text
disappear when you return them. But Amazon says you'll be able to keep your
highlights and notes "in the Amazon Cloud," and should you buy or rent the
book again, the notes will be "just where you left them."
College Students Lukewarm about Kindles
The Kindle itself hasn't gained much traction among
college students, and
several studies have found that students say that
they don't find e-readers to be very useful for their note-taking and
studying needs. It's worth noting that on Amazon's page announcing the new
program that an actual Kindle isn't depicted. Instead, there's an e-book on
a laptop and displayed on a large monitor. You needn't use a Kindle, the
message seems to suggest, just a Kindle app.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
It's a little unfair to only compare eBooks with hard copy (including used hard
copy) books on the basis of price or rental fees alone. Electronic books are
different on other criteria. Word searches are easier in electronic books
whereas hard copy books don't crash and burn. All the electronic textbooks for
all courses ever taken can be carried in one reader weighing less than two
pounds. Try stuffing the hard copy textbooks for more than two courses into a
backpack.
Rentals in electronic books or hard copy have some drawbacks. I wish I could
have had all the textbooks for every course I ever took in college stored for
access today. But I took some of those courses before printing presses were
invented.
Four major textbook providers—Cengage, Macmillan,
Pearson, and John Wiley & Sons—today announced that they will build tighter
links between their advanced e-textbook platforms and Blackboard’s popular
course-management system.
Blackboard announced a similar deal with
McGraw-Hill last year. So the company now has partnerships with the five
dominant textbook publishers.
For students, a major benefit will be the ability
to get to the publishers’ e-textbooks and online assignments through the
campus network without having to create new logins and passwords. For
professors, the new links will make it easier to push students’ grades on
online quizzes from the publishers’ e-textbook systems to the gradebook they
use on the Blackboard system.
The deals do not turn Blackboard into a bookstore,
however. Students must purchase access to the online-textbook systems
through traditional retailers such as the college bookstore, said Matthew
Small, chief business officer for Blackboard. “This isn’t about a
storefront—this is about making these things more interoperable,” he added.
“It’s a real challenge for the universities because they have to maintain
all of these different passwords” to each textbook provider, he said. “Now
90-plus percent of all of the digital-learning platforms are going to be
integrated into Blackboard.”
Looking for Every Nook and Granny
"With the New Nook, Grandma Gets Wired: A pared-down version of the
Barnes & Noble e-reader has the grandmother demographic in mind," by David Zax,
MIT's Technology Review, June 6, 2011 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/26847/?nlid=4602
. . .
So it's no surprise to hear from Barnes & Noble's
CEO this week that one of the target markets for
its latest iteration of the Nook is the granny
demographic. At an event in New York on Tuesday, reports Reuters, chief
executive William Lynch
told the group gathered
that the inspiration for the latest Nook was a letter that had asked why no
e-readers were tailored to the geriatric set (or other dead-tree loyalists,
like myself).
"The Kindle 3 has 38 buttons. That's 37 more than
the all-new Nook," Lynch said, comparing his offering to Amazon's latest.
With just one button, the latest of late-adopting grandparents should be
able to take the latest Nook for a whirl.
The new Nook
is priced at $139, making it competitive with
Amazon's Kindle, and starts shipping on June 10—though you can pre-order it
now, if you like. (There's actually a cheaper Kindle, one that costs $114,
but it's ad-supported—not true of the latest Nook.) The Nook weighs in at
7.5 ounces and has a 6-inch touchscreen display. It was just a month ago
that the B&N introduced a revamped color e-reader, priced at $249, one that
could even play videos and let you play popular games like "Angry Birds."
But the whole idea behind the $139 Nook is to simplify, simplify, simplify.
Its display is plain black and white—a true e-reader. Its screen is
specifically designed to be "paper-like."
B&N execs made a claim at the May 24 event—that the
new Nook had superior battery life to its competitors, lasting up to two
months. This led to a battle of press releases between Amazon and B&N, with
the former claiming the latter hadn't played fair with their battery life
tests. Amazon has traditionally based its battery life claims on
one-hour-per-day usage; B&N's usage tests assumed just a half-hour per day.
But the smackdown seems to have reached a sort of détente,
reports Wired—Amazon just rejiggered its own
analysis based on 30-minutes-per-day usage.
Two months of battery life? One month? Who cares?
It's a tremendous amount of time, next to what a charge gets you on your
laptop or smartphone. Then again, unless grandma also has those gadgets, her
expectations how long a battery ought to run may be different from your
After months of speculation, the tablet wars begin
in earnest this week. Motorola is releasing its Xoom tablet on Feb. 24, and
I consider it the first truly comparable competitor to Apple's hit iPad.
That is partly because it is the first iPad challenger to run Honeycomb, an
elegant new version of Google's Android operating system designed especially
for tablets.
Both Motorola's hardware and Google's new software
are impressive and, after testing it for about a week, I believe the Xoom
beats the first-generation iPad in certain respects, though it lags in
others. Like the iPad, the Xoom has a roomy 10-inch screen, and it's about
the same thickness and weight as the iPad, albeit narrower and longer. And,
like the iPad's operating system, Honeycomb gives software the ability to
make good use of that screen real estate, with apps that are more
computer-like than those on a smartphone.
The Xoom has a more potent processor than the
current iPad; front and rear cameras versus none for the iPad; better
speakers; and higher screen resolution. It also can be upgraded free later
this year to support Verizon's faster 4G cellular data network (though
monthly fees may rise.)
Is the Motorola Xoom tablet the first formidable
competitor to the iPad? Its high price is its Achilles heel, says Walt
Mossberg, but the Google Android Honeycomb operating system delivers. Plus:
a market for cell phone re-sales emerges.
Motorola is taking aim at the iPad just as Apple is
expected to announce, next week, a second-generation of its tablet. Little
is known about this second iPad, but it's widely expected to take away at
least one of the Xoom's advantages over the original iPad—cameras—and is
rumored to be thinner and lighter, since weight was one of the most common
complaints about the generally praised first iPad.
The iPad has way more tablet-specific apps—around
60,000 versus a handful—and, in my tests, much better battery life. Plus,
whatever the specs say, it's a fast device with a beautiful screen that
delights people daily. But, overall, the Xoom with Honeycomb is a strong
alternative to the original iPad, and one that will only improve over time.
Unfortunately for consumers looking for iPad
alternatives, the Xoom has an Achilles' heel: price. While iPads come in a
range of models priced all the way up to $829—none of which requires a
cellphone contract—Apple's entry price for the iPad is just $499. By
contrast, the base price of a Xoom without a cellphone contract is $800—60%
more. And even with a Verizon two-year contract at $20 to $80 a
month—depending on the data limit you choose—the least you can pay for a
Xoom is $600, or 20% more before counting the contract costs.
In fairness, the iPad model with the same memory as
the Xoom and a 3G cellular modem like the Xoom's is $729, which is a closer
comparison. But it is still less than $800, and consumers still focus on
that $499 iPad entry price (for a Wi-Fi-only model.)
As much as I like the Xoom and Honeycomb, I'd
advise consumers to wait to see what Apple has up its sleeve next before
committing to a higher price for the Motorola product.
Meanwhile, here's what I found in testing the Xoom.
Hardware
Though it works fine in portrait, or vertical,
mode, the Xoom is mainly designed as a landscape, or horizontal, device. The
screen is long and narrow, proportioned to best fit widescreen video. The HD
screen boasts a resolution of 1280 by 800, versus 1024 by 768 for the iPad.
. . .
Software
Perhaps even more impressive than the hardware is
the Honeycomb software, which, for now, Google won't offer on cellphones,
only tablets, of which the Xoom is the first.
I've always felt that Android had a
rough-around-the edges, geeky feel, with too many steps to do things and too
much reliance on menus. But Honeycomb eliminates much of that. Actions like
composing emails, or changing settings are much more obvious and quicker.
The smart but cluttered notification bar has been moved to the lower right
and simplified. A tap on it pops up relevant information.
There is still a separate email app for Gmail, as
opposed to other email services you may use. But, now, as on the iPad, email
is presented in multiple columns and is more attractive and easier to use.
The browser is especially impressive, with PC-like
features, such as visible tabs for open pages and the ability to open a
private browsing session. Apps like Maps and YouTube have 3-D views. There's
a movie-editing app and live widgets for the home screens that show email
previews or video frames.
There are some downsides. The ability to play Flash
video—a big Android selling point—won't work on the Xoom at launch. It will
take some weeks to appear. And I found numerous apps in the Android Market
that wouldn't work with the Xoom. I couldn't locate a working video download
or rental service, though Google says these will be available soon.
Some apps for phones, like the popular game Angry
Birds, filled the screen beautifully and worked fine.
Bottom line: The Xoom and Honeycomb are a promising
pair that should give the iPad its stiffest competition. But price will be
an obstacle, and Apple isn't standing still.
Jensen Comment
Meanwhile the Kindle market still booms for the specialized electronic book
reader that excels in light weight and outdoor daylight reading and most
certainly on low price. But the Kindle is not a tablet computer. But if you have
a great laptop computer, the Kindle may be all you need until victory is
declared in the tablet wars.
New Devices for Downloading (offloading plus re-formatting) from the Web
Instead of Having to Read Material on the Web
"The Web Is Now the Last Place You Should Read Anything: Reading on the
Web has never been a very satisfying experience--new tools mark the beginning of
its end," by Christopher Mims, MIT's Technology Review, January 21,
2011 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/26284/?nlid=4036
If browsing the web on a traditional PC is a
satisfying experience, why did Apple just have a record fourth quarter in
which it
sold 7.33 million iPads? Of course, not everyone's
a fan of even the
iPad's somewhat bloated form factor, which is why
Kindles and iPhones have also posted record sales figures too.
Now, the inevitable is happening: Developers have
figured out how to instantaneously migrate the material we would normally
read on the web onto these eminently more portable and--dare I say it--more
book-like devices. Previously
I've
covered
Instapaper, one service that accomplishes this
feat, and while it has its adherents, it has one major weakness on the
Amazon Kindle, arguably the most-book like (and least webby) reader out
there: getting material onto a Kindle via Instapaper requires waiting for
the service to deliver a bundle of stories, something that only happens at
user-determined intervals.
Now, however, there's no need to wait: users of the
Google Chrome web browser can install
an extension that instantly formats a story to the
Kindle and sends it to the device for "off-line" reading. It's functionally
identical to the "Chrome
to iPhone" extension that does the same thing for
any iOS device -- i.e. iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.
Clones for Android devices and tablets will
inevitably follow. What does this mean for reading on the web?
It means that soon, there won't be any reason to
read anything but the shortest material on a computer screen. The same
screen that is the one place that is, in terms of ergonomics, eye strain and
even
how well we retain the material we're reading,
demonstrably the worst possible place to read anything. Tablet devices are
an implicit acknowledgement of this shortcoming, but the fact remains that
we spend most of our day finding information on our computers. As
tools that transmit that information, intact, to other, more paper-like
devices proliferate, the act of reading that information will
become uncoupled from the act of finding it.
And that's all to the better--who doesn't find the
act of reading, rather than simply scanning, material on a computer screen
to be antithetical to the act of comprehension? This can only raise the bar
for material transmitted on the web: already content creators are noticing
that longer and more-in depth pieces
do
better on the web--exactly the sort best consumed
anywhere but a computer screen.
Two of the largest bookstore chains—Barnes & Noble
and Borders—are in danger of being forced into bankruptcy; their plight
raises the broader question of whether bookstores will survive in any
significant number, and, if not, what the consequences will be.
There are two clear threats, both Internet-related,
to the bookstore. The newest is the e-book, in which the contents of a book
are transmitted over the Internet to an electronic reader owned by the
book’s buyer. No bookstore is involved. Slightly older is the sale, as
opposed to the delivery, of a book online; Amazon is the principal seller in
this market. No bookstore is involved unless Amazon doesn’t have the book in
inventory; in that event the customer is referred by Amazon to a bookstore
that has the book and will sell it online and deliver it to the buyer; the
purchase is made through Amazon. Most of the books that Amazon and the other
online booksellers don’t carry in stock are out of print, and bookstores
that stock such books tend to be small (though there are some exceptions),
because the market for such books is tiny.
A possible third threat is diminished appetite for
books. I haven’t been able to find good statistics on annual sales of books
in the United States (and anyway “books” is an extremely heterogeneous
product category), but it would seem that the amount of entertainment and
instruction available online is so great that online substitution for
reading books must have reduced the demand for them. At the same time,
however, the demand for books should be stimulated by the fall in cost when
books are bought online, cutting out the middleman—the bookstore—a point to
which I’ll return shortly.
It seems inevitable that the number of books sold
through bookstores will plummet. Books bought through bookstores are more
costly not only in price (to cover the costs of the bookstore), but also in
customers’ time—the time required to travel to and from the bookstore, find
the book one wants to buy, and complete the purchase (which takes more time
than an online purchase). The only offsetting advantages of the bookstore
are the opportunity it provides for browsing and the fact that the customer
can see and handle the book before buying it. But these advantages are
offset to a considerable extent (doubtless more than offset, for many
customers) by the use by online sellers of artificial-intelligence programs
to recommend books to their customers, by the much vaster inventory of an
online seller like Amazon, by ease of search, by the reader reviews that the
seller presents, and by the seller’s ability to allow customers to look
inside the online book before ordering it, much as if he were leafing
through a printed book in a bookstore.
It is true that Amazon’s book-recommendation
program is primitive, and is no substitute for browsing in a well-stocked
bookstore, but it will improve; one can foresee the day when customers will
furnish (and Amazon store) comprehensive information about their age, sex,
education, occupation, and reading tastes, which Amazon will use to create
an initial list of recommended purchases, which it will refine as it
receives orders from the customer plus supplementary information from the
customer as the customer’s tastes and interests change.
At present fewer than 30 percent of all books are
bought online (either in hard copy or as an e-book), but I have seen an
estimate that this figure will grow to 75 percent within a few years. Very
few bookstores will have enough customers to survive if bookstore sales fall
from 70 percent to 25 percent of all book sales, except those bookstores
specializing in out of print books—whose customers will largely be online.
In time, moreover, with more and more publishing electronic, there will be
fewer and fewer “out of print” books.
The substitution of online for bookstore
distribution of books will provide a substantial social saving and, as I
said, increase the demand for books by reducing their retail price. As for
the effect on publishers and authors of books, there is concern that it will
be adverse, but that seems unlikely. A seller tries to minimize his cost of
distribution, just as he tries to minimize his other costs; the publisher is
the ultimate seller, and the bookstore part of the chain of distribution.
But there is an important, and potentially relevant, exception, and that is
where a distributor provides point-of-sale services that increase the demand
for the product. This is the rationale for resale price maintenance:
manufacturers of some goods place a floor under the retail price of the
goods, thus deliberately increasing the retailers’ margin, but hoping by
doing so to induce them to engage in nonprice competition that will increase
the demand for the goods. Bookstore staffs, by decisions they make
concerning choice and display of books to carry, and by making purchasing
suggestions to customers, can, in principle, increase the demand for books.
But these services cannot guarantee the survival of many bookstores, because
unless the services are valued by a greater margin than seems realistic to
expect, there will be too few customers to defray the bookstore’s fixed
costs at acceptable prices.
The question then becomes whether the loss of
point-of-sale services that bookstores provide will hurt publishers (and
therefore authors, whose prosperity is linked to that of publishers) more
than it will help them by reducing their distribution costs. That too is
doubtful. As technology continues its forward march, online booksellers will
find it increasingly feasible to duplicate and indeed improve on the
point-of-sale services that bookstores offer. Bookstores will decline, and
perhaps vanish when the current older generation, consisting of people
habituated to printed books (as to printed newspapers), dies off. Yet this
may well represent genuine economic progress, just as department stores and
supermarkets represent progress though they cause the demise of countless
small retailers.
The traditional bookstore is doomed by e-readers
and online sales of hard copy books. I use the word “doomed” in the same
sense that online digital sales of movies and music have doomed movie rental
stores, movie theatres, and stores that sell albums of music. Doomed does
not mean that these stores will quickly, or ever fully, disappear, but that
they have received deadly blows from Internet competition.
Joseph Schumpeter, an outstanding economist in the
first half of the 20th century, originated the term “creative destruction”
to describe new technologies and other forms of new competition that wreak
havoc on older and established industries. The process is creative because
it provides consumers and producers with more effective ways of satisfying
their wants. The process is at the same time destructive because it greatly
reduces the value of services and products provided by older industries.
Extreme examples of creative destruction from the
20th century include the complete substitution of cars for horses and
buggies, movies with speaking for silent movies, and computers for
typewriters. Less extreme are the large reduction in clerical and
secretarial staffs caused by the development of computers and the Web, and
the sizable reduction in demand for milk and eggs induced by better
information on the health value of low cholesterol diets.
A similar creative destruction process began for
bookstores with Amazon’s development of online book sales that offered huge
inventories of books, convenience of purchase, speedy deliveries, online
reviews of books, and various other services that made it more efficient and
often cheaper to buy books online rather than in bookstores. Sales of books
online started slowly, but they have accelerated as consumers became more
familiar with the process of buying books (and other goods) online. I first
started using Amazon at my summer home since it is not near any bookstore.
Discovering the convenience of buying books online, I now buy online all
year, although I still enjoy visiting bookstores.
Effective online readers, like Amazon’s Kindle, and
Apple’s iPad, are only a few years old, but they have become big hits since
they can be used both to purchase books online, and to read books in digital
form. Hundreds of books can be stored digitally in a single Reader that
weighs less than a couple of pounds. They are especially valuable when
traveling, but are useful when reading in bed or eating, and also with
traditional reading when seated on a comfortable chair. They are
particularly useful for individuals with weak eyesight since print size can
be easily adjusted. This is why digital readers will appeal eventually even
more to older persons than to others, although mainly younger persons are
the ones who so far have bought digital readers because old persons are less
familiar with digitalization.
I do not expect bookstores to rapidly disappear the
way the production of silent movies virtually ceased once talking movies
were created. However, I do expect an accelerating decline in the number of
bookstores as many close down due to bankruptcy and excessive losses. Some
bookstores will continue to exist to cater to men and women who like to
browse among physical copies of books, and because some owners of bookstores
get great pleasure out of selling and being surrounded by books. Many
bookstores that survive are likely to combine selling hard copy books with
that of other products. For example, university bookstores usually also sell
clothing that have the university logo, computers, greeting cards, snacks
and coffee, and other goods that cater to students and faculty. Other
surviving bookstores might combine selling of hard copy books in physical
facilities with online sales of hard copy books, and online sales of digital
books.
The decline of bookstores, theatres, laundries, and
other retail industries with physical facilities illustrates a trend that
runs counter to older ideas about the effects of economic development. The
process of development has been presumed to cause a substitution of market
activities for home production. For example, households in poor rural
societies have not only grown their own food, but also made much of their
clothing, washed their clothes, baked their bread, and cooked from scratch
their other food. As countries underwent economic growth, many of these
productive activities left the home and migrated to the marketplace.
Factory-made clothing was substituted for clothing made at home, and
bakeries and laundries developed to make bread and sweets, and to wash,
clean, and dry clothes.
Further technological developments,however, such as
small motors used in home washing and drying machines, and small machines
that cooked bread easily at home, shifted many activities back into the
home, and thereby saved on time and energy spent in the shopping process.
The online digital revolution is a further major step in this trend of
returning activities to the home. Time and effort are saved, for example,
when instead of going to movie theatres, consumers both order and download
films online to be viewed at “home”, either on television sets, or
increasingly on computers.
From this perspective, what is happening to
bookstores is not unusual. “Books” are still read at “home”, but
increasingly they are also purchased at home, and not only in hard copy
form. Digital books are a true revolution, but their effects on bookstores
are only a small part of a broader technological development that has
brought important activities into the home.
On December 6, 2010 Google's eBookstore Went
Live with More Than Three Million Titles ---
http://books.google.com/ebooks
After more than a year since we first heard the rumors, Google has entered the
world of e-books. Today, the company launched its e-book marketplace with more
than 3,000,000 titles on the shelves that will be available to nearly anyone
with a smartphone, laptop, tablet, netbook or desktop computer.
The Open Library, an initiative of the
Internet Archive, has just launched a new
version of its online e-book reader, featuring an improved user
interface as well as other new tools. You can use it to read the
more than 2 million books available via The Open Library and the
Internet Archive.
As you search for
books to read on the site, you'll now find
a link to "read the item online." This will launch the redesigned
reader, although you'll still have the options to download the
books, read in other formats, or send to your Kindle.
Only a small percentage of college students are "very interested" in buying
and iPad and the competition will soon heat up
"Minor Bumps for iPad," by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed, April
23, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/23/ipad
After seven months of unchallenged prominence,
Apple's hot-selling iPad now has its first credible competitor in the
nascent market for multitouch consumer tablet computers: the Samsung Galaxy
Tab.
The Tab is being introduced over the next week by
three major U.S. wireless phone carriers at $400 with a cellular data
contract, or at $600 with cellular capability but no contract. The iPad
starts at $499 for a Wi-Fi model with no cellular-data capability or
contract, and is $629 for the least expensive model with cellular data
capability but no contract.
Like the iPad, the Tab, which uses Google's Android
operating system, is a good-looking slate with a vivid color screen that can
handle many of the tasks typically performed on a laptop. These include
email, social networking, Web browsing, photo viewing, and music and video
playback. It also can run a wide variety of third-party apps. But it has
major differences, most notably in size.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab has less than half the
screen real estate than that of the iPad. .The Tab has a 7-inch screen
versus the 9.7-inch display on the iPad. That may seem like a small
difference, but the numbers are deceptive, because screen sizes are always
described using diagonal measurements. In fact, the actual screen real
estate on the Tab is less than half of the iPad's. That's a disadvantage,
but it allows the overall unit to be much smaller and lighter, and thus more
easily used in one hand, something some users will welcome.
The new tablet will be introduced in coming days by
Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, with a variety of cellular data plans. AT&T
also will carry the Tab during the holiday season but hasn't announced its
timing or data-plan pricing. Although it is being sold by cellular carriers,
the Tab, like the iPad (which offers optional month-to-month cellular data
through AT&T) can't make cellular voice calls.
More Mossberg's Mailbox: Macs vs. PCs .
I've been testing the Tab for a couple of weeks and I like it. It's a
serious alternative to the iPad and one that will be preferred by some
folks. It includes the three most-requested features missing in the iPad: a
camera (two in fact); the ability to run Web videos and applications written
in Adobe's Flash software; and multitasking, though, to be fair, the latter
feature is coming to the iPad imminently via a software update. Another
strong point is that like Apple, Samsung has rewritten some of the standard
apps, such as the email and calendar programs, to make them look more like
PC programs and less like smartphone apps.
. . .
On balance, however, I still prefer the iPad. For
one thing, I like getting twice the screen size for a little more money up
front—as little as $29 for the no-contract model with cellular capability.
For another, the iPad has vastly more apps specifically designed for a
tablet versus a smartphone—about 40,000 according to Apple, compared with
just a handful for the Tab. And it can run about triple the apps overall, if
you count smartphone apps that aren't optimized for tablets.
On an iPad, if you opt for cellular-data service,
there is no contract and only two monthly prices—$14.99 for 250 megabytes
and $25 for 2 gigabytes. On the Tab, it's much more complicated. Verizon,
which is selling only the $600 no-contract model, says its pricing will
start at $20 a month for 1 gigabyte of data. Sprint charges $29.99 monthly
for 2 gigabytes and $59.99 for 5 gigabytes. T-Mobile has different prices
for no-contract and contract models, and different rates for new and
existing customers. Just two examples: a new customer under contract on a
Tab can pay $30 monthly for 200 megabytes or $50 for 5 gigabytes.
So, I urge Tab buyers to do the math carefully on
the overall cost of the device under various carriers and plans.
Bottom Line The Tab is attractive, versatile and
competitively priced, though monthly cell fees can add up. It's different
enough from the iPad, yet good enough, to give consumers a real choice.
Jensen Comment
The Galaxy Tab only weighs about half of an iPad and fits more neatly into one
hand for book reading and holding a drink at the same time. The screen is
smaller and does not have the USB and VGA ports we've been waiting for in tablet
computers. The cameras and Flash playback are clear advantages over the iPad.
Other advantages and disadvantages are discussed above and in the links below.
After seven months of unchallenged prominence,
Apple's hot-selling iPad now has its first credible competitor in the
nascent market for multitouch consumer tablet computers: the Samsung Galaxy
Tab.
The Tab is being introduced over the next week by
three major U.S. wireless phone carriers at $400 with a cellular data
contract, or at $600 with cellular capability but no contract. The iPad
starts at $499 for a Wi-Fi model with no cellular-data capability or
contract, and is $629 for the least expensive model with cellular data
capability but no contract.
Like the iPad, the Tab, which uses Google's Android
operating system, is a good-looking slate with a vivid color screen that can
handle many of the tasks typically performed on a laptop. These include
email, social networking, Web browsing, photo viewing, and music and video
playback. It also can run a wide variety of third-party apps. But it has
major differences, most notably in size.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab has less than half the
screen real estate than that of the iPad. .The Tab has a 7-inch screen
versus the 9.7-inch display on the iPad. That may seem like a small
difference, but the numbers are deceptive, because screen sizes are always
described using diagonal measurements. In fact, the actual screen real
estate on the Tab is less than half of the iPad's. That's a disadvantage,
but it allows the overall unit to be much smaller and lighter, and thus more
easily used in one hand, something some users will welcome.
The new tablet will be introduced in coming days by
Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, with a variety of cellular data plans. AT&T
also will carry the Tab during the holiday season but hasn't announced its
timing or data-plan pricing. Although it is being sold by cellular carriers,
the Tab, like the iPad (which offers optional month-to-month cellular data
through AT&T) can't make cellular voice calls.
More Mossberg's Mailbox: Macs vs. PCs .
I've been testing the Tab for a couple of weeks and I like it. It's a
serious alternative to the iPad and one that will be preferred by some
folks. It includes the three most-requested features missing in the iPad: a
camera (two in fact); the ability to run Web videos and applications written
in Adobe's Flash software; and multitasking, though, to be fair, the latter
feature is coming to the iPad imminently via a software update. Another
strong point is that like Apple, Samsung has rewritten some of the standard
apps, such as the email and calendar programs, to make them look more like
PC programs and less like smartphone apps.
. . .
On balance, however, I still prefer the iPad. For
one thing, I like getting twice the screen size for a little more money up
front—as little as $29 for the no-contract model with cellular capability.
For another, the iPad has vastly more apps specifically designed for a
tablet versus a smartphone—about 40,000 according to Apple, compared with
just a handful for the Tab. And it can run about triple the apps overall, if
you count smartphone apps that aren't optimized for tablets.
On an iPad, if you opt for cellular-data service,
there is no contract and only two monthly prices—$14.99 for 250 megabytes
and $25 for 2 gigabytes. On the Tab, it's much more complicated. Verizon,
which is selling only the $600 no-contract model, says its pricing will
start at $20 a month for 1 gigabyte of data. Sprint charges $29.99 monthly
for 2 gigabytes and $59.99 for 5 gigabytes. T-Mobile has different prices
for no-contract and contract models, and different rates for new and
existing customers. Just two examples: a new customer under contract on a
Tab can pay $30 monthly for 200 megabytes or $50 for 5 gigabytes.
So, I urge Tab buyers to do the math carefully on
the overall cost of the device under various carriers and plans.
Bottom Line The Tab is attractive, versatile and
competitively priced, though monthly cell fees can add up. It's different
enough from the iPad, yet good enough, to give consumers a real choice.
Jensen Comment
The Galaxy Tab only weighs about half of an iPad and fits more neatly into one
hand for book reading and holding a drink at the same time. The screen is
smaller and does not have the USB and VGA ports we've been waiting for in tablet
computers. The cameras and Flash playback are clear advantages over the iPad.
Other advantages and disadvantages are discussed above and in the links below.
The Cius ---
Click Here
Relative to iPad, I like the fact that Cisco's new tablet connects to a docking
station.
The iPad has zero USB ports, whereas the Cius has three USB ports
Relative to iPad, I like the fact that Cisco's new tablet has a port for
external display such as an LCD Projector
Unlike an iPad, the Cius will play Adobe's Flash Videos served up at millions of
sites in the world
Why didn't Steve Jobs think of these for the iPad (I suspect he did but feared
that an iPad with these would blast a hole in Mac laptop sales)
• 10/100/1000-Gbps switch
ports for wired connections
and Power over Ethernet (PoE)
• Additional speaker for
wideband hands-free
communications
• DisplayPort™
to connect to a larger
display for an immersive
video experience and for a
virtualized desktop
experience
• Two handset options:
standard and slimline
The Cius is also much more friendly toward applications developers than the
greedy iPad's Orwellian Big Brother
I’ve been an open-source advocate from get go!
Cisco Systems is the latest vendor to enter the
tablet device market and, like other players, the company is looking at its
entry as an alternative to traditional Windows-based PCs.
The Cius, announced this week, is a device that to
some degree looks like Apple's iPad, though it is based on Google's Android
platform. Cisco becomes the second major vendor to launch an Android-based
tablet in as many months: Dell in late May launched the
Streak. With its 5-inch display, it was described
by Dell as a hybrid smartphone and tablet.
But that's where the similarities end. Cisco's Cuis
is clearly targeted at professional, not consumer use. It will support an
optional docking station, enabling individuals to mount it to the IP-based
handset.
When undocked, the Cuis can connect to an
enterprise network or the Internet via 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi or 3G cellular
services. Ultimately it will support 4G services as they become more broadly
available, Cisco said. Through Bluetooth and USB communications, the device
will be able to share data with a PC, Cisco said.
The Cius is not slated to be available until the
first quarter of next year, though Cisco said customer trials will begin in
the third quarter of this year, which begins July 1. The company has not set
pricing though a spokeswoman said it will carry a street price of less than
$1,000.
Cisco is pitching the Cius as a virtual desktop
that will allow for data collaboration and communication. It will support
real-time HD video, messaging, and Web browsing, allowing users to share
content in cloud-based services, Cisco said.
Weighing slightly more than 1 pound, it will have a
front-mounted 720p camera and a 5 megapixel rear-mounted camera, dual
noise-cancelling microphones, and a 7-inch Super VGA display.
The Cius will be designed to cork with Cisco's
various lines of collaboration products and services, including WebEx
Connect, Cisco Presence, and its high-end TelePresence videoconferencing
systems.
Cisco said it will also reach out to developers
with an SDK that includes its Collaboration APIs. The Cius will be made
available through Cisco's network of Unified Communications and
Collaboration partners, according to the spokeswoman.
With all these features, Cius owners may only have to carry the Cius tablet
from conference-to-conference or class-to-class. The burdened down iPad and
Galaxy Tab users will
most likely have to lug their laptops along with their iPads.
But iPad still winds hands downs in terms of tens of thousands of apps.
Greg Smith, chief information officer at George Fox,
said the iPad's technological limitations—its inability to multitask and print,
and its limited storage space—have kept students dependent on their notebooks.
"That's the problem with the iPad: It's not an independent device," he said.
"Classroom iPad Programs Get Mixed Response," by Travis Kaya,
Chronicle of Higher Education, September 20, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Classroom-iPad-Programs-Get/27046/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
A few weeks after a handful of colleges gave away
iPads to determine the tablet's place in the classroom, students and faculty
seem confident that the device has some future in academe.
But they're still not exactly sure where that might
be.
At those early-adopter schools, iPads are competing
with MacBooks as the students' go-to gadget for note taking and Web surfing.
Zach Kramberg, a first-year student at George Fox University, which allowed
incoming students to choose between a complimentary iPad or MacBook this
fall, said the tablet has become an important tool for recording and
organizing lecture notes. He also takes the device with him to the
university's dimly lit chapel so he can follow along with an app called
iBible. "The iPad's very easy to use once you figure them out," he said.
Still, Mr. Kramberg said the majority of students
rely on bound Bibles in chapel and stick to pen and paper or MacBooks in the
classroom.
Greg Smith, chief information officer at George
Fox, said the iPad's technological limitations—its inability to multitask
and print, and its limited storage space—have kept students dependent on
their notebooks. "That's the problem with the iPad: It's not an independent
device," he said.
Mr. Smith said that the 67 students—10 percent of
the freshman class—that opted for iPads over MacBooks are really excited
about the technology but have not been "pushing the capabilities" of the
device.
Caitlin Corning, a history professor at George Fox,
said it's been hard to meld iPads into the curriculum because only a small
subset of her students has the device. Ms. Corning used the iPad as a
portable teaching tool during a student art trip to Europe this summer,
flashing Van Gogh works on the screen when they were in the places he
painted them. Translating that portable-classroom experience into her
classroom back in Oregon, however, has not been easy. "It's still a work in
progress," she said. "It's a little complex because only some of the
freshmen have iPads."
Faculty members at Seton Hill University, which
gave iPads to all full-time students, are working with the developers of an
e-book app called Inkling to come up with new ways to integrate the iPad
into classroom instruction. The textbook software—one of many in
development—allows students to access interactive graphics and add notes as
they read along. Faculty members can access the students' marginalia to see
whether they understand the text. They can also remotely receive and answer
questions from students in real time.
Catherine Giunta, an associate professor of
business at Seton Hill, said the technology has changed the way students
interact with their textbooks and how she interacts with her students. While
reviewing the margin notes of a student in her marketing class, Ms. Giunta
was able to pinpoint and correct a student's apparent misunderstanding of a
concept that was going to be covered in class the next day. "The
misunderstanding may not have been apparent until [the student] did a
written report," Ms. Giunta said. "I could really give her individualized
instruction and guidance."
As students and faculty members around the country
feel around for new ways to integrate the iPad into academic life, a handful
of programs are taking a more formal approach to finding its place in the
classroom. Students in the Digital Cultures and Creativity program at the
University of Maryland at College Park will turn a critical eye on the iPad
as a study tool while integrating it into their curriculum. "I think
[students are] taking a sort of wait-and-see approach," said Matthew
Kirschenbaum, the program director and an associate professor of English.
Similarly, the faculty at Indiana University has
formed a 24-member focus group to evaluate iPad-driven teaching strategies.
The groups have started meeting this month to assess how their iPad
experiments are going, with a preliminary report due in January. "It's meant
to be a supportive, collaborative, formalized conversation," said Stacy
Morrone, Indiana's associate dean of learning technologies. "We don't expect
that everything will go perfectly."
Although not entirely related to the substance of
the iPad educational debate, a pilot program at Long Island University was
thrust into the spotlight over the weekend in an animated e-mail exchange
between a college journalist and Apple's founder Steve Jobs. As Gawker
reports it, complaints about a few unreturned media inquiries from a
deadline-stressed reporter led to a curt "leave us alone" response from the
Apple chief executive.
In the e-mail chain, Mr. Jobs said, "Our goals do
not include helping you get a good grade."
Though it's just five months old, Apple's iPad is a
certifiable hit, having already sold millions of units and spawning tens of
thousands of apps tailored for its 10-inch screen. The tablet has prompted
many of its owners to use it instead of their laptops for everything from
email and social networking to games and Web surfing.
It's also a very good e-reader, in my view.
Unlike dedicated e-reader devices like Amazon's
Kindle, the iPad offers a wide selection of e-reading apps, and I have used
several of them heavily to devour scores of books. In particular, I have
spent the past few weeks testing the best known of these iPad e-reader apps,
comparing their strengths and weaknesses.
My verdict is that none of the three apps I focused
on—which mimic and often interact with dedicated e-readers like the Kindle
device—towers over the others. Each has its good and bad points, and I
personally switch among them.
First, let me note that this isn't a comparison of
the iPad and the dedicated e-readers. It is about software readers on the
iPad itself. Some folks will prefer the focused e-reader hardware, such as
Amazon's Kindle, Sony's Reader and Barnes & Noble's Nook. The latter devices
cost much less—the base Kindle is now $139 versus the iPad's $499 starting
price. They also have longer battery life and are much lighter. But
others—including me—prefer the iPad's big, bright, backlit color screen to
the smaller, gray screens of the dedicated e-readers, and the fact that they
can pause periodically in their reading to do so many other things on the
iPad without reaching for a laptop.
For this review, I compared Apple's own fledgling
e-reader software and store, called iBooks; Amazon's Kindle iPad app; and
the newly revamped Barnes & Noble iPad app, called Nook.
Overall, they are more similar than different. Each
is free and operates much like the pioneering Kindle device, offering access
to an online library of books you already own and an online store to buy
more. Each remembers where you left off in your books, and includes built-in
search, dictionaries and the ability to enter notes and to highlight text.
All also offer the option to search for more information on terms in your
books, using Google or Wikipedia.
Apple's iBooks app visually is the slickest of the
three. Its library screen looks like a wooden bookcase, and when you turn a
page, it curves like a paper page and even shows the text on the other side
bleeding through. When you hold the iPad horizontally, iBooks switches to a
two-page view with a rounded rise in the middle, like a paper book's
binding. The iBooks app is the only one of the three to offer a built-in
bookstore, while the Amazon and Nook apps require you to jump into the Web
browser on the iPad to shop. This is because Apple charges third-party app
developers 30% to make in-app purchases, a price Amazon and Barnes & Noble
prefer not to pay. This may be an unfair advantage for Apple, but it's
convenient for users.
The iBooks app also can handle personal PDF files,
synced to the app via iTunes on your computer. Neither of the other two apps
offer PDFs on the iPad, though Amazon and Barnes & Noble say they're working
on it. Also, Apple has harnessed the iPad's accessibility features to allow
its e-books to be read aloud, something I couldn't make happen in the other
two apps.
But iBooks has some big downsides. The most
important is that, being only five months old, it has a smaller catalog than
its rivals—just 130,000 titles, versus around 700,000 for the Kindle app and
about one million for the Nook app. For instance, the popular Swedish
mystery series by Stieg Larsson is absent from the iBooks catalog. And
iBooks doesn't offer any periodicals.
More Mossberg's Mailbox: Giving 'Ribbon' a
'Classic' Look Amazon's Kindle app has the biggest catalog of commercial,
copyrighted, in-print books—about 655,000 titles. The Nook catalog of a
million books is larger overall, but about half consists of out-of-print
books. The Kindle app also instantly displays the dictionary definition of
any word you highlight. The others require you to press a dictionary icon to
look up a word. And, like iBooks, it was fast at opening books.
The Kindle app also lets you see popular
highlighted passages selected by other users, and it synchronizes the last
page read, your bookmarks and notes with the Kindle hardware reader and
Kindle apps on Windows PCs, Macs, and BlackBerry and Android devices. iBooks
only syncs these things to the iBooks app on other Apple hand-held devices,
the iPhone and iPod Touch. The Kindle app also can be set to turn pages with
the same curved effect as iBooks (but without the text-bleeding effect) and
it has a two-page view in horizontal mode.
The Kindle app also lacks periodicals, though
Amazon says it's working on this. And the Kindle app, like the Kindle
hardware, doesn't use real page numbers, relying on confusing "location"
numbers. The others use page numbers. Also, some books appeared in the
Kindle app in scanned, hard to read typefaces, while the same books on the
others appeared in more readable type.
The Nook iPad app, like the Nook hardware device,
has a big plus: It lets you lend and borrow some titles to and from other
Nook users for two weeks. It's also the only one of the three to offer
periodicals, though not all are available. For instance, The Wall Street
Journal and the Boston Globe can't be downloaded, though the New York Times
can.
The Nook also offers more visual effects than the
others, including color themes for background and text colors. Also, like
the Kindle app, it syncs with Nook apps on numerous other devices, though,
curiously, not yet with the Nook hardware device.
But I found more limitations and flaws in the Nook
app's basic book functions. For many words, the app lacked dictionary
entries the others had, and books loaded more slowly. Also, one book I
downloaded on the Nook app had the first few pages missing and another
turned out to be a different book from its title. Also, its horizontal view
didn't work for all the titles I tested.
In my tests, book prices seemed roughly similar on
all three apps, though some books may cost less on one or another. For
instance, Jonathan Franzen's new book "Freedom," is $12.99 on each; David
McCullough's classic "1776" costs $13.99 on each; and Laurie King's "The
Beekeeper's Apprentice" is $9.99 on all three. Amazon says 574,000 of its
700,000 e-books are $9.99 or less. Barnes & Noble says the "vast majority"
of its commercial e-books are $9.99 or less. And Apple says 75% of its paid
books are $9.99 or less and 25% of its paid books are less than $4.99.
Overall, each of the three iPad apps makes the
device a fine way to read e-books. Multiple apps and stores—including many
not covered here—allow choices absent from dedicated reading devices.
The iPad is getting a lot of press these days for a
variety of reasons. One such reason is the notion that the iPad may
revolutionize the way that the masses read. Textbook publishers, for
instance, are making plans to publish textbooks for the iPad so that
students can read schoolbooks from their electronic device. This would
eliminate the need for students to lug around a backpack full of books, and
also provide students with a host of electronic tools to accompany their
reading. Magazines and newspapers are also lining up to make their works
available in an electronic format that is compatible with the iPad. And of
course, e-books are not a novel concept, and consumers can expect to see a
wide variety of best sellers available from the App Store.
Despite this recent wave of attention to online
books, however, the concept is by no means new. In fact, e-books have been
around for quite some time now, and many consumers have been reading them on
their Kindle devices for years. A recent article in Tech News World
discussed Amazon’s Kindle device and explained some of what Amazon has
decided to do to keep Kindle in competition with Apple. And interestingly,
Amazon’s approach is in no way threatening to Apple’s marketing strategy.
Instead of trying to promote Kindle as a superior
electronic reading device, Amazon is making electronic books that were once
only compatible with Kindles compatible with the iPad. In other words, when
consumers purchase e-books from Amazon, they will be able to read them from
not only their Kindles, but also from their iPads. Or, if the consumer
doesn’t have a Kindle, the iPad will work just fine by itself.
This is not a new decision for Amazon, as the
electronic books available for purchase at Amazon.com are already compatible
with iPods and iPhones. Consumers need only purchase an app from the App
Store and they can read their e-books from Amazon directly from their iPhone
or iPod. Upon the release of the iPad, this same technology will be
available on the iPad’s larger screen.
By allowing consumers to read e-books purchased on
Amazon from any type of device, Amazon is recognizing that digital books are
not entirely analogous to print books. The advantage to electronic books is
that consumers are not bound to carry them around. By requiring consumers to
carry around a Kindle in order to read an electronic book, the digital
format loses one of its main benefits. However, allowing readers to access
their digital books from anywhere and from any device allows electronic
books to retain their convenience.
It is really no wonder that Amazon decided to make
its electronic books available to readers who rely on Apple products. Apple
users have a fierce sense of loyalty to Apple products, and for good reason.
In reality, it is difficult to see how a Kindle could compete with a new
iPad, and excluding iPad owners from its electronic book market would be
quite detrimental to Amazon. At any rate, however, iPad consumers will be
glad to know that the entire selection of books available at Amazon will be
compatible with the iPad.
The $139 Kindle is a game changer. 2011 will be the
year that the traditional paper coursepack (finally) disappears, to be
replaced by a default digital version with the option to print on demand.
And if things go right, the Kindle should be the dominant coursepack
delivery platform.
I know, lots of complaints that the Kindle is bad
for annotation. True. But highlighting is vastly overrated. Convenience and
cost savings will drive Kindle coursepack adoption. For anyone who really
needs to annotate they will be free to print. Most will not print - mostly
because schools are moving away from subsidizing printing - a sound economic
and environmental shift.
What about the iPad? My prediction is that the
significantly lower cost of the Kindle will push the digital coursepack
market towards this device. The iPad will remain an important platform,
along with the iPhone/Touch, but will account for only a portion of all the
digital courespacks read on a Kindle. The price differential between the
Kindle and the iPad, $139 vs. $499, is large enough to insure that most
student sales will be Kindles. iPad prices will drop, but so will Kindle
prices - making the Kindle as a digital coursepack platform even more
appealing.
The dominance of the Kindle in the digital
coursepack market, however, is not assured. While I think the annotation
issue is overblown, their are some obstacles that Amazon and the digital
coursepack providers will need to overcome:
PDF Issues: The Kindle can natively handle PDF
files, but it does so very poorly. Reading a PDF on an iPad is a good
experience, reading one on a Kindle is a terrible experience. The workaround
is to e-mail the PDF to Amazon and have it convert the file to the
proprietary DRM restricted *.azw format. Amazon needs to find some way to
either make the PDF reading experience as good as the Kindle e-book
experience, or to make its *.azw format a standard filetype. A second PDF
issue is that there is no way (that I know of) to convert a locked down PDF
file to an *.azw file. Since many coursepack content providers only want to
release their articles and case studies in a protected PDF format, and
because this is the filetype that some digital coursepack providers want to
use, any conversation to the Kindle format for the digital coursepack become
problematic.
Rights Issues: I'm not clear exactly how we will be
able to get all the digital content that institutions license for the
academic library on to a Kindle for a digital coursepack. I'm unclear how
the rights and permissions actually work databases licensed by the library
in terms of creating formats beyond the traditional web delivery mechanism.
I'm not sure who is working on this issue, where the leadership is coming,
and where the content aggregators that libraries buy their database licenses
stand on digital coursepacks.
Technology and Company Issues: While I firmly
believe that the $139 Kindle dramatically pushes us away from paper in the
coursepack world, I'm not clear which company or companies will provide the
end-to-end solutions that replace the traditional paper coursepack. Who is
going to step-up?
The window that we have to figure all this out is
starting to close. Students will be coming to campus with Kindles or iPads
(or both), and smart phones and who knows what else. They will expect to be
able to read their course materials on these devices. They will want choice.
Providing this choice may be one differentiator that campuses can offer, a
recruitment tool and a new way to signal a student centered and tech forward
campus environment.
Jensen Comment
Eventually most electronic book readers will probably have both a Kindle and an
iPad. The Kindle comfortably weighs less, costs less, and is easier on the eyes
for long-term reading. The iPad has more apps, better multimedia, and more apps.
But neither device can replace the ever-popular and much more versatile laptop
computers.
Since Amazon's electronic books can be downloaded into laptop computers,
students on limited budgets should give first priority to the purchase of laptop
computers. Kindles and iPads are added luxuries.
About a month ago, I got hold of a Nook. I was
interested in an e-reader primarily for reading journal articles as PDFs. In
the interest of saving trees (and wear and tear on my back) I much prefer
electronic copies of journal articles to dead tree versions. The problem is,
at the end of a day of onscreen reading at a computer, eye strain is really
bad (sometimes to the point of seeing squiggly little lines of light). An
ereader, I thought, would be much better for my eyes. I was right; I now
find myself dealing with significantly less eyestrain after a day of
reading.
About the same time that I was considering the
Nook, Barnes and Noble started advertising an piece of software that became
available August 2nd: NOOKStudy. It looked interesting. Unlike the standard
B&N eReader application (for Mac, at least), NOOKStudy supports highlighting
and notetaking, and will sync those highlights and notes between two
computers.
The software is designed primarily for use with
textbooks. That's no surprise. It's also no surprise that textbooks can't be
viewed on the Nook itself. Really, who'd want to look at all the diagrams
you find in textbooks on a 6" grayscale screen, anyway? But though it isn't
possible to read textbooks on the Nook,you can read any of your purchased
B&N content in NOOKStudy; any e-books you've purchased will automatically
show up in your NOOKStudy library.
That sounded good to me, so I thought I'd give the
software a try. Sure enough, when I opened the software and plugged in my
account information, my entire B&N library magically appeared (which,
incidentally, is far better than the standard B&N eReader software does).
Wander around Oregon State University’s Valley
Library and plenty of students are browsing for books, or curled up in cozy
chairs with a stack of hardbound novels. But as information technology
advances, so does the library’s range of offerings.
While books won’t be disappearing from the
library’s shelves anytime soon, students and others are using a variety of
new ways to access information, which is why the library has begun offering
Amazon Kindles — e-book readers that can store digital books, which are
displayed, page-by-page, on a palm-sized screen.
Loretta Rielly, interim head of collections at the
library, said the library has long wanted to provide more popular reading
titles to patrons but it has been too costly to stack shelves with new
fiction and non-fiction titles that may only have a few years shelf-life.
While there is plenty of classic fiction in the library, popular fiction
hasn’t really had a place.
“We get people who ask us, “Don’t you just have
something to read?’” Rielly said. That request fit perfectly with the
library’s attempt to explore and incorporate new technology.
“We’re really committed to investigate new
technologies,” she said.
Kindles provide a way to make a large array of
popular titles, as well as classics, available in a slim, portable reader
that can be checked out for two weeks at a time. The library originally
purchased six Kindles last summer, and immediately had about 60 requests to
use them. Now the library has 12 Kindles, which contain 121 downloaded
e-books. The readers and e-books are purchased using library gift funds.
Titles are purchased from Google on request from
patrons, to insure that librarians aren’t guessing what readers want. What
patrons are looking for varies greatly. For instance, they’ve had more
requests for “Pride, Prejudice and Zombies,” than for the Austen original,
though there have been plenty of requests for the classic version as well.
Claire Semadeni, who oversees the Kindle project,
said they’ve been keeping track of user information, and about 48 percent of
those checking out Kindles are undergraduates. The rest is a mix of graduate
students, staff and faculty. So far, the only issue they’ve had in loaning
out the technology, other than demand far exceeding availability, is that
Kindles can get damaged in freezing weather, so they now carry warning
labels.
Kindles display in black and white only, which
limits their use in terms of offering digital textbooks. Publishers also are
hesitant to make their textbooks available on a digital platform, because of
digital rights management. So the days of students casting aside a heavy
backpack for a slim e-reader are still far away.
“It’s the obvious place for e-books to go, but
right now there isn’t a good platform for it,” said Anne-Marie Deitering,
Franklin McEdward Professor for Undergraduate Learning Initiatives, who is
part of the team looking into the Kindle program.
Deitering and Rielly guess that most of the patrons
checking out Kindles are doing so to get used to the technology, and
eventually, the library will focus less on providing e-book readers, and
more on actually providing e-books for download to user’s home readers. But
the legal and logistical details of that project are still being worked out.
For now, patrons hoping to check out a Kindle from
the library are in for a wait — up to 20 weeks, that is. There are 120 holds
in place for the dozen in circulation. Library staff expects demand to slow,
but for now, there are plenty of people clamoring for a look at a new kind
of book.
New Tool for Rewriting E-Textbooks: It's the "Wikipedia of
Textbooks" Macmillan, a major textbook publisher, is today
introducing a new service that will let faculty members to customize digital
textbooks, adding and subtracting chapters, and to rewrite individual sentences
and paragraphs, The New York Times reported. While coursepacks that allow
faculty members to build customized digital or print materials for courses are
common, this system may go further in allowing professors to overhaul a single
existing work. Inside Higher Ed, February 22, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/02/22/qt#220816
"Textbooks That Professors Can Rewrite Digitally," by Motoko Rich, The New
York Times, February 21, 2010 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/business/media/22textbook.html?ref=education
Readers can modify content on the Web, so why not
in books?
In a kind of Wikipedia of textbooks, Macmillan, one
of the five largest publishers of trade books and textbooks, is introducing
software called DynamicBooks, which will allow college instructors to edit
digital editions of textbooks and customize them for their individual
classes.
Professors will be able to reorganize or delete
chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and
perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations or
illustrations.
While many publishers have offered customized print
textbooks for years — allowing instructors to reorder chapters or insert
third-party content from other publications or their own writing —
DynamicBooks gives instructors the power to alter individual sentences and
paragraphs without consulting the original authors or publisher.
“Basically they will go online, log on to the
authoring tool, have the content right there and make whatever changes they
want,” said Brian Napack, president of Macmillan. “And we don’t even look at
it.”
In August, Macmillan plans to start selling 100
titles through DynamicBooks, including “Chemical Principles: The Quest for
Insight,” by Peter Atkins and Loretta Jones; “Discovering the Universe,” by
Neil F. Comins and William J. Kaufmann; and “Psychology,” by Daniel L.
Schacter, Daniel T. Gilbert and Daniel M. Wegner. Mr. Napack said Macmillan
was considering talking to other publishers to invite them to sell their
books through DynamicBooks.
Students will be able to buy the e-books at
dynamicbooks.com, in college bookstores and through CourseSmart, a joint
venture among five textbook publishers that sells electronic textbooks. The
DynamicBooks editions — which can be reached online or downloaded — can be
read on laptops and the iPhone from Apple. Clancy Marshall, general manager
of DynamicBooks, said the company planned to negotiate agreements with Apple
so the electronic books could be read on the iPad.
The modifiable e-book editions will be much cheaper
than traditional print textbooks. “Psychology,” for example, which has a
list price of $134.29 (available on Barnes & Noble’s Web site for $122.73),
will sell for $48.76 in the DynamicBooks version. Macmillan is also offering
print-on-demand versions of the customized books, which will be priced
closer to traditional textbooks.
Fritz Foy, senior vice president for digital
content at Macmillan, said the company expected e-book sales to replace the
sales of used books. Part of the reason publishers charge high prices for
traditional textbooks is that students usually resell them in the used
market for several years before a new edition is released. DynamicBooks, Mr.
Foy said, will be “semester and classroom specific,” and the lower price, he
said, should attract students who might otherwise look for used or even
pirated editions.
Instructors who have tested the DynamicBooks
software say they like the idea of being able to fine-tune a textbook.
“There’s almost always some piece here or some piece there that a faculty
person would have rather done differently,” said Todd Ruskell, senior
lecturer in physics at the Colorado School of Mines, who tested an
electronic edition of “Physics for Scientists and Engineers” by Paul A.
Tipler and Gene Mosca.
Frank Lyman, executive vice president of
CourseSmart, said he expected that some professors would embrace the
opportunity to customize e-books but that most would continue to rely on
traditional textbooks.
“For many instructors, that’s very helpful to know
it’s been through a process and represents a best practice in terms of a
particular curriculum,” he said.
Even other publishers that allow instructors some
level of customization hesitate about permitting changes at the sentence and
paragraph level.
“There is a flow to books, and there’s voice to
them,” said Don Kilburn, chief executive of Pearson Learning Solutions,
which does allow instructors to change chapter orders and insert material
from other sources. Mr. Kilburn said he had not been briefed on Macmillan’s
plans.
Mr. Ruskell said he did not change much in the
physics textbook he tested with DynamicBooks. “You don’t just want to say,
‘Oh, I don’t like this, I’m going to do this instead,’ ” he said. “You
really want to think about it.”
Mr. Comins, an author of “Discovering the
Universe,” a popular astronomy textbook, said the new e-book program was a
way to speed up the process for incorporating suggestions that he often
receives while revising new print editions. “I’ve learned as an author over
the years that I am not perfect,” he said. “So if somebody in Iowa sees
something in my book that they perceive is wrong, I am absolutely willing to
give them the benefit of the doubt.”
On the other hand, if an instructor decided to
rewrite paragraphs about the origins of the universe from a religious rather
than an evolutionary perspective, he said, “I would absolutely, positively
be livid.”
Ms. Clancy of Macmillan said the publisher reserved
the right to “remove anything that is considered offensive or plagiarism,”
and would rely on students, parents and other instructors to help monitor
changes.
I’m not certain “kickback” is the
correct term if professors are being paid above the board for their
innovative creations and their hard work. Payments, however, should be
rewarded such as payments for providing high quality videos for commercial
books.
The publishers might also take
for-profit advantage of some of the open sharing stuff. For example, a
“customized” textbook might provide links to Susan Crossan’s outstanding
free videos, thereby taking advantage somewhat of her open sharing spirit to
add to the profitability of the commercial textbook ---
http://dept.sfcollege.edu/business/susan.crosson/
It might also be construed as
doing the following two things.
Bad
Once Kindle and the other eTextbook providers get their acts together
regarding eBooks (e.g., providing chapter exhibits), this move by publishing
companies might put the competition out of business if you can only get the
eTextbook revision capabilities if you buy/rent the textbook directly from
the publisher. Welcome to the world or true monopoly pricing of our
textbooks!
Good (and bad)
This move might further destroy the hard copy book market, especially the
used textbook market. This is bad for hard copy book lovers like me, but it
will be more cost efficient for students and will put the sleazy book buyers
that roam our halls out of business.
A Vook is a digital book type that combines video,
links to the internet and text into one application that's available both on
the Web and as a mobile application.
Vook officially launched October 1, 2009 with four
debut titles, published in partnership with Atria, an imprint of Simon and
Schuster: Promises, a romance by Jude Deveraux; The 90 Second Fitness
Solution, a fitness book by Pete Cerqua; Embassy, a thriller by Richard
Doetsch; and Return to Beauty, a health book by Narine Nikogosian. Vook
followed up these titles with a Vook version of Gary Vaynerchuk's Crush It!,
released in late 2009. The company has since released a CookVook for Woman's
Day, as well as numerous public domain titles, as well as moving into
production on a Vook with author Seth Godin. On February 10th, 2010, the
company announced a forthcoming Vook with Anne Rice.
Vook was founded by serial Internet entrepreneur
Bradley Inman and came to public attention after being featured in an
article in the New York Times in April, 2009.
E-Readers, such as the kindle are selling like hot cakes, yet the very
existence of a proprietary standard for such devices is unsustainable.
People don't want to have to buy 5 different e-readers just to read the
books they purchase from different suppliers.
In a move that is definitely in the right direction, the top magazine
publishers have entered into a deal to support a common open standard
platform for their magazines. Clearly, this is to the benefit of the
consumers - the magazine readers.
While this new open standard appears to be restricted to magazines,
hopefully a similar open standard will emerge for book e-readers as well.
Then watch e-reading take off!
In an age where the Internet is flooded with
websites for discount and rented textbooks, students now have the option of
downloading their textbooks for free online with BookBoon.com.
BookBoon.com is a website that easily provides
students with thousands of electronic textbooks free of charge. Customers
are not required to enter any personal information in order to browse the
website or download books. Books on the website are targeted at engineering
students, IT students, and students of economy and finance.
The books contain relevant advertisements on every
third page that help fund the project. Textbooks are available in five
different languages for students all around the world. All books featured on
BookBoon.com are developed and written for the website, so the textbooks
students receive are only available from Bookboon.
Thomas Buus Madsen, founder of BookBoon.com,
explains why he and his brother began the business back in 2004:
"Every time we started a new class at university,
one of our fellow students went to the library, borrowed the textbook, made
50 Xerox copies of the book, and sold these to the other students for maybe
10 dollars. We decided to come up with a concept that would allow the
students to download textbooks free of charge. The ambition was that the
students should always be able to find and download the book in less than a
minute," says Madsen.
The movement to free textbooks in the United States
began when The Digital Textbooks Initiative for California demanded that the
state of California stop wasting money on expensive, out dated, hardbound
textbooks. BoonBoon.com publishes a range of textbooks that are written
exclusively for the website by leading authors in their fields. Each
textbook is made available to download free of charge in a PDF e-book format
with no registration fee.
According to its website, BookBoon.com is "the only
provider of its kind that never charges its users or requires registration.
In fact, it is impossible to register or make any payment at BookBoon.com."
New Tool for Rewriting E-Textbooks: It's the "Wikipedia of
Textbooks" Macmillan, a major textbook publisher, is today
introducing a new service that will let faculty members to customize digital
textbooks, adding and subtracting chapters, and to rewrite individual sentences
and paragraphs, The New York Times reported. While coursepacks that allow
faculty members to build customized digital or print materials for courses are
common, this system may go further in allowing professors to overhaul a single
existing work. Inside Higher Ed, February 22, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/02/22/qt#220816
"Textbooks That Professors Can Rewrite Digitally," by Motoko Rich, The New
York Times, February 21, 2010 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/business/media/22textbook.html?ref=education
Readers can modify content on the Web, so why not
in books?
In a kind of Wikipedia of textbooks, Macmillan, one
of the five largest publishers of trade books and textbooks, is introducing
software called DynamicBooks, which will allow college instructors to edit
digital editions of textbooks and customize them for their individual
classes.
Professors will be able to reorganize or delete
chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and
perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations or
illustrations.
While many publishers have offered customized print
textbooks for years — allowing instructors to reorder chapters or insert
third-party content from other publications or their own writing —
DynamicBooks gives instructors the power to alter individual sentences and
paragraphs without consulting the original authors or publisher.
“Basically they will go online, log on to the
authoring tool, have the content right there and make whatever changes they
want,” said Brian Napack, president of Macmillan. “And we don’t even look at
it.”
In August, Macmillan plans to start selling 100
titles through DynamicBooks, including “Chemical Principles: The Quest for
Insight,” by Peter Atkins and Loretta Jones; “Discovering the Universe,” by
Neil F. Comins and William J. Kaufmann; and “Psychology,” by Daniel L.
Schacter, Daniel T. Gilbert and Daniel M. Wegner. Mr. Napack said Macmillan
was considering talking to other publishers to invite them to sell their
books through DynamicBooks.
Students will be able to buy the e-books at
dynamicbooks.com, in college bookstores and through CourseSmart, a joint
venture among five textbook publishers that sells electronic textbooks. The
DynamicBooks editions — which can be reached online or downloaded — can be
read on laptops and the iPhone from Apple. Clancy Marshall, general manager
of DynamicBooks, said the company planned to negotiate agreements with Apple
so the electronic books could be read on the iPad.
The modifiable e-book editions will be much cheaper
than traditional print textbooks. “Psychology,” for example, which has a
list price of $134.29 (available on Barnes & Noble’s Web site for $122.73),
will sell for $48.76 in the DynamicBooks version. Macmillan is also offering
print-on-demand versions of the customized books, which will be priced
closer to traditional textbooks.
Fritz Foy, senior vice president for digital
content at Macmillan, said the company expected e-book sales to replace the
sales of used books. Part of the reason publishers charge high prices for
traditional textbooks is that students usually resell them in the used
market for several years before a new edition is released. DynamicBooks, Mr.
Foy said, will be “semester and classroom specific,” and the lower price, he
said, should attract students who might otherwise look for used or even
pirated editions.
Instructors who have tested the DynamicBooks
software say they like the idea of being able to fine-tune a textbook.
“There’s almost always some piece here or some piece there that a faculty
person would have rather done differently,” said Todd Ruskell, senior
lecturer in physics at the Colorado School of Mines, who tested an
electronic edition of “Physics for Scientists and Engineers” by Paul A.
Tipler and Gene Mosca.
Frank Lyman, executive vice president of
CourseSmart, said he expected that some professors would embrace the
opportunity to customize e-books but that most would continue to rely on
traditional textbooks.
“For many instructors, that’s very helpful to know
it’s been through a process and represents a best practice in terms of a
particular curriculum,” he said.
Even other publishers that allow instructors some
level of customization hesitate about permitting changes at the sentence and
paragraph level.
“There is a flow to books, and there’s voice to
them,” said Don Kilburn, chief executive of Pearson Learning Solutions,
which does allow instructors to change chapter orders and insert material
from other sources. Mr. Kilburn said he had not been briefed on Macmillan’s
plans.
Mr. Ruskell said he did not change much in the
physics textbook he tested with DynamicBooks. “You don’t just want to say,
‘Oh, I don’t like this, I’m going to do this instead,’ ” he said. “You
really want to think about it.”
Mr. Comins, an author of “Discovering the
Universe,” a popular astronomy textbook, said the new e-book program was a
way to speed up the process for incorporating suggestions that he often
receives while revising new print editions. “I’ve learned as an author over
the years that I am not perfect,” he said. “So if somebody in Iowa sees
something in my book that they perceive is wrong, I am absolutely willing to
give them the benefit of the doubt.”
On the other hand, if an instructor decided to
rewrite paragraphs about the origins of the universe from a religious rather
than an evolutionary perspective, he said, “I would absolutely, positively
be livid.”
Ms. Clancy of Macmillan said the publisher reserved
the right to “remove anything that is considered offensive or plagiarism,”
and would rely on students, parents and other instructors to help monitor
changes.
I’m not certain “kickback” is the
correct term if professors are being paid above the board for their
innovative creations and their hard work. Payments, however, should be
rewarded such as payments for providing high quality videos for commercial
books.
The publishers might also take
for-profit advantage of some of the open sharing stuff. For example, a
“customized” textbook might provide links to Susan Crossan’s outstanding
free videos, thereby taking advantage somewhat of her open sharing spirit to
add to the profitability of the commercial textbook ---
http://dept.sfcollege.edu/business/susan.crosson/
It might also be construed as
doing the following two things.
Bad
Once Kindle and the other eTextbook providers get their acts together
regarding eBooks (e.g., providing chapter exhibits), this move by publishing
companies might put the competition out of business if you can only get the
eTextbook revision capabilities if you buy/rent the textbook directly from
the publisher. Welcome to the world or true monopoly pricing of our
textbooks!
Good (and bad)
This move might further destroy the hard copy book market, especially the
used textbook market. This is bad for hard copy book lovers like me, but it
will be more cost efficient for students and will put the sleazy book buyers
that roam our halls out of business.
A Vook is a digital book type that combines video,
links to the internet and text into one application that's available both on
the Web and as a mobile application.
Vook officially launched October 1, 2009 with four
debut titles, published in partnership with Atria, an imprint of Simon and
Schuster: Promises, a romance by Jude Deveraux; The 90 Second Fitness
Solution, a fitness book by Pete Cerqua; Embassy, a thriller by Richard
Doetsch; and Return to Beauty, a health book by Narine Nikogosian. Vook
followed up these titles with a Vook version of Gary Vaynerchuk's Crush It!,
released in late 2009. The company has since released a CookVook for Woman's
Day, as well as numerous public domain titles, as well as moving into
production on a Vook with author Seth Godin. On February 10th, 2010, the
company announced a forthcoming Vook with Anne Rice.
Vook was founded by serial Internet entrepreneur
Bradley Inman and came to public attention after being featured in an
article in the New York Times in April, 2009.
In an age where the Internet is flooded with
websites for discount and rented textbooks, students now have the option of
downloading their textbooks for free online with BookBoon.com.
BookBoon.com is a website that easily provides
students with thousands of electronic textbooks free of charge. Customers
are not required to enter any personal information in order to browse the
website or download books. Books on the website are targeted at engineering
students, IT students, and students of economy and finance.
The books contain relevant advertisements on every
third page that help fund the project. Textbooks are available in five
different languages for students all around the world. All books featured on
BookBoon.com are developed and written for the website, so the textbooks
students receive are only available from Bookboon.
Thomas Buus Madsen, founder of BookBoon.com,
explains why he and his brother began the business back in 2004:
"Every time we started a new class at university,
one of our fellow students went to the library, borrowed the textbook, made
50 Xerox copies of the book, and sold these to the other students for maybe
10 dollars. We decided to come up with a concept that would allow the
students to download textbooks free of charge. The ambition was that the
students should always be able to find and download the book in less than a
minute," says Madsen.
The movement to free textbooks in the United States
began when The Digital Textbooks Initiative for California demanded that the
state of California stop wasting money on expensive, out dated, hardbound
textbooks. BoonBoon.com publishes a range of textbooks that are written
exclusively for the website by leading authors in their fields. Each
textbook is made available to download free of charge in a PDF e-book format
with no registration fee.
According to its website, BookBoon.com is "the only
provider of its kind that never charges its users or requires registration.
In fact, it is impossible to register or make any payment at BookBoon.com."
Johnny Makkar is intent on buying a digital book
reader. Yet he won't consider any of the more than two dozen new devices
introduced in recent months, many of them at the just-completed Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For Makkar, a resident of Fairlawn, N.J.,
with a background in marketing, only two manufacturers will do, and one has
yet to unveil a reader. "I want the e-book buying process to be as
effortless as possible," says Makkar, 26. "Only Apple (AAPL)
or Amazon (AMZN)
are going to be able to provide that."
Standing out may prove challenging for many new
entrants to the market for e-readers, expected by Forrester Research
(FORR)
to double to 6 million devices this year. "Half the
e-readers that have been announced [at CES] won't be around a year from
now," says Forrester analyst James McQuivey.
At CES, some e-reader hopefuls played to niche
audiences;
Plastic Logic pitched its QUE to business users.
Others played up tech breakthroughs; Spring Design introduced a dual-screen
device called Alex. All are vying against Sony (SNE),
which pioneered e-readers with its first device in
2005, and Amazon, which has been selling versions of its Kindle for just
over two years. Forrester expects Kindle sales to reach 3 million and Sony
to sell from 1.5 million to 2 million e-book readers in 2010.
Even the established vendors could lose buyers this
year. Apple is expected to put out a tablet computing device that many
analysts expect to include the ability to read digital books. "We are in a
market where consumers no longer believe in one device serving one industry
or one function," says Forrester's McQuivey. Single-purpose products such as
the Kindle might be ignored by customers who prefer a multipurpose device
from Apple.
Plastic Logic's QUE: an "unmet need?"
Upstarts may benefit from focusing on specific
kinds of customers. For instance, enTourage Systems said school textbook
publishers will custom-format several books for its new device, the eDGe,
which was demonstrated at CES. With its QUE proReader, Plastic Logic
included a large touchscreen reader and the ability to store and view
business documents such as those made with Microsoft (MSFT)
Excel and Adobe Systems (ADBE)
PDF software. "If I'm starting from scratch, I'd
probably go after one of the niches," says Citigroup (C)
analyst Mark Mahaney.
Plastic Logic CEO Richard Archuleta says the
company doesn't intend to compete with the existing e-reader makers. "Amazon
proved that you could build a business out of this," Archuleta says. "Our
concept was always to meet this unmet need and create this new category that
we didn't think anybody was focused on."
SAN FRANCISCO -- The McGraw-Hill Cos. Inc.'s CEO
spoke on CNBC Tuesday and appeared to confirm speculation that Apple Inc.
will indeed unveil a tablet computer running on iPhone software during a
highly anticipated media event Wednesday.
Harold McGraw, the company's chief executive, was
discussing his company earnings on the cable business news channel. When
asked about the tablet, McGraw said Apple will "make their announcement
tomorrow on this one" and that "the tablet is going to be based on the
iPhone operating system."
His comments, though brief, sounded authoritative
and several Apple-themed blogs reported the incident as if McGraw had
accidentally beaten Apple CEO Steve Jobs to the punch.
McGraw-Hill spokesman Steven Weiss would not
confirm that the CEO was describing Apple's actual product.
"There has been lots of speculation and we are as
eager as anyone to see how the new device can be used to advance education
and business information platforms," Weiss said.
McGraw's comments on CNBC appeared to be an
abbreviated version of remarks made during a conference call with Wall
Street analysts earlier in the day. According to a transcript supplied by
Weiss, McGraw sounded confident that the tablet would soon become a reality.
But as for technical details, he said only that "many expect that the Apple
device will use the iPhone operating system."
McGraw-Hill is a major developer and publisher of
educational materials and textbooks, and some of its college texts are
already available for reading on Apple's iPhone. If Apple's tablet is based
on the iPhone system, the investments McGraw-Hill and other publishers have
already made in e-books would still be relevant on the new device.
It has many names — the
iTablet, the iSlate, the iTab, the iGuide — but if there is one thing people
seem to agree on regarding Apple’s new computing tablet, expected to be
unveiled today in San Francisco, it’s that it will
change the way people consume media. And many
observers believe the impact will be particularly notable on college
campuses.
Media prognosticators have
been buzzing for months about how higher education might be affected by the
arrival of the Apple tablet, which is
reported to have a 10-inch color display — about
the same size as the screen on Apple’s smallest laptop and larger than the
screens of the three-and-half-inch iPhone and iPod touch, the six-inch
Amazon Kindle, or the five- to seven-inch
Sony Reader
Ars Technica writer Jeff
Smykil
recently wrote that the addition of e-textbooks to
the iTunes Store could precipitate new ways of supplying students with
course materials, possibly based on selling subscriptions and bundling books
and other resources by major. Joshua Kim, a senior learning technologist at
Dartmouth College and Inside Higher Ed technology blogger,
posited that the tablet could combine course
materials and collaboration tools, bringing the futuristic vision of a
“cloud-based, disaggregated, open educational experience” one step closer to
realization. Brand expert Brian Phipps
put it more bluntly, writing that the tablet
“could replace the conventional classroom.”
Of course, most people
won’t know until later today what the tablet can do; and they won’t know
what it will do to traditional higher education for a long time after
that. “At the moment we’re just sort of reading digital tea leaves,” said
Kenneth C. Green, director of the campus computing project.
A Boost for E-Books?
Electronic textbook
publishers, for one, are hoping that the release and anticipated popularity
of the tablet
will be a windfall for e-textbooks — which, though
they have been available for several years, so far have failed to catch on
with students. E-textbooks accounted for only 2 percent of total textbook
sales last fall, according to data from the market research firm
Student Monitor.
CourseSmart,
a consortium of five major textbook publishers (at
least
one of which has been talking to Apple), made a
video in anticipation
of the tablet’s release, in which it superimposes its iPhone application on
a tablet-like device and touts the many ways it could make students' lives
easier. Frank Lyman, the consortium’s president, has said the tablet offers
features far beyond what is offered by the Kindle and the Sony Reader,
including color graphics, video, and other media.
In an interview yesterday
with Inside Higher Ed, Lyman said he believes the Apple product will
give e-textbooks a boost by combining a brand that is widely popular among
college students with a platform that is oriented to reading. “At the level
of general enthusiasm and interest for e-textbooks, it has sort of captured
the imagination of another part of the market,” he said.
Eric Weil, managing
director of Student Monitor, agreed that Apple’s brand power could help push
e-textbooks into the mainstream. The problem for e-textbooks is not that
students don’t know that they exist, it’s that they don’t find them
appealing, Weil said. Apple’s involvement could change that, he said, the
same way it popularized the MP3 player with the iPod.
Price Points
But the aspect about the
Apple tablet that could provide the deepest insight into how much it stands
to affect higher education — at least initially — is perhaps the
hardest to pin down: the price tag. While
some analysts predict that Apple would need to
price the tablet at $600 or lower in order to market it successfully,
rumors
abound that the product could run as high as
$1,000 — as much as a regular MacBook.
While CourseSmart claims
that its e-textbooks cost half the price of a new, printed textbook, Lyman
acknowledged that, depending on the tablet’s price tag, it could take all
four years to break even on the initial hardware investment. But he said he
hopes the additional value tablet’s many rumored features will persuade
students to buy it. After all, given everything the tablet is supposed to
do, students might regard cheaper, less cumbersome e-textbooks as a
peripheral benefit rather than a main selling point.
Green said the tablet’s
penetration on college campuses will turn largely on what current
technologies it is capable of replacing. If the features of the Apple tablet
are redundant with the functions students use on their iPod touches — or
smartphones, or laptops — then they can subtract from the cost of the tablet
the money they would have spent on those other technologies, he said. The
more gadgets the tablet makes obsolete, the cheaper the investment.
But Weil said he thinks
all this accounting is moot. College students don’t generally think in such
calculating terms when it comes to technology, he said. “At the end of the
day,” he said, “students spend more on their cell phone service than they do
on their textbooks.”
The tablet is expected to
hit the shelves in March.
iPad and the Risk of 'Sustaining Innovations' By
Joshua Kim January 28, 2010 11:30 am The risk of the iPad for higher
education is that the device will prove a "sustaining innovation" in
learning technology.
Sustaining innovations, as explained by Michael
Horn in his amazing talk at the 2009 EDUCAUSE ECAR Symposium, increase the
quality of the service or product but also drive up the cost. Higher
education has been moving through cycles of sustaining innovation, where
improvements in facilities, amenities and technology have increased the
fidelity of the campus experience while simultaneously driving costs (and
tuition) faster than inflation.
The iPad could drive a new round of sustaining
innovation as institutions seek to design specialized campus and educational
apps for the new platform. We will want to design these learning and campus
apps, and invest in tools that allow our university content to be accessed
by the iPad, for the best of reasons. These reasons include the desire to
stay relevant to our students' experience, to compete for their scarce
attention, and to use the iPad to reach multiple learning styles.
We will see the ability of the iPad to digitize
curricular texts and aggregate curricular media as progress. We will be
excited that students will be able to easily sync up a syllabus' worth of
course content, consuming the materials via the iPad's gorgeous interface.
We will be excited by the possibilities of students engaging in formative
assessments and collaborative work (wikis/blogs/discussions) through the
browser, without the need to sacrifice the fidelity of reading (iBooks) or
media viewing.
The possibilities for learning, student interaction
and enhanced campus services that the iPad unleashes will all come at a
price. Nothing about a tool as wonderful as the iPad will lower the cost of
constructing or delivering education. We will need to invest in buying iPads,
developing apps for iPads, and experimenting with new pedagogies and
training around iPads. Perhaps the iPad will be a disruptive force for
lifelong learners, as they will be able to sync up the lecture content from
iTunesU, pair it with book content, and than engage in discussions of the
material (through the browser) with other autodidacts.
It might be unpopular to say right now (and I'm
sympathetic to the Edupunk movement), but an argument can be made that the
LMS was a disruptive innovation for higher education. The LMS allowed, for
the first time, hybrid and online learning to scale. Prior to the LMS any
pedagogical innovation enabled by technology required custom development and
a high degree of faculty technical proficiency. Faculty could make course
Web pages, but they needed to know HTML. Assessment and collaboration tools
could be built, but they were built one-by-one and by hand. The low
technical threshold necessary to maintain and utilize and LMS opened the
door to pedagogical innovation and a disruption of the status quo higher ed
model. We are still struggling to walk through that door. (And yes, we can
and should be debating if Web 2.0 tools have supplanted or complemented the
LMS as catalysts for disruption -- but that is the topic of another
discussion).
How can something as uncool and unsexy as the LMS
be disruptive for higher ed, while something as cool, sexy and elegant as
the iPad only be sustaining? And what do we do with the recognition that no
matter how wonderful a sustaining innovation can be, the end result is to
increase costs as quality also rises?
Do we stop adopting sustaining innovations?
Do we only innovate with learning technologies that
can increase quality (active learning) while decreasing costs?
I have no idea, but while we figure all this out
I'm totally excited to get my hands on a shiny new iPad. How about you?
A special thanks to the FCC - why? They have not
approved the Apple Ipad, and they can not be sold (or ordered) until
approved. I might have ordered one without fully considering the pitfalls of
owning one.
Here are some of the issues: 1. Both the Iphone and
Ipad do not handle flash files. So much of the richness of the web will be
lost to Ipad owners. I have been digging around for the answer to the lack
of flash, and the major reason is that that ATT network - already straining
from the success of the Iphone - will come crashing down if the huge surge
of Flash downloads would clog the ATT network. There are other technical
reasons, but that is the major one.
2. If I bought the Ipad with the 3G capability,
there would be ANOTHER $39 per month access fee paid to ATT. Currently I pay
$30 per month for my Iphone, and the ATT assurances about being able to
"tether" my Iphone to my laptop have not come into being yet. The ATT System
is straining under the weight of its success in selling Iphones.
3. Creation of Ipad content - You really can't -
the operating system - Iphone 3.3? is proprietary and if I wanted to create
content, I need a separate Mac with the free Software Development Kit. BUT
if I do create something, I have to kick over 30% to Steve Jobs.
4. Readabilty - The Kindle is superior to the Ipad
here, but the current Kindle does not do color. Incidentally, Amazon just
pulled Macmillan books from their store - a HUGE move with potential
antitrust implications. It seems that Macmillan is very upset with Amazon
about the heavy discounting of their eBooks. I have talked to an author
friend who has self-published on Amazon and the "cut" that Amazon takes
makes it difficult for anyone else to make money from their site, "unless
you are an Oprah author" as he said.
Jensen Comment
Note that over the XMAS season Amazon sold more Kindle books than hard copy
books. However, many of the most popular textbook publishers are still avoiding
electronic versions of any kind except for limited editions of books for special
needs students.
Sony, the Japanese electronics giant, was a pioneer
in the current wave of electronic book readers, introducing its first Sony
Reader model back in 2006. But, it has been overtaken by Amazon.com, whose
Kindle e-book reader, introduced in 2007, has become almost synonymous with
the category. Now, Sony is out with a much-improved model that could make it
more competitive.
WSJ's Personal Technology columnist Walt Mossberg
takes a look at Sony's wireless, touchscreen e-reader, the Reader Daily
Edition. Although it comes with a $400 price tag, he says the product puts
Sony back in the e-reader game. Unlike the Kindle, Sony's readers weren't
wireless and their owners couldn't download books or newspapers directly to
the device, instead of via a computer. Now, that problem has finally been
solved with Sony's new Reader Daily Edition, a handsome $400 wireless model
that I've been testing.
The Daily Edition can be bought at Sony's stores;
at its Web site, sonystyle.com; and at Best Buy's site, bestbuy.com. It was
sold out for the holidays, but Sony says it expects new stock soon.
The Daily Edition isn't a mere clone of the Kindle.
It has a different design philosophy and is stronger in some areas, weaker
in others. In general, I enjoyed using it, once I mastered its user
interface, which took several days. I especially liked the fact that it
packs a larger screen into a comfortably small device, and mostly uses touch
navigation instead of all physical controls. For instance, while the Sony
does have a small page-turning button, you can more easily turn pages by
just swiping your finger across the screen. It's also better at navigating
digital newspapers, something I've never found very satisfying on the
Kindle.
(Full disclosure: Sony has struck a special deal
with Dow Jones, which owns The Wall Street Journal and this Web site. Under
the deal, a special late-day edition of the Journal, containing updated
news, will be available on the Daily Edition for an extra charge starting
later in January.)
On the downside, the Daily Edition has three main
flaws when compared with the Kindle. First, it's much more expensive—$400
versus just $259. Second, it has only about half of the commercial,
copyrighted digital books that Amazon does—around 200,000 versus the
Kindle's roughly 400,000. Sony also throws in a million out-of-copyright,
old books, for a total of 1.2 million.
But many of these added million titles are obscure
and of little interest to mainstream consumers. The Reader also has just
eight newspapers, versus 92 for the Kindle, though Sony says 10 more are
coming soon.
Third, the technology that makes the screen touch
sensitive also dims it a bit, so the Daily Edition's screen is darker than
the Kindle's. (Both are unlit monochrome screens with gray-scale graphics.)
I found the Sony screen adequate, but it's tougher to read in lower light.
The Daily Edition is a slender device with a black
metal body that contrasts sharply with the wider, white plastic body of the
Kindle. While both products use the same basic screen technology, and the
same screen width, the Daily Edition's screen is longer; it measures 7
inches versus 6 inches for the Kindle. In my tests, I found this a big
advantage, because, when both devices were set for roughly comparable text
sizes, the Sony could hold more text on a page, cutting down on the need for
page turns, which interrupt reading.
In addition, the Daily Edition is narrower than the
Kindle, because the borders around the screen are thinner, since they don't
have to accommodate the Kindle's various large buttons or physical keyboard.
(You can enter text for notes or searches on the Daily Edition using a
stylus for handwriting or a virtual onscreen keyboard.) This longer,
narrower shape gives the new Sony a nice feel in the hand.
I also preferred the Sony's method for presenting
newspapers, which allowed more headlines to be viewed at once and required
fewer steps to navigate through the paper.
Continued in article
Amazon claims sales of e-books surpassed sales of physical books
That's somewhat amazing since many physical books (especially popular textbooks)
are not yet available as e-books
"Amazon's Kindle Reader cuts book shipping: Book sales in the United States
surged during the holiday season, but in a dramatic shift for the shipping
world, retailer Amazon.com said this week sales of e-books for the first time
surpassed sales of physical books," Journal of Commerce, December 2009
---
http://joc.com/print/415491
Book sales in the United States surged during the
holiday season, but in a dramatic shift for the shipping world, retailer
Amazon.com said this week sales of e-books for the first time surpassed
sales of physical books.
Amazon’s peak in e-book sales occurred on Christmas
day as gift recipients used their new Kindle reading devices to make
purchases from among the 390,000 books available in Amazon’s Kindle Store.
The Kindle electronic reader, which allows users to
download books and other media from a variety of sources, was “the most
gifted item ever in our history,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
Overall retail spending the first of November
through Dec. 24 increased 3.6 percent compared with last year, according to
MasterCard’s SpendingPulse survey, which tracks cash as well as credit
purchases. The online portion of sales jumped 15.5 percent compared with
last year to account for 10 percent of all retail sales, the survey said.
Another retailer industry watcher said online
spending in the United States grew 10 percent in November over a year ago.
The comScore research firm said online sales reached $12.3 billion in
November, and the group said visits to the Web site of Wal-Mart grew 62
percent and visits to the Target site grew 43 percent over last year.
Question
What are the analogies that led to the names "Amazon" and "Kindle?"
Answer
The word "Amazon" depicts an enormous river of books (an now millions of
products) flowing into the world.
The word "Kindle" depicts lighting a fire to read or wanting to read.
Escalating its efforts to dominate the fledgling
industry for electronic books, Amazon introduced a new version of its
electronic book reader today, dubbed Kindle 2.
Amazon said the upgraded device has seven times the
memory as the original version, allows faster page-turns and has a crisper,
though still black-and-white, display. The Kindle 2 also features a new
design with round keys and a short, joystick-like controller — a departure
from the design aspects of the previous version, which some buyers had
criticized as awkward. The new device will ship on Feb. 24. Amazon did not
change the price for the device, which remains $359.
Though the improvements to the Kindle are only
incremental, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, defined some
ambitious goals for the device. “Our vision is every book, ever printed, in
any language, all available in less than 60 seconds,” he said at a news
conference in New York.
Amazon introduced several new features for the
Kindle. A new text-to-speech function allows readers to switch between
reading words on the device and having the words read to them by a
computerized voice. That technology was provided by Nuance, a
speech-recognition company based in Burlington, Mass.
Amazon is also allowing Kindle owners to transfer
texts between their Kindle and other mobile devices. Amazon said it is
working on making digital texts available for other gadgets (such as mobile
phones), though it did not specify which ones.
One competitive threat Amazon is facing in its
effort to dominate the world of e-books is from Google, which has scanned in
some seven million books, many of them out of print. Google has also struck
deals with publishers and authors to split the proceeds from the online
sales of those texts.
Google recently said it would soon begin selling
these books for reading on mobile devices like Apple’s iPhone and phones
running Google’s Android operating system.
Implicitly addressing the threat posed by Google,
Mr. Bezos said that Amazon knows better than other companies what
book-buyers wants and stressed Amazon’s digital catalog of 230,000 newer
books and best-sellers.
“We have tens of millions of customers who buy
books from us every day and we know what they want to read,” he said. “And
we are making sure to prioritize those items.”
Markus Dohle, chief executive of Random House, the
world’s largest publisher of consumer books and a unit of Bertelsmann of
Germany, said the company was working with Amazon and other e-book makers to
digitize its so-called backlist of older titles. When asked in an interview
after the news conference if he was concerned about the effects of Amazon’s
dominance in the e-book market, Mr. Dohle paused and laughed.
“It is not up to us to talk about Amazon’s
competition,” he said. “I don’t think that any kind of defensive business
strategy will succeed. We want to grow our business in all channels and one
of the fastest growing customers is Amazon in all areas.”
“We see the Kindle and we see e-books as a real
opportunity because we think that it will not cannibalize the physical part
of the business and it will also generate and create new readers of books,”
Mr. Dohle said.
Read This Next
The Future of Reading (beyond mere hard copy and electronic books as we know
them)
"Amazon's Jeff Bezos already built a better bookstore. Now he believes he can
improve upon one of humankind's most divine creations: the book itself.,"
Newsweek Cover Story, November 26, 2007 ---
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983
"Technology," computer pioneer Alan Kay once said,
"is anything that was invented after you were born." So it's not surprising,
when making mental lists of the most whiz-bangy technological creations in
our lives, that we may overlook an object that is superbly designed,
wickedly functional, infinitely useful and beloved more passionately than
any gadget in a Best Buy: the book. It is a more reliable storage device
than a hard disk drive, and it sports a killer user interface. (No
instruction manual or "For Dummies" guide needed.) And, it is instant-on and
requires no batteries. Many people think it is so perfect an invention that
it can't be improved upon, and react with indignation at any implication to
the contrary.
"The book," says Jeff Bezos, 43, the CEO of
Internet commerce giant Amazon.com, "just turns out to be an incredible
device." Then he uncorks one of his trademark laughs.
Books have been very good to Jeff Bezos. When he
sought to make his mark in the nascent days of the Web, he chose to open an
online store for books, a decision that led to billionaire status for him,
dotcom glory for his company and countless hours wasted by authors checking
their Amazon sales ratings. But as much as Bezos loves books professionally
and personally—he's a big reader, and his wife is a novelist—he also
understands that the surge of technology will engulf all media. "Books are
the last bastion of analog," he says, in a conference room overlooking the
Seattle skyline. We're in the former VA hospital that is the physical
headquarters for the world's largest virtual store. "Music and video have
been digital for a long time, and short-form reading has been digitized,
beginning with the early Web. But long-form reading really hasn't." Yet.
This week Bezos is releasing the Amazon Kindle, an electronic device that he
hopes will leapfrog over previous attempts at e-readers and become the
turning point in a transformation toward Book 2.0. That's shorthand for a
revolution (already in progress) that will change the way readers read,
writers write and publishers publish. The Kindle represents a milestone in a
time of transition, when a challenged publishing industry is competing with
television, Guitar Hero and time burned on the BlackBerry; literary critics
are bemoaning a possible demise of print culture, and Norman Mailer's recent
death underlined the dearth of novelists who cast giant shadows. On the
other hand, there are vibrant pockets of book lovers on the Internet who are
waiting for a chance to refurbish the dusty halls of literacy.
As well placed as Amazon was to jump into this
scrum and maybe move things forward, it was not something the company took
lightly. After all, this is the book we're talking about. "If you're going
to do something like this, you have to be as good as the book in a lot of
respects," says Bezos. "But we also have to look for things that ordinary
books can't do." Bounding to a whiteboard in the conference room, he ticks
off a number of attributes that a book-reading device—yet another
computer-powered gadget in an ever more crowded backpack full of them—must
have. First, it must project an aura of bookishness; it should be less of a
whizzy gizmo than an austere vessel of culture. Therefore the Kindle (named
to evoke the crackling ignition of knowledge) has the dimensions of a
paperback, with a tapering of its width that emulates the bulge toward a
book's binding. It weighs but 10.3 ounces, and unlike a laptop computer it
does not run hot or make intrusive beeps. A reading device must be sharp and
durable, Bezos says, and with the use of E Ink, a breakthrough technology of
several years ago that mimes the clarity of a printed book, the Kindle's
six-inch screen posts readable pages. The battery has to last for a while,
he adds, since there's nothing sadder than a book you can't read because of
electile dysfunction. (The Kindle gets as many as 30 hours of reading on a
charge, and recharges in two hours.) And, to soothe the anxieties of
print-culture stalwarts, in sleep mode the Kindle displays retro images of
ancient texts, early printing presses and beloved authors like Emily
Dickinson and Jane Austen.
But then comes the features that your mom's copy of
"Gone With the Wind" can't match. E-book devices like the Kindle allow you
to change the font size: aging baby boomers will appreciate that every book
can instantly be a large-type edition. The handheld device can also hold
several shelves' worth of books: 200 of them onboard, hundreds more on a
memory card and a limitless amount in virtual library stacks maintained by
Amazon. Also, the Kindle allows you to search within the book for a phrase
or name.
Some of those features have been available on
previous e-book devices, notably the Sony Reader. The Kindle's real
breakthrough springs from a feature that its predecessors never offered:
wireless connectivity, via a system called Whispernet. (It's based on the
EVDO broadband service offered by cell-phone carriers, allowing it to work
anywhere, not just Wi-Fi hotspots.) As a result, says Bezos, "This isn't a
device, it's a service."
Specifically, it's an extension of the familiar
Amazon store (where, of course, Kindles will be sold). Amazon has designed
the Kindle to operate totally independent of a computer: you can use it to
go to the store, browse for books, check out your personalized
recommendations, and read reader reviews and post new ones, tapping out the
words on a thumb-friendly keyboard. Buying a book with a Kindle is a
one-touch process. And once you buy, the Kindle does its neatest trick: it
downloads the book and installs it in your library, ready to be devoured.
"The vision is that you should be able to get any book—not just any book in
print, but any book that's ever been in print—on this device in less than a
minute," says Bezos.
Amazon has worked hard to get publishers to step up
efforts to release digital versions of new books and backlists, and more
than 88,000 will be on sale at the Kindle store on launch. (Though Bezos
won't get terribly specific, Amazon itself is also involved in scanning
books, many of which it captured as part of its groundbreaking Search Inside
the Book program. But most are done by the publishers themselves, at a cost
of about $200 for each book converted to digital. New titles routinely go
through the process, but many backlist titles are still waiting. "It's a
real chokepoint," says Penguin CEO David Shanks.) Amazon prices Kindle
editions of New York Times best sellers and new releases in hardback at
$9.99. The first chapter of almost any book is available as a free sample.
The Kindle is not just for books. Via the Amazon
store, you can subscribe to newspapers (the Times, The Wall Street Journal,
The Washington Post, Le Monde) and magazines (The Atlantic). When issues go
to press, the virtual publications are automatically beamed into your
Kindle. (It's much closer to a virtual newsboy tossing the publication on
your doorstep than accessing the contents a piece at a time on the Web.) You
can also subscribe to selected blogs, which cost either 99 cents or $1.99 a
month per blog.
The first electronic book reader I ever purchased was the Rocket eBook in
July 1999 ---
http://snipurl.com/rocketeBooklibrary I plugged it into my desktop
computer and downloaded mostly free books, but it was also possible to
purchase new books and download them into the reader.
The reader held about thirty books. I found it the most useful on very
long flights such as flights to Asia. At home I didn’t use it much, and now
I’d have to really hunt just to find the reader and charger. I tend to read
downloaded books on my laptop rather than my Rocket eBook. Some of the
reasons are mentioned below.
My Rocket eBook weighed well over a pound mostly because the battery
weight. But the weight really did not bother me as much as critics are
finding fault with Amazon’s new Kindle weighing about ten ounces. My reader
would not display color and did a poor job with graphics because of low
resolution and screen size.
I do not yet have either of the two new state-of-the-art eBook readers
--- the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle. You can read more about these and
other earlier versions of electronic book readers (many of which are now
history) at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/eBooks.htm
Do critics miss the main point? It’s hard to predict the future of eBook
readers. Certainly the Amazon Kindle stands the best chance to date because
it will have the largest library to choose from. I think the critics of
eBook readers miss the main point. They tend to dwell on such matters as
weight and used book markets. The Amazon Kindle weighs not much more and in
many cases less than hardcover books. I’d rather pay less for a new
electronic book than pay more for traditional book and worry about selling
it later on.
Battery life is a problem, but serious users can purchase spare
batteries.
The main point overlooked by critics is competition. Customers already
have video-playing laptop computers with larger screens, gigabytes of hard
drive, and screen capture capabilities from great software like Snag It.
Increasingly new releases of books can be downloaded in PDF format. Most
textbook publishers now offer electronic versions for laptop and desktop
computers.
Google and Microsoft are now putting hundreds of millions of books free
online from the major libraries of the world. For example, it astounds me
how much is already available for downloading free of charge ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Since so much new and old literature is available (fee and free) for our
laptops, selling alternative electronic book readers (eBooks) is a hard sell
from get go. Most of us already carry laptops on airplanes. Why burden
ourselves with other reading devices (actually I mostly read paper back
books and journal article photocopies while in flight)?
Electronic book readers (eBooks) would be almost as common as cell phones
if they were the only alternative for downloading new and old electronic
literature. But they’re not the only alternative except for very new
releases from some publishers who refuse to allow electronic versions in PDF
format for laptop downloading. Some, but certainly not all, of those
publishers will allow eBook downloading since copying from eBooks is
virtually impossible (while hardcopy can be photocopied and transcribed).
I would not invest in companies forging ahead in eBooks. If any company
stands a chance, however, it will be Amazon. Amazon stands the best chance
of building the largest library of electronic literature that cannot be
downloaded into anything other than eBooks. But I’m not crazed by purchasing
the newest of the new releases. If necessary I browse in the downtown or
university library and check out the latest and greatest new editions.
I am crazed with reading latest news on some Websites like those of
selected newspapers and magazines. I scan my favorites every day. Many of
these sites allow free reading of today’s news and charge for older
editions. So I scan today’s news like crazy and copy excerpts into my
computer while the reading is still free. For example, I will scan today’s
New York Times and copy what interests me into my computer before
downloadings of articles are no longer free (actually the NYT just made
archives free but this is not yet common for other newspapers and
magazines).
I thus have two choices. I can read today’s newspapers on my laptop or my
eBook. For my laptop, hundreds of newspapers are available each morning, and
I can cut and paste items of interest into my own files. Only a few
newspapers are available for my eBook, and I can’t copy anything from my
eBook into my computer files. The choice for me is a no-brainer, and I think
the critics of eBooks miss this main point. It’s legal to copy entire
articles into my laptop for personal use just like it is legal to copy
entire television shows and movies into my VCR. It’s not legal for me to
distribute my entire copies to the world, but I can distribute excerpts like
I often distribute quotations in my newsletters/blogs. I could not easily do
this if I downloaded literature into my eBook rather than my laptop.
Hence critics miss the point about why I prefer downloading into my
laptop as opposed to my eBook. I, for one, am not rushing out to “Kindle” my
library.
Walt Mossberg gave a failing grade today on
Amazon’s eBook reader (“Kindle”) because of poor design.
I do not like its specs because of one other
significant issue – it does not allow books in Acrobat pdf format.
I also do not like the eBook format Amazon has for
downloadable format which also is not pdf. This format does allow image
resizing, but only to a very limited amount.
I downloaded an eBook from Amazon - “Excel 2007
Pivottables” (Wiley) - and also bought the hard copy of the book. Some of
the images in the book are difficult to read. One major advantage of the
Adobe Reader over the Amazon reader is the ability to magnify images to very
large size.
However, publishers are not using the full capacity
of the Adobe Reader, in that it is possible to play multimedia within the
Adobe Reader.
I’ll put a demo up on my site later next month on
how to import Camtasia movies into an Acrobat file.
Richard
Richard J. Campbell
School of Business
218 N. College Ave.
University of Rio Grande
Rio Grande, OH 45674
Voice:740-245-7288
http://faculty.rio.edu/campbell
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos announced the launch of an
e-book device called Kindle. It weighs 10.3 ounces, costs $399 and can be used
without a computer, offering instead a free, high-speed wireless data network
from Sprint. Users can download books in less than 60 seconds, as well as
newspapers, magazines and blogs (for a fee). The device uses an eye-friendly
screen and lets readers increase the type size as needed. Will it be a hit, even
though most other e-book efforts have been unsuccessful? We asked marketing
professor Peter Fader, Don Huesman, senior director of information technology,
and management professor Dan Raff to give us their reviews.
University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, Knowledge@Wharton, December 2007 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm;jsessionid=a830205f4372372944c1?articleid=1851
Amazon Plans to Market Its E-Book Reader to Colleges Amazon is considering entering the student textbook
market with a new version of its Kindle e-book reader, according to the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Most publishers now offer electronic versions of their textbooks, but so far
there's not an attractive enough e-book reader, and Amazon aims to fill that
void. The college-oriented new model might be larger and include
student-friendly features, such as allowing making annotations, according to
a technology blog. Amazon
officers also said the high Kindle sales estimates calculated by
TechCrunch--a popular blog on internet products and
companies--are not accurate. But the electronic company refuses to make public
how many e-book reader units it has sold since Kindle was launched last
November. Maria José Viñas, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 25,
2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3268&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
The Kindle Reader ($259) is easier to hold/carry than a PC, and a multimedia
version is on the drawing boards.
The more expensive DX version has some features worth noting, including larger
capacity and a headphone jack and speakers. Kindle
DX holds the most (up to 3,500 books) relative to its competitors.
Most popular textbooks in academic disciplines, especially accountancy, are
not yet available for download.
Adobe offers a DRM technology called Adobe Content Server 4. Sony and a
number of other online bookstores--most notably Borders--sell commercial titles
in ePub/ACS4 format, and some libraries let patrons check out ePub books.
PC World compared five brands of
eBook
readers (not PC versions) and still prefers the Sony Reader. Sony's $300
reader matches the Kindle 2's screen size and quality but adds a touchscreen and
support for free e-books and Adobe ePub, an e-book file format that book
publishers and resellers have widely embraced --- See below.
Kindle 2 is the most popular seller to date.
Bob Jensen's links to free books. textbooks, and poems available for download
into your PC or Mac without special software are provided at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
These are not, of course, the latest titles emerging in the current market.
Questions
After testing five of the most popular e-book readers to date, what did PC
World magazine was their top choice to purchase (if you could only have one
reader)?
What in the world justifies this unsuspected choice?
"The Best of Today's E-Book Readers: The number of high-quality
e-readers available is mushrooming. We tested seven and gave our highest marks
to one that might surprise you," by Yardena Arar, PC World via The
Washington Post, November 6, 2009 ---
Click Here
If you think the universe of e-book readers begins
with the Kindle 2 and ends with the Kindle DX, think again. That universe is
expanding rapidly. We recently completed thorough hands-on testing of seven
of the top e-readers available today and came to a surprising conclusion:
Our number one choice isn't from Amazon at
all; it's the Sony Reader Touch Edition.
Sony's $300 reader matches the Kindle 2's screen
size and quality but adds a touchscreen and support for free e-books and
Adobe ePub, an e-book file format that book publishers and resellers have
widely embraced. Whereas Adobe's PDF reproduces a fixed image of a page,
ePub permits text to reflow in order to accommodate different fonts and font
sizes.Certainly the wireless connectivity in Amazon's Kindle models makes
buying new books a breeze, but to this point Amazon's readers support only
Amazon's format, locking you into buying exclusively from the online giant.
Of course, no company's
lead in the rapidly evolving e-reader market is safe. Barnes & Noble looks
to be one of Amazon's chief competitors. The giant bookseller announced its
Nook e-reader last month, and most people who got
a peek at the device
seemed to love it. The Nook isn't yet available
for thorough testing, however.
E-books have numerous benefits. Eliminating paper
saves resources. E-book readers take up little room in travelers' backpacks
and purses, and yet can store the equivalent of a whole bookshelf. You don't
have to go anywhere to buy or borrow an e-book title. For the
vision-impaired, the ability to adjust font size can mean the difference
between being able to read a book and having to hope that the publisher will
eventually release an audio version. Some e-book readers double as music
players, and some even have a speech capability for reading books aloud.
Unfortunately, the world of e-books is Balkanized,
with multiple incompatible file formats and digital rights management (DRM)
technologies, and devices with varying support for both. Books in the public
domain are widely available in PDF and other standard formats. But
copyrighted material is another story. Amazon's current Kindles can obtain
commercial e-books in Amazon's AZW file format via wireless download only in
the United States (in early October, however, the company announced a Kindle
capable of downloading content in most countries).
Adobe offers a DRM technology called Adobe Content
Server 4. Sony and a number of other online bookstores--most notably
Borders--sell commercial titles in ePub/ACS4 format, and some libraries let
patrons check out ePub books. As of early October, 17 e-book readers
supported ePub and ACS4, making that combination the closest thing the
industry has to a standard for DRM-protected books. Aside from the Amazon
Kindles and Foxit's eSlick, all of the e-book readers in this collection of
reviews support ePub/ACS4.
We compiled a comparison
chart of the five highest-ranking e-readers at the conclusion of our
evaluations. For the details, see our
Top 5 E-Book Readers chart. And for individual
reviews of the seven e-readers we put through their paces ---
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/collection/1985/.html .
Jensen Comment
Today, November 6, 2009, the comparison buttons would not work for me.
New Books Downloaded Directly Into Your Laptop
All along I've claimed that the best electronic book reader will be a laptop
computer (or giant screen HDTV) that requires no special reader. Now Amazon is
selling software that will do just that so that you have all your computer's
multimedia capabilities and only have to lug one machine when on the road. Also
can you imagine having a computer projection on the ceiling so that persons
confined to bed can read books on the ceiling --- beats a skylight.
An advantage of using your computer for reading books is that you can buy
huge monitors for ease of reading books. Also a Kindle reader holds up to 1,500
(non-multimedia) books, but your computer with over 100 Gb of hard drive will
hold many more books, including multimedia books and newspapers.
An advantage of Amazon over some other electronic book readers to date lies
in having more new books available for downloading (not free of course) than
competitors. This may only be a short-term advantage.
Kindle for PC --- No Amazon link on October 23, 2009 but it will soon have a
purchase link on Amazon
Amazon.com Inc. is trying to get more people to buy
the electronic books that are compatible with its Kindle gadget by offering
free software for people to read them on a computer.
The Seattle-based online retailer said Thursday that it will release an
application called "Kindle for PC" in November. It will let you buy,
download and read Kindle books on a Windows-based PC, regardless of whether
you own a Kindle.
If you also own a Kindle, you can see any notes or highlights made on the
e-reader.
Amazon will also keep track of where you are in a book, so you can stop
reading on your PC and pick up at the same place on your Kindle.
If you're running Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows 7 operating system and have
a touch screen on your computer, you can zoom in on book pages by pinching
your fingers. In the future, Amazon said, you'll be able to turn pages by
swiping a finger across the screen.
The company already offers a similar application for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and
iPod Touch that lets users read Kindle books whether or not they own the
device.
Amazon is facing a rising tide of competition in the e-reader market from
companies like Sony Corp. and Barnes & Noble Inc. Sony already offers
several e-readers, and both companies plan to release wireless-enabled
devices soon that, like the Kindle, will be able to download books straight
to them. Making Kindle books available to consumers who don't want to buy a
dedicated reading device may provide another stream of revenue.
Also Thursday, Amazon said that it lowered the price of its newest Kindle by
$20, to $259, matching the cost of a U.S.-only device that it is
discontinuing. The new version has wireless access that works around the
world, replacing a model that worked only in the U.S.
Just two weeks ago, when it introduced the international Kindle, Amazon cut
prices for the U.S. version by $40, to $259.
The company still sells a larger-screen version of the Kindle called the DX
for $489.
You can read more about the competitors (Sony, Barnes and Noble Nook,
Google eBooks, Apple Tablet eReader, QVC Cool-er, etc.) and their histories in the
electronic book market in my threads at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/eBooks.htm
SAN FRANCISCO -- The McGraw-Hill Cos. Inc.'s CEO
spoke on CNBC Tuesday and appeared to confirm speculation that Apple Inc.
will indeed unveil a tablet computer running on iPhone software during a
highly anticipated media event Wednesday.
Harold McGraw, the company's chief executive, was
discussing his company earnings on the cable business news channel. When
asked about the tablet, McGraw said Apple will "make their announcement
tomorrow on this one" and that "the tablet is going to be based on the
iPhone operating system."
His comments, though brief, sounded authoritative
and several Apple-themed blogs reported the incident as if McGraw had
accidentally beaten Apple CEO Steve Jobs to the punch.
McGraw-Hill spokesman Steven Weiss would not
confirm that the CEO was describing Apple's actual product.
"There has been lots of speculation and we are as
eager as anyone to see how the new device can be used to advance education
and business information platforms," Weiss said.
McGraw's comments on CNBC appeared to be an
abbreviated version of remarks made during a conference call with Wall
Street analysts earlier in the day. According to a transcript supplied by
Weiss, McGraw sounded confident that the tablet would soon become a reality.
But as for technical details, he said only that "many expect that the Apple
device will use the iPhone operating system."
McGraw-Hill is a major developer and publisher of
educational materials and textbooks, and some of its college texts are
already available for reading on Apple's iPhone. If Apple's tablet is based
on the iPhone system, the investments McGraw-Hill and other publishers have
already made in e-books would still be relevant on the new device.
It has many names — the
iTablet, the iSlate, the iTab, the iGuide — but if there is one thing people
seem to agree on regarding Apple’s new computing tablet, expected to be
unveiled today in San Francisco, it’s that it will
change the way people consume media. And many
observers believe the impact will be particularly notable on college
campuses.
Media prognosticators have
been buzzing for months about how higher education might be affected by the
arrival of the Apple tablet, which is
reported to have a 10-inch color display — about
the same size as the screen on Apple’s smallest laptop and larger than the
screens of the three-and-half-inch iPhone and iPod touch, the six-inch
Amazon Kindle, or the five- to seven-inch
Sony Reader
Ars Technica writer Jeff
Smykil
recently wrote that the addition of e-textbooks to
the iTunes Store could precipitate new ways of supplying students with
course materials, possibly based on selling subscriptions and bundling books
and other resources by major. Joshua Kim, a senior learning technologist at
Dartmouth College and Inside Higher Ed technology blogger,
posited that the tablet could combine course
materials and collaboration tools, bringing the futuristic vision of a
“cloud-based, disaggregated, open educational experience” one step closer to
realization. Brand expert Brian Phipps
put it more bluntly, writing that the tablet
“could replace the conventional classroom.”
Of course, most people
won’t know until later today what the tablet can do; and they won’t know
what it will do to traditional higher education for a long time after
that. “At the moment we’re just sort of reading digital tea leaves,” said
Kenneth C. Green, director of the campus computing project.
A Boost for E-Books?
Electronic textbook
publishers, for one, are hoping that the release and anticipated popularity
of the tablet
will be a windfall for e-textbooks — which, though
they have been available for several years, so far have failed to catch on
with students. E-textbooks accounted for only 2 percent of total textbook
sales last fall, according to data from the market research firm
Student Monitor.
CourseSmart,
a consortium of five major textbook publishers (at
least
one of which has been talking to Apple), made a
video in anticipation
of the tablet’s release, in which it superimposes its iPhone application on
a tablet-like device and touts the many ways it could make students' lives
easier. Frank Lyman, the consortium’s president, has said the tablet offers
features far beyond what is offered by the Kindle and the Sony Reader,
including color graphics, video, and other media.
In an interview yesterday
with Inside Higher Ed, Lyman said he believes the Apple product will
give e-textbooks a boost by combining a brand that is widely popular among
college students with a platform that is oriented to reading. “At the level
of general enthusiasm and interest for e-textbooks, it has sort of captured
the imagination of another part of the market,” he said.
Eric Weil, managing
director of Student Monitor, agreed that Apple’s brand power could help push
e-textbooks into the mainstream. The problem for e-textbooks is not that
students don’t know that they exist, it’s that they don’t find them
appealing, Weil said. Apple’s involvement could change that, he said, the
same way it popularized the MP3 player with the iPod.
Price Points
But the aspect about the
Apple tablet that could provide the deepest insight into how much it stands
to affect higher education — at least initially — is perhaps the
hardest to pin down: the price tag. While
some analysts predict that Apple would need to
price the tablet at $600 or lower in order to market it successfully,
rumors
abound that the product could run as high as
$1,000 — as much as a regular MacBook.
While CourseSmart claims
that its e-textbooks cost half the price of a new, printed textbook, Lyman
acknowledged that, depending on the tablet’s price tag, it could take all
four years to break even on the initial hardware investment. But he said he
hopes the additional value tablet’s many rumored features will persuade
students to buy it. After all, given everything the tablet is supposed to
do, students might regard cheaper, less cumbersome e-textbooks as a
peripheral benefit rather than a main selling point.
Green said the tablet’s
penetration on college campuses will turn largely on what current
technologies it is capable of replacing. If the features of the Apple tablet
are redundant with the functions students use on their iPod touches — or
smartphones, or laptops — then they can subtract from the cost of the tablet
the money they would have spent on those other technologies, he said. The
more gadgets the tablet makes obsolete, the cheaper the investment.
But Weil said he thinks
all this accounting is moot. College students don’t generally think in such
calculating terms when it comes to technology, he said. “At the end of the
day,” he said, “students spend more on their cell phone service than they do
on their textbooks.”
The tablet is expected to
hit the shelves in March.
The e-reader is going home-shopping for the
holidays.
Shortly after Amazon
cut the price of its Kindle e-reader, Interead,
maker of the rival Cool-er device, said it has signed on with home-shopping
network QVC to help it launch Cool-er in the U.S.
QVC will offer the e-reader, at an undisclosed
price, as part of its “Today’s Special Value” program, commonly referred to
as “TSV,” in early December.
The deal “offers more of a mass-market approach,”
said Neil Jones, Interead’s chief executive. “We’ve been looking at
non-traditional retail channels for our e-readers, as opposed to just doing
deals with bookstores.”
Forrester Research said Wednesday that the
e-reader market is outpacing expectations, and Mr. Jones said his biggest
concern is ensuring that Interead has enough Cool-er supply for the holiday
shopping season. The device will still be available for purchase through the
company’s Web site.
It currently retails in the U.S. for $250, about
what a Kindle costs. The Amazon device’s price cut is its second in three
months, though it is still more expensive than its biggest competitor, the
Sony E-Reader.
Mr. Jones started Interead in May with the goal of
being a “people’s e-reader,” after his novel was rejected by agents and
publishers. The Cooler has attracted attention for its colorful looks and
lightweight feel but received mixed reviews in terms of functionality.
He said the company is on target to sell 160,000 to
200,000 units by the end of year, more than it initially expected but far
less than some Wall Street estimates that Amazon will sell as many as 1.5
million Kindles.
In September, Interead
announced a Google partnership that Mr. Jones said
boosted sales and Web traffic, though he declined to give specific numbers.
Interead plans to unveil new features, including
wireless capabilities and color electronic ink, at the Consumer Electronics
Show in January, he said.
"Discovery E-Book Filing Raises Eyebrows: Md. Firm Mum on Patent
Application," Mike Musgrove, The Washington Post, August 29, 2009 ---
Click Here
Is Discovery Communications gearing up for a jump
into the suddenly hot e-book space? A filing made public this week by the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office raises that possibility.
According to the filing, the Silver Spring-based
media company applied in February for a patent on a product it describes as
an "electronic book having electronic commerce features."
The company did not respond to a call Friday
seeking comment on the matter.
Whatever Discovery's plans are, the electronic book
market is shaping up to be this year's most sought-after space by consumer
electronics makers. In the wake of considerable buzz for Amazon's Kindle,
consumer electronics giant Sony has been aggressively courting the market,
with a $200 version of its electronic reader announced this month and set
for a release any day now. What's more, the tech industry abounds with
rumors about a new tablet-shaped computer possibly on the way from Apple, a
product that many think will incorporate some e-book features.
Discovery, by comparison, surprised the tech world
earlier this year when it filed a lawsuit against Amazon, claiming that the
online retailer's popular Kindle product infringes on an electronic book
patent held by the media company, which is better known for its cable
offerings such as the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. Amazon has since
countersued Discovery, claiming that the cable TV company is infringing on
some of its own e-commerce patents.
Discovery had not -- and still has not -- made many
public statements about moving into the consumer electronics arena. But
according to the company's patent application, the device would be able to
play audio and video files. While other e-readers currently on the market
can play audio files, they typically don't play video clips.
Discovery's filing describes the device as being
shaped like a paperback book and containing "a novel combination of new
technology involving the television, cable, telephone and computer
industries."
Continued in article
October 9, 2009 message from Amy Dunbar to the AAA Commons
I love
my Kindle DX. I was won over when I discovered you could make the text
larger (but not in the pdf files) and, best of all, when you place your
cursor in front of a word you see the definition at the bottom of the page.
Reading with the detachable light is great at night.
I was
going to wait until Amazon put in a decent file mechanism so that all the
books aren't in one folder, but after borrowing a friend's Kindle and seeing
how easy it is to read, I had to have one. Zero regrets! Of course, there
is research to say that buyers generally don't have regret to avoid
post-purchase dissonance. ;-)
And yes,
I do store research papers in pdf format on the Kindle so I don't have to
lug them around.
In comparison with Kindle and Apple e-Book readers, Google will sell books
over the Internet that can be read on any Internet browser.
Google appears to be throwing down the gauntlet in
the e-book market.
In discussions with publishers at the annual
BookExpo convention in New York over the weekend, Google signaled its intent
to introduce a program by that would enable publishers to sell digital
versions of their newest books direct to consumers through Google. The move
would pit Google against Amazon.com, which is seeking to control the e-book
market with the versions it sells for its Kindle reading device.
. . .
Google’s e-book retail program would be separate
from the company’s settlement with authors and publishers over its
book-scanning project, under which Google has scanned more than seven
million volumes from several university libraries. A majority of those books
are out of print.
. . .
Mr. Turvey said Google’s program would allow
consumers to read books on any device with Internet access, including mobile
phones, rather than being limited to dedicated reading devices like the
Amazon Kindle. “We don’t believe that having a silo or a proprietary system
is the way that e-books will go,” he said.
He said that Google would allow publishers to set
retail prices. Amazon lets publishers set wholesale prices and then sets its
own prices for consumers. In selling e-books at $9.99, Amazon takes a loss
on each sale because publishers generally charge booksellers about half the
list price of a hardcover — typically around $13 or $14.
Jensen Comment
I've always claimed that the best device for e-Book reading is a computer. This
allows laptop users to have access to new books without having to lug about
another device. It also gives more wide ranging screen sizes, including the
largest computer screens available. Eventually, these books will probably be
available on HDTV
Public reviews are also available on Amazon for many current textbooks.
However, most of these reviews emphasize the positive and eliminate the
negative. Perhaps, as with the classics, the authors must die before members of
our academy feel free to write negative as well as positive reviews.
A music composer at Trinity University once had a cartoon on his door that
said composers have no chance whatsoever until they've been dead at least 200
years.
One superb innovation of recent times is the
readers' review section on Amazon.com. Here ordinary people get to voice
their opinions, acting as cultural watchdogs to shield their fellow book
lovers from duds. Certain individuals have built quite a reputation for
themselves online, their aperçus vying with the phoned-in ruminations of the
snooty, burned-out hacks who masquerade as professionals at our top
magazines and papers.
Of course, some reviewers can get a bit coarse and
personal in the rough-and-tumble world of Internet interfacials, but for the
most part these gifted amateurs inject a much-needed breath of fresh air
into the reviewing process. Most appealing is their absolute fearlessness
when it comes to trashing high-profile authors that mainstream reviewers
would hesitate to mix it up with.
Beholden to no man, cloaked in anonymity, they do
not hesitate to take even the brightest stars —Joyce Carol Oates, Paul
Auster, Dan Brown—to task. This is what makes citizen reviewers such a
welcome addition to the body politic: Their courageous sniping from behind
the bushes, emulating Ethan Allen and the Swamp Fox back in 1776, reaffirms
that democracy functions best when you fire your musket and then run away.
It is always fun to go back in time and speculate
on what might have happened had Anne Boleyn been on FaceBook, or had
Pharaoh's army included amphibious equipment. This is why I cannot help
wondering what a typical Amazon.com review might have looked like had the
Internet existed centuries ago:
• "King Lear"—Average reader rating: Two stars. The
author tells us: "As like flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill
us for their sport." Oh, right, like I didn't know that? Like I didn't know
that to be or not to be is the question? Like I didn't know that the fault
lies not in us but in the stars? Tell me something I don't know, Mr. Bard of
Whatever.
• "The 120 Days of Sodom"—Average Reader's Rating:
Five stars. OK, so I like totally pre-ordered this book based on the
author's name, which just happens to be the same as my maiden name—Marquis
de. Yeah, a sketchy reason to buy a book, but I was pumped. But when it got
here I didn't understand it at all. It just didn't go anywhere. It just kept
repeating itself. I went through it a few times more, searching for some
deeper, awesome meaning, but just ended up totally bummed. Actually, some
parts of it were kind of gross.
• "Oedipus Rex"—Average reader rating: Four stars.
Sophocles is a satisfying author who writes in clear, snappy prose.
Youngsters in particular could learn a lot by imitating Mr. Rex, until he
goes a bit off the rails toward the end. Nothing earth-shattering here, but
zippy stuff. Have to admit I'm still puzzled by the weird subplot involving
Mr. Rex's mother.
• "The Aeneid"—Average reader's rating: Two stars.
Whine, whine, whine! Okay, so your hometown burnt to the ground and your
family got wiped out, but do you have to keep bellyaching about it? Where's
that gonna get you, Mr. Grumpy? Basically, Virgil is a poor man's Tacitus.
He goes on and on about Priam and Dido and Zeus, when all the reader wants
is to get to the good part when the Trojans defile the Vestal Virgins. And
talk about a rip-off: He doesn't even include the story about the one-eyed
giant who can turn pigs into Greeks!
• "On the Revolution of the Celestial
Spheres"—Average Reader Rating: Three stars. Those who have read my
countless reviews elsewhere know that I am a mathematician, astronomer,
polyglot and philosopher in my own right, and therefore uniquely qualified
to discuss everything from Zeno's Paradox to Gordian's Knot. Mostly, I think
my fellow polymath Copernicus has done a pretty solid job here. The thing
most laymen don't realize—unlike mathematicians/
philosophers/astronomers/polymaths like me (as those familiar with my
numerous other reviews can tell you)—is that people like Copernicus are
really good with numbers. Just as I am. Really, really good. (Me, that is.)
Readers seeking more of my unique insights can reach me at Igor@mymommysbasement.com.
• "Deuteronomy"—Average Reader's Rating: Three
stars. I don't get it. I've read most of the books in this series, and they
totally kick butt, but this one leaves me scratching my head. Is there a
story here? Am I missing something? Why so much talk about clean and unclean
beasts? The author really got on a roll with Genesis and Exodus, and I was
on the edge of my seat when I read The Book of Numbers. But this one runs
out of gas early. Now I'm glad I skipped Leviticus!
• "Mein Kampf"—Average reader's rating: One star.
Lively writing, but just too, too depressing. Why does he keep using big
words that normal people can't understand, like lebensraum and
oberkommandant? Hey! I own a thesaurus, too! And what's up with the Jewish
thing?
Mr. Queenan, a
satirist and writer, is the author, most recently, of the memoir "Closing
Time" (Viking, 2009).
Jensen Comment
Public reviews are also available on Amazon for many current textbooks. However,
most of these reviews emphasize the positive and eliminate the negative.
Perhaps, as with the classics, the authors must die before members of our
academy feel free to write negative as well as positive reviews.
A music composer at Trinity University once had a cartoon on his door that
said composers have no chance whatsoever until they've been dead at least 200
years.
Although Amazon sells many of the classics, most classics can also be
downloaded for free ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
The above link also includes free textbooks and videos that can be downloaded
for free.
"Google Books to add Creative Commons books," The Washington Post,
August 14, 2009 ---
Click Here
Google Inc. is now enabling authors and publishers
who release their work under Creative Commons licenses to distribute it
through Google Books, a free service that allows users to search and read
books online.
Creative Commons is a nonprofit group that
encourages writers, artists and others to use its licensing tools to let
their work to be reused and shared by others in certain ways.
In a blog post Thursday, Google Books associate
product manager Xian Ke wrote that rights holders who are already part of
Google Books' partner program can update their account settings. Those who
aren't can sign up to be a partner and choose one of seven different
Creative Commons licenses.
People will be able to download these books from
Google Books and share them. If rights holders indicate that people can
modify their books, readers will be able to do that, too.
Those who download the books will be agreeing that
they will only use them in the ways the license says they may. This could
include giving the author credit if they remix the work or distribute it
publicly,
Sixty-nine percent of
university research libraries plan to increase spending on e-books over the next
two years, according to a recent study published byPrimary Research Group
Inc.This finding and others were based on a survey
of 45 research libraries in countries around the world, including the United
States, Canada, Australia, Germany, and Japan. Andrea L. Foster, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 30, 2008
---
Click Here
Amazon Plans to Market Its E-Book Reader to
Colleges Amazon is considering entering the student textbook
market with a new version of its Kindle e-book reader, according to the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Most publishers now offer electronic versions of their textbooks, but so far
there's not an attractive enough e-book reader, and Amazon aims to fill that
void. The college-oriented new model might be larger and include
student-friendly features, such as allowing making annotations, according to
a technology blog. Amazon
officers also said the high Kindle sales estimates calculated by
TechCrunch--a popular blog on internet products and
companies--are not accurate. But the electronic company refuses to make public
how many e-book reader units it has sold since Kindle was launched last
November. Maria José Viñas, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 25,
2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3268&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Book Readers versus Hard Copy Textbooks
Especially note the two messages from Cheryl Dunn Below
We're glad she was not further harmed after being carjacked at gun point
The ideal for Kindle is where virtually all textbook publishers have Kindle
versions. Then for every semester all the required textbooks in all courses can
loaded onto Kindle. Gone are the heavy backpacks. The savings to students across
the years will depend upon how much discount is obtained on Kindle versions
relative to used hard copy prices.
It’s inevitable that the day will come when hard copy will no longer be an
option because of hard copy printing costs, inventory carrying costs, logistical
costs of shipping to stores or retail customers, and the costs of buying back
unsold copies from the stores. The question is when this day will arrive. My
guess is that we are at least ten years or more away from that point in time.
Between now and 2020, book readers will improve greatly just like laptop
computers improved greatly between 1995 and 2009.
Students gain the immense advantage of Kindle’s word search. Students lose
all the comfort and other traditional benefits of curling up in bed or chair
with a book.
There is much more risk with a Kindle. If a student loses a book or has a
book stolen it’s one book. If a Kindle is stolen it can be the loss of all of a
semester’s textbooks. There’s also the risk that Kindle needs to be repaired. I
might say Kindle becomes kindle that goes up in smoke, but that’s probably going
a bit too far. Eventually there might be local repair/replacement shops for
Kindles, but that day is way off into the future.
In ideal circumstances, students should be able to submit police reports to
publishers or Amazon for free replacement downloads in a replacement Kindle.
Perhaps the Kindle licensed repair shops of the future will be able to download
free replacement books. [This is not necessary --- See
Cheryl Dunn's reply below]
Can you imagine 12 students coming ten days before the final exam and
reporting that their Kindles were stolen? In the past I’ve carried a few extra
textbooks for the occasional circumstance where a student needs to borrow a book
for a few days. Textbook reps usually supplied me with a few copies for such
purposes, but with Kindle the textbook rep will eventually be out of the
picture, especially when publishers cease to publish hard copy textbooks.
I personally think the risk of dependency on a Kindle is too high until
publishers and/or Amazon take away the worst risks. One possibility would be to
sell a backup hard drive that will only work with a given Kindle or replacement
Kindle. Then a student who must replace a Kindle could get the secret password
to download from the hard drive into the replacement Kindle.
I’ve not yet purchased a Kindle and am waiting for some improvements like
multimedia and computing capabilities. But if I were a student today given a
choice between hard copy and a Kindle version, I would go for the hard copy
every time in spite of putting my spine at risk with a heavy backpack. I guess
only nerds/faculty carry brief cases.
Eventually a book reader will not contain downloaded books. It will only
access student-rented books from one or two sources. One source might be an
on-campus library server. Backup servers might be available from publishers or
from distributors like Amazon. That eliminates much of the risk of loss of
purchased books stored on a Kindle. A book reader might have computing and note
storage drives.
Along fraternity/sorority row back at Iowa State University years ago, the
only accepted way to go to class was for fraternity men to carry a book and
clipboard on the opposite side from where a slide rule dangled from a belt.
Sorority women carried the clip board, book, and slide rule pressed to their
chests. Eventually students will be able to carry a Kindle that replaces all
this on their hips or chests. They won’t have to rush back to the fraternities
and sororities between classes just to change books.
Of course students today use back packs. I’m so old that I don’t recall
seeing a single fellow student at Iowa State University wearing a back pack.
In the rain, students usually wrapped their book and clipboard in plastic.
If you had two classes in a row, it was acceptable to carry two books and a
clipboard. More than two books turned you into a nerd.
Great analysis of the issues, Bob. As for me, I can
hardly wait to hold that lovely Kindle DX in my hands. I look forward to
waking up on Sunday morning and reading my downloaded NY Times in bed. I
will have no trouble cuddling up with a Kindle.
As for risk, back up your books! I am much more at
risk with my laptop that contains my whole life. I have hard drive backups
at school and home.
Amy Dunbar
UConn
Cheryl Dun is an accounting professor specializing in Accounting Information
Systems
She corrects some misleading comments above by Bob Jensen
May 11, 2009 reply from Cheryl Dunn
[justcheryl.dunn@GMAIL.COM]
If you purchase and download the books from Amazon,
the book is not only downloaded onto your Kindle but is also stored on your
"electronic bookshelf" where you can re-download it any time onto a kindle
that is registered to you. My brother gave me a Kindle in November for my
birthday. I had purchased and downloaded several books in the six weeks I
had it. A few days before Christmas
I was carjacked at gunpoint and my laptop,
backup hard drive, kindle, purse, and several other precious personal
possessions that were in the backseat of my vehicle were stolen. The police
recovered the vehicle, albeit with a blown engine. Insurance paid to fix
that. Insurance also replaced my Kindle, and it was very easy to download my
previously purchased books onto my replacement Kindle (which was actually
the kindle 2 since that had come out in the time I was dealing with all the
messy paperwork from the theft). Insurance replaced my laptop and backup
hard drive, but of course couldn't replace the lost data. Beware of carrying
around your backup hard drive with you -- although you are protecting
yourself from a crashed hard drive, an armed robbery will devastate you.
Online backup is a much safer way to go.
Cheryl Dunn
Grand Valley State University
May 11, 2009 reply from Bob Jensen
I’m glad it wasn’t worse for you Cheryl --- such as taking you with them.
Thanks for information about the “electronic bookshelf.”
I was an early adopter of Rocket eBook where most downloaded books were
free. New books tended not to be available for download. I found myself
using the Rocket eBook on long flights such as to Asia, Europe, and Down
Under. But it sat unused on my shelf except when I was on a long flight ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/eBooks.htm
I don’t even know where to find it after our move to the mountains.
Pricing will probably be greatly reduced when serious competition
emerges. Also there might be special offers such as pre-packaged offers of
several books for first-time buyers. Students might also get special offers,
perhaps through their college bookstores. I don’t think the cost of a Kindle
DX will be the main issue by any means.
Competitors may have more innovative ideas, especially online book
rentals. But there are other possibilities such as a Kindle-like device
that’s internal or external to a laptop computer where books can be
downloaded to suit publisher security requirements for books that can be
read on computer screens, thereby avoiding the main cost of a Kindle --- the
cost of having its own reader screen.
Yes, it could have been much worse. I am grateful
to be alive after believing for those few terrifying minutes that those
would be my last few minutes on earth. Most of the aftermath has subsided
and life is back to mostly normal.
I should also point out that if you download books
without purchasing them from Amazon, for example, if you download free books
from gutenberg.org then you may either keep your own backup copies or you
could just re-download them if anything happens. Keeping your own backup
copies would prevent you having to re-do any search(es) you did to find the
books you wanted.
Another benefit to having the kindle is the free
cellular connection to Amazon's whispernet. Although its primary purpose is
for you to use it to purchase books with immediate downloads, there is also
an experimental feature for basic web browsing. It can't handle very
complicated websites, but it still comes in handy especially when I am in
locations that don't have a wireless computer network available but do get
cellular signals (I have not yet invested in a cellular modem). And you can
highlight text passages, look up definitions, make notes, search for a word
in a book, and set bookmarks. And if you have vision difficulties you can
enlarge the font size several times. The battery life is amazing, especially
if you keep the wireless turned off when you are not using it. My only
complaint regarding my kindle is that I have to wait until the airline
personnel approve the use of electronic devices to use it on an airplane.
And I am a bit concerned about the pricing because the last couple of books
I purchased had price tags that were higher than the supposed $9.99
standard.
My son who will be starting at Michigan State
University as a physics major this fall is very excited about the kindle dx
and hopes the textbook publishers hurry to make textbooks available in
kindle format. He is willing to spend his own hard-earned money on it. And,
yes, he does curl up in bed with his current kindle to read, just as he
would with a novel.
Escalating its efforts to dominate the fledgling
industry for electronic books, Amazon introduced a new version of its
electronic book reader today, dubbed Kindle 2.
Amazon said the upgraded device has seven times the
memory as the original version, allows faster page-turns and has a crisper,
though still black-and-white, display. The Kindle 2 also features a new
design with round keys and a short, joystick-like controller — a departure
from the design aspects of the previous version, which some buyers had
criticized as awkward. The new device will ship on Feb. 24. Amazon did not
change the price for the device, which remains $359.
Though the improvements to the Kindle are only
incremental, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, defined some
ambitious goals for the device. “Our vision is every book, ever printed, in
any language, all available in less than 60 seconds,” he said at a news
conference in New York.
Amazon introduced several new features for the
Kindle. A new text-to-speech function allows readers to switch between
reading words on the device and having the words read to them by a
computerized voice. That technology was provided by Nuance, a
speech-recognition company based in Burlington, Mass.
Amazon is also allowing Kindle owners to transfer
texts between their Kindle and other mobile devices. Amazon said it is
working on making digital texts available for other gadgets (such as mobile
phones), though it did not specify which ones.
One competitive threat Amazon is facing in its
effort to dominate the world of e-books is from Google, which has scanned in
some seven million books, many of them out of print. Google has also struck
deals with publishers and authors to split the proceeds from the online
sales of those texts.
Google recently said it would soon begin selling
these books for reading on mobile devices like Apple’s iPhone and phones
running Google’s Android operating system.
Implicitly addressing the threat posed by Google,
Mr. Bezos said that Amazon knows better than other companies what
book-buyers wants and stressed Amazon’s digital catalog of 230,000 newer
books and best-sellers.
“We have tens of millions of customers who buy
books from us every day and we know what they want to read,” he said. “And
we are making sure to prioritize those items.”
Markus Dohle, chief executive of Random House, the
world’s largest publisher of consumer books and a unit of Bertelsmann of
Germany, said the company was working with Amazon and other e-book makers to
digitize its so-called backlist of older titles. When asked in an interview
after the news conference if he was concerned about the effects of Amazon’s
dominance in the e-book market, Mr. Dohle paused and laughed.
“It is not up to us to talk about Amazon’s
competition,” he said. “I don’t think that any kind of defensive business
strategy will succeed. We want to grow our business in all channels and one
of the fastest growing customers is Amazon in all areas.”
“We see the Kindle and we see e-books as a real
opportunity because we think that it will not cannibalize the physical part
of the business and it will also generate and create new readers of books,”
Mr. Dohle said.
We don’t know how soon it will happen, but it is
happening and it will be consummated soon. The commodity of the book, as we
have known it for the last few decades, is vanishing and being replaced by
new electronic media. Paper-and-binding books have irrevocably begun to fade
away as products of mass consumption and will soon transform themselves into
curios like vinyl records. The age of the massive emporium bookstore is
coming to an end under the crushing, virtual weight of the Internet.
Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader is doing well and it promises to get better
and cheaper in the future. Textbook companies have developed publishing
platforms, like
www.ichapters.com, for textbooks to be digitally
delivered to students through a price-per-chapter system. And worst of all,
if you’re a paper-and-binding book lover such as myself, people are reading
less paper than before.
In the diverse, mostly Latino first generation
student population that I teach, responses to the paper-and-binding book are
often mediated by practical economics. A few years ago I assigned Antonio
Skármeta’s beautiful, hardcover children’s book about dictatorship,
The Composition,to a Latin American
literature class. The Spanish edition I assigned cost about $25, which I
didn’t consider to be too much, especially because the total cost for all
the books in my class was under $70. All but one of the books I assigned
were books that I thought were beautiful as artifacts and as stories. These
books, I believed, would command students’ minds and hearts to such a degree
that students would want to keep them after the class was over. Most of all,
Skarmeta’s book, with its color illustrations and poignant lessons about
life and death issues was a book that I was excited to teach to my students.
When we got to discussing the book in class, several of my students did not
have the book, only black and white photocopies because they could not or
did not want to buy the book. I felt a strange mix of powerlessness,
disappointment and distance. I had conscientiously made my class inexpensive
compared to other classes, but it was not inexpensive enough.
Lest you think that this was an isolated situation,
a few examples from one of my current classes come to mind. I have one
student who has not bought any of the books on the syllabus because he reads
the 19th-century classics I have assigned off of the Internet on his laptop,
which he brings to class for discussions. Another student has already begun
returning the books we’ve read in class so far, after confirming that they
would not be covered in the final exam. A third student, a talented and
curious young man who arrives to class with an ipod plugged into his ears,
is a graduating senior who had never read a novel before my class. They are
all bright, responsible and hard-working students but they are not consumers
of books. This is also reflected in the reaction that dozens upon dozens of
students have had upon entering my office over the years and noticing my 5
or 6 huge bookshelves full of books. They ask: “Have you really read
all of these books?” Which sometimes leads to an interesting conversation
about my library, in which I explain which parts are my teaching reference
and which parts are the books that I’ve read cover to cover.
The fate of the book in the university classroom is
impacted by many factors: the use of instructional technology, the economics
of textbook publishing and the pedagogical idiosyncrasies of professors, who
either promote the disappearance of the paper-and-binding book or try to
reinforce its value in the classroom. Let’s look at each one of these
factors for a moment. Naturally, in some contexts and disciplines, it is
relatively easy to teach a class without books thanks to the wealth of
realia and sources on the Web, whether they be freely available, or
available through institutionally subscribed databases. In fact,
I find great material online and value its role in
my courses. I think that we can agree that some material may be best taught
off of the Internet.
The economics of textbook publishing is a little
bit more complicated and ties in with the surprising choices some faculty
members make as teachers. The bottom line is that a lot of textbooks are
just too expensive for what you get. There are certain kinds of textbooks,
ubiquitous in certain disciplines, that have become monsters of paper and
color, a carnival of colored insets and attention-getting graphic design and
layout. They are alternately exciting or stupid, but always exhausting.
Worst of all, they are dreadfully disposable. The dizzying rate at which one
edition substitutes another so that a publisher can make a profit or stay in
business makes these books as valuable and as enduring as colored
photocopies. This wasteful, pathetic cycle is the best argument for doing
away with over-saturated textbooks altogether and going to an online,
subscription model.
Other textbooks are more modestly priced and
dispense with the graphic fireworks and multiple editions. These thoughtful
anthologies or edited volumes are reasonably priced and straddle the border
between textbook and stand-alone book. You can see their classroom
application immediately but you can also see these books sitting on a public
or university library shelf, and yes, even resting on your average reader’s
night table. These books are the innovative work of professors, not a
corporate marketing team, and are designed for other professors to use in
their classes. Although reasonably priced, you would be mistaken to think
that all professors value such books. Many professors will spend countless
hours putting together elaborate and voluminous course packets of
photocopies for classroom use (I used to be one of them). And now, it is
more frequent for technologically minded teachers to file-share large
numbers of PDFs through password protected sites on campus. This is so wrong
it hurts. We are killing our own chances to have readers in the future or be
remunerated for the scholarship we do. It’s not only about the modest
royalties that faculty authors may or may not receive, it’s about the
principle of valuing each other’s scholarship and editorial work. I order
good, attractive and useful paper-and-binding books or textbooks for my
classes because I want there to be a system in place to support my work as
an author and editor in the future.
If the paper and binding book vanishes as a
dominant commodity, as it seems to be, maybe the new virtual system of book
distribution, reproduction and delivery will allay some of the problems I
describe in relation to photocopies and PDFs. It is becoming increasingly
easier to put together affordable ‘readers’ or anthologies culled from
existing print material without bypassing rights and fees and without
overloading students with unnecessary expense. If this wave of the future
takes hold and becomes the new standard in textbook publishing, I think it
will be good for all parties involved. But what about the paper-and-binding
book? Say you are teaching David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and
you had a choice between an excellent paper-and-binding edition by a major
academic press, with useful footnotes and front matter, and an electronic
edition that students could download to their handy e-book readers, along
with selected secondary articles you have selected for them to read? What if
their e-book readers had a stylus and/or a network that enabled the class to
annotate those assigned texts, and share them over the class network? I
don’t think anyone’s nostalgia for paper-and-binding can replace the
pedagogical value of my not-so-fanciful or far-fetched e-book scenario.
And yet I am sad about the fading of the
paper-and-binding book and I am not going into the good night without
putting up a good fight. I am committed to making the cost of my assigned
books affordable. I order my books with care and I try to use them in their
entirety, so that students get affordable books that are actually used in
the class. This does not mean that I limit myself. I do use the occasional
supplement (or two or three) and I share with my classes my disagreements
with the books or textbooks that I am using. I continue to pick books that I
believe are worth keeping and treasuring, both for the words they contain
and for their tactile beauty as works of art and design. I want the books
that my students hold in their hands to have the heft of what is important
and of what is beautiful. I want that student who never read a novel before
my class to value the physicality of the reading a paper-and-binding book.
This endangered act, after all, will connect him to a centuries-old,
vanishing tradition that has touched the lives of millions and altered the
course of history on many occasions. That’s just too good to pass up.
That great new book is timed for release this
summer, and you’d love to have it on your syllabus for the fall semester.
But like many a high-demand scholarly book, the one you have your eye on is
being released only in hardcover. If you’re willing to spring for (and have
your students pay) the full hardcover price, you can choose to buy now or,
in some cases, make an electronic version of the book through a service like
NetLibrary.
More likely, though, you’re going to decide to wait
the year or more until the paperback edition comes out, bringing the price
down into a reasonable range for students.
The State University of New York Press hopes
its new “Direct Text” program
provides another alternative for the college faculty
member and her students. Under the program, which was announced Tuesday, the
press will simultaneously make available, for $20, electronic copies of
front-list books that are released only in hardcover. Professors, students
or others have several options: They can download or print copies of the
book, or they can gain online access to it for 180 days. About 20 such
titles are available now, and the press expects 100-plus books to be
available in this format each year, many in its core fields of philosophy,
political science and Asian studies.
“In the past, a professor may not or probably would
not have been able to assign that book until it came out in paperback,” said
Dan Flynn, marketing director for SUNY Press, adding that oftentimes, by
then, the content of some scholarly books has lost currency. “This approach
takes those books, which are important as a teaching tool for their
students, and makes it an affordable purchase for them.”
Flynn said SUNY believed it to be the first press
making hardcover-only, front-list titles available simultaneously in a
lower-cost electronic form. Alex Gendler, founder and president of
Publishers Row, the company whose software undergirds the Direct Text
program, said that while Hebrew University’s Magnus Press was using a
similar technology, he too believed SUNY was the first American press to
take such an approach.
Flynn and Gendler noted that many presses want to
keep publishing hardcover books so that they can be sold to libraries — an
important source of income — but need to find ways of making the titles
affordable to students for use in courses.
SUNY Press’s latest effort, Flynn said, shows that
the press is “continuing to adjust to the new paradigm of publishing. Really
what this is about, first and foremost, is giving the purchaser of the book
what they want in an affordable way. We’re trying to make it available, make
it affordable, and make it accessible.”
By mid-day Tuesday, within hours of launching the
new program, the press had its first sale: David Janssens’s Between
Athens and Jerusalem: Philosophy, Prophesy and Politics in Leo Strauss’s
Early Thought.
Jensen Comment
I viewed an Excel spreadsheet of the current listings in SUNY's DirectText
program. They're pretty much low volume books where the publisher is probably
more thankful for any added revenues from the book vis-a-vis mainline textbooks
like we see in accounting, finance, and business courses. There might be some
reading supplements in a few courses such as business ethics. Fortunately our
major textbook publishers are increasingly offering electronic versions
themselves. However, the price is much higher than $20 per password.
Students that can afford it may well want to
order a package deal of both the hard copy and the electronic versions. The
reason is that hardcopy is preferred for reading and scanning (even by me) and
that electronic versions are better for word searches, bookmarks, and hot links
that take you to amazing Websites (like mine, ha ha). Thus far, however, I find
that basic textbook authors in accounting don't provide much evidence that they
are knowledgeable Web surfers.
At a minimum financial accounting and AIS
textbooks should provide links such as the following links:
The ideal for Kindle is where virtually all textbook publishers have Kindle
versions. Then for every semester all the required textbooks in all courses can
loaded onto Kindle. Gone are the heavy backpacks. The savings to students across
the years will depend upon how much discount is obtained on Kindle versions
relative to used hard copy prices.
It’s inevitable that the day will come when hard copy will no longer be an
option because of hard copy printing costs, inventory carrying costs, logistical
costs of shipping to stores or retail customers, and the costs of buying back
unsold copies from the stores. The question is when this day will arrive. My
guess is that we are at least ten years or more away from that point in time.
Between now and 2020, book readers will improve greatly just like laptop
computers improved greatly between 1995 and 2009.
Students gain the immense advantage of Kindle’s word search. Students lose
all the comfort and other traditional benefits of curling up in bed or chair
with a book.
There is much more risk with a Kindle. If a student loses a book or has a
book stolen it’s one book. If a Kindle is stolen it can be the loss of all of a
semester’s textbooks. There’s also the risk that Kindle needs to be repaired. I
might say Kindle becomes kindle that goes up in smoke, but that’s probably going
a bit too far. Eventually there might be local repair/replacement shops for
Kindles, but that day is way off into the future.
In ideal circumstances, students should be able to submit police reports to
publishers or Amazon for free replacement downloads in a replacement Kindle.
Perhaps the Kindle licensed repair shops of the future will be able to download
free replacement books.
Can you imagine 12 students coming ten days before the final exam and
reporting that their Kindles were stolen? In the past I’ve carried a few extra
textbooks for the occasional circumstance where a student needs to borrow a book
for a few days. Textbook reps usually supplied me with a few copies for such
purposes, but with Kindle the textbook rep will eventually be out of the
picture, especially when publishers cease to publish hard copy textbooks.
I personally think the risk of dependency on a Kindle is too high until
publishers and/or Amazon take away the worst risks. One possibility would be to
sell a backup hard drive that will only work with a given Kindle or replacement
Kindle. Then a student who must replace a Kindle could get the secret password
to download from the hard drive into the replacement Kindle.
I’ve not yet purchased a Kindle and am waiting for some improvements like
multimedia and computing capabilities. But if I were a student today given a
choice between hard copy and a Kindle version, I would go for the hard copy
every time in spite of putting my spine at risk with a heavy backpack. I guess
only nerds/faculty carry brief cases.
Eventually a book reader will not contain downloaded books. It will only
access student-rented books from one or two sources. One source might be an
on-campus library server. Backup servers might be available from publishers or
from distributors like Amazon. That eliminates much of the risk of loss of
purchased books stored on a Kindle. A book reader might have computing and note
storage drives.
Along fraternity/sorority row back at Iowa State University years ago, the
only accepted way to go to class was for fraternity men to carry a book and
clipboard on the opposite side from where a slide rule dangled from a belt.
Sorority women carried the clip board, book, and slide rule pressed to their
chests. Eventually students will be able to carry a Kindle that replaces all
this on their hips or chests. They won’t have to rush back to the fraternities
and sororities between classes just to change books.
Of course students today use back packs. I’m so old that I don’t recall
seeing a single fellow student at Iowa State University wearing a back pack. In
the rain, students usually wrapped their book and clipboard in plastic. If you
had two classes in a row, it was acceptable to carry two books and a clipboard.
More than two books turned you into a nerd.
For a decade now, publishers have been hoping to
wean readers off books and move them to electronic versions, which are much
cheaper to produce and distribute.
It just hasn't happened, even with the support of
an electronics giant like Sony, which put out a dedicated e-book reader last
year. Amazon.com Inc. recently followed up with its own reader.
But if you look away from the mainstream publishing
industry, e-books are already a success in a few niches, where they are
giving rise to new ways of doing business. The standout example is
role-playing games, but buyers of college textbooks and even romance novels
are warming to e-books.
Witness Gareth-Michael Skarka, a representative of
one of our newest professions: the e-book publisher. ''E-book publishers''
that reformat printed books into electronic formats have been around for a
while, but Skarka commissions, edits and sells books that overwhelmingly
never see print, and would never have existed if it weren't for electronic
publishing.
''Most of our customers are fairly comfortable with
the electronic format,'' said Skarka. He pulls in around $50,000 a year in
sales, enough to make a living of it in Lawrence, Kan., where he is based.
The 156 e-books in Portable Document Format, or
PDF, sold by Skarka's Adamant Entertainment aren't exactly highbrow
literature. With titles like ''Slavers of Mars,'' and ''One Million Magic
Items,'' they're aimed at people who play role-playing games -- the most
famous of which would be ''Dungeons & Dragons.'' Skarka's prices are mostly
less than $10, but the e-books aren't hugely cheaper than printed books,
because most of the PDFs are short.
Role-players buy lots of books, which contain rules
for their games or expand on the imaginary worlds in which they are set.
It's fiction, but it's more like reference material than the kind of long
narratives you'd find in novels. Industry insiders see that as a big reason
PDFs work for role-players.
''In general, it's not the 300-page prose novels
that people want to read on the screen,'' said Steve Wieck, who co-founded
one of the most successful publishers of role-playing games, Atlanta-based
White Wolf Inc., in the early 90s.
Wieck started noticing that a lot of White Wolf's
releases would be scanned by fans and pirated online. Following a ''can't
beat 'em -- join 'em'' strategy, he and his brother started DriveThruRPG.com
in 2004 to sell PDFs, gathering books from many publishers, including
Adamant Entertainment.
Wieck and Skarka estimate that e-book sales make up
10 percent of the $25 million in annual RPG sales. DriveThruRPG alone does
$2 million in business annually. By comparison, the Association of American
publishers put 2006 e-book sales at $54 million, 0.02 percent of total book
sales of $24.2 billion.
Marc Zuckerman, a role-player in Rockville Centre,
N.Y., bought his first e-book six months ago, even though he already has, or
at least may have, a print copy of the book. His copy of the superhero game
''Villains and Vigilantes'' got lost in a move. Originally published in
1982, it's long out of print but available on DriveThruRPG.
''It's really nifty to be able to walk into a
gaming session and plug in my laptop and everything is there, as opposed to
lugging 40 books,'' Zuckerman said.
Look for a Year of E-Textbooks in 2008 Over the past year, a consortium of major textbook
publishers and several competing ventures have been getting ready for a new push
in what is becoming a small but steadily growing fraction of the overall market
for college students. “Those efforts are starting to crack the surface of
digital content being a serious growing enterprise in higher education,” said
Evan Schnittman, vice president of business development and rights for Oxford
University Press’s academic and U.S. divisions. McGraw-Hill Education, for
example, offers almost 95 percent of its textbooks as e-books, and the publisher
has seen a steady growth in interest over the past several years, albeit from a
small base. Their logic seems unassailable: With laptops now an ubiquitous
presence on college campuses and textbook prices ever on the rise and suddenly a
hot issue, technologically inclined students seem poised to change their study
habits — and save a lot of money — by forgoing scribbles in the margin and
trading in their highlighters for cursors.
"E-Textbooks — for Real This Time?" Inside Higher Ed, January 3, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/03/eBooks
Yale University Press Goes the E-Book Route Yale
University Press is relying on a new piece of software to make its titles
more widely available. The program, CoreSource, interfaces with Microsoft's
Live Search Books program. The idea is that the press will be able to
digitize more of its books and potential buyers will be able to find them
through Live Search Books. If motivated by the text, users can become buyers
through print-on-demand programs.
See above for the updated 2007 module on Amazon's Kindle!
Making Digital Books Into Page Turners
Despite tepid response to its Reader, Sony sees potential in the market--and
Amazon may agree
Nearly 10 Months After its debut, the Sony Reader is
hardly a game changer. Reviews of the tiny handheld book-reading device have
been tepid at best, and Sony Corp. has consistently declined to release sales
figures, which just might tell you something. But Sony isn't backing away. In
fact, as speculation continues in publishing circles that book e-tailing giant
Amazon.com is planning to come out with its own portable reader, Sony is
launching a number of initiatives to give its Reader more sizzle. The market for
digital books is nascent, and Sony, despite the Reader's less-than-splashy
debut, still sees its potential, believing people will eventually warm to
reading on a flat screen everything from books to the magazine you're holding
now. The half-inch-thick Sony Reader, which can store about 80 electronic books,
allows readers to flip pages and adjust the type size. It sells for about $300,
and digital book downloads range from $2 to $20 apiece. Business Week, September 3, 2007 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_36/b4048065.htm?link_position=link9
Question
What made the old Sony Walkman better than all new "audiobooks" for the blind?
As a library trying to implement digital audiobooks
for our patrons, the dreadful state of player technology presents us with a
serious obstacle ("Getting an Earful of Printed Words -- Downloads, Small
Devices Draw a Wider Audience of Audiobook Listeners," Personal Journal, Sept.
28). The nearly 30-year-old Sony Walkman is easy to grasp and can be used by
anyone with about 10 seconds of training. The controls can be manipulated with
ease in the dark or by a blind person. It is cheap, reliable and has a
consistent form factor. But the new, portable digital media players, regardless
of price and maker, suffer from overengineering, and their features are focused
on the music customer, ignoring the needs of the audio book user. None of the
new devices can be used by the blind or visually impaired because the controls
have no tactile feedback, are multifunction and ridiculously small. The
displays, when they exist, are too small even for people with good eyesight. The
process of downloading the book, transferring it to the device and then trying
to keep your place while "reading" over a series of hours, days or weeks is
daunting to the best and impossible for many. Many users give up after trying it
once or twice.
Vern Mastel, "New Audiobook Technology Frustrates Blind Listeners," The Wall
Street Journal, October 7, 2006 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116017662453985426.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Sure, there are electronic books
available for download at Amazon and elsewhere, but they haven't really
caught on. Sony Corp. is now tackling part of the problem with the U.S.
launch of the first e-book reader that imitates the look of paper by using
an innovative screen technology.
Is this the iPod for books? Not quite. But it is a step forward.
The Sony Reader is a handsome affair the size of a paperback book, but only
a third of an inch thick. It goes on sale for $350 on Sony's Web site
Wednesday, and in Borders stores in October.
The 6-inch screen can be taken for a monochrome liquid-crystal display at
first glance, but on closer inspection looks like no other electronic
display. It's behind a thin pane of glass, but unlike an LCD it shows no
"depth" - it pretty much looks like a light gray piece of paper with dark
gray text.
The display, based on technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spinoff E Ink Corp., is composed of tiny capsules with electrically charged
particles of white and black ink. When a static electric charge is applied
on the side of the capsule that faces the reader, it attracts the white
particles to the face of the display, making that pixel show light gray.
Reversing the charge brings the black pigments floating through the capsule
to replace the white pigments, and the pixel shows as dark gray.
Like paper, the display is readable from any angle, but it doesn't look as
good as the real thing, chiefly because the contrast doesn't compare well.
The background isn't white and the letters aren't black. The letters show
some jaggedness, even though the resolution is a very respectable 800 by 600
pixels. It will display photos, though they look a bit like black-and-white
photocopies.
But it's still a more comfortable reading medium than any other electronic
display. The text is easy on the eyes in almost any light you could read a
book by.
The other major advantage of the display is that it's a real power sipper.
Sony says a Reader with a full charge in its lithium battery can show up to
7,500 pages, an amazing figure that I unfortunately didn't have the time to
test.
The reason behind this trilogy-busting stamina is that the display only
consumes power when it flips to a new page. Displaying the same page
continuously consumes no power, though the electronics of the device itself
do use a little bit.
The Reader's internal memory holds up to 100 books, depending on their size.
The memory can be expanded with inexpensive SD cards or Memory Sticks.
To load books, connect the Reader with a supplied cable to a Windows PC
running the accompanying software. You can transfer Word documents or
Portable Document Format files to the Reader, download blog feeds, or buy
e-books at Sony's online store. It will also play MP3 music or audiobook
files.
The store is not live yet, so I was unable to test it,
but the interface looks comfortably like that of iTunes. It should have
10,000 titles at launch, Sony said, with major titles from publishers like
HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster and Penguin-Putnam. In keeping with the
e-book market so far, there's no big price break: the electronic version
will cost a dollar or so less than the printed book.
The Reader would be a perfect companion for the avid book reader, but for a
few things.
First of all, navigation is fairly clumsy. You can't just enter the page
number and jump to the page, nor can you enter a word or phrase to search
for, as you can when reading a book on a PC. To get around, there are 10
buttons that will each take you a 10th of the way through text. You can also
jump to chapter starts, or return to bookmarks. Still, this is very much a
one-way device, designed for reading a book straight through from cover to
cover.
This lack of interactivity is partly because the screen is slow to change,
since it takes time for the pigments to move through the capsules. It takes
about a second to display a new page. That means no scrolling through pages,
and no note-taking on the screen - imagine having to wait a second for each
letter you write to appear.
Secondly, and less importantly, the Reader handles PDFs poorly. It doesn't
allow you to zoom in on them, so if they're formatted for standard
8.5-inch-by-11-inch pages, the text will be illegibly small.
Thirdly, the Reader doesn't have a built-in light source, unlike PCs and
personal digital assistants. A small clip-on light of the kind sold for
books should work well, though.
Because of these drawbacks, it's hard to see the Reader as something that
will bust the e-book market open. But it deserves a much better reception
than the generally small LCD-based devices that hit the market a couple of
years ago, some of which are already discontinued.
Other competition comes from cell phones and PDAs, but none of them match
the Reader for screen size, legibility and battery life. Laptops, Tablet PCs
and tablet-style Ultra-Mobile PCs have the screen size, but are heavier,
more expensive, take time to boot up and have short battery lives.
The real competition, though, will be printed books, which have so far
defeated all digital contenders with their excellent "battery life" and
"display quality." Sony's going to have to try a little harder before it can
really start saving trees.
"Gutenberg 1, Sony 0: Its reader is hurt by clunky software and
a clueless bookstore," by Stephen H. Wildstrom, Business Week, October
16, 2006 ---
Click Here
In an age when digital distribution of content is
becoming the norm, the oldest mass medium has remained stubbornly resistant.
Most recorded music is available for download, as are newspapers, magazines,
and some TV shows. But books remain stuck in the Gutenberg era, with
minuscule sales of the few titles that exist in electronic form.
Sony's much delayed Reader aims to change that. It
will be available in October for about $350, which includes a credit for $50
in book purchases. Even though the Reader has its flaws, it's a vast
improvement over various other e-book designs rolled out in the past decade.
I can't say the same for the clunky software that manages book purchases and
Reader downloads on a Windows PC, or for Sony's attempt at an online
bookstore, which is reminiscent of its clueless efforts to sell music
online.
The 12-oz. Reader is about the size of a standard
paperback. Just half an inch thick in its handsome black leather cover, it
has enough memory to store dozens of books. When the Reader is set to a
standard type size, the 4 3/4-by-3 3/4-in. screen contains perhaps half as
much text as a typical book page. The display itself is revolutionary. E
Ink, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off, has been laboring for
years to perfect the technology, which generates crisp black letters by
selectively rotating millions of half-white, half-black balls.
While far better than the monochrome displays on
earlier e-books in both appearance and power consumption (it will run for
days on a charge), the Reader falls short of real print on paper. The
promised black-on-white effect is more like dark gray on light gray. And
when you press a button to turn a page, it takes about a second to respond,
during which interval the page turns black, a minor but distinct annoyance.
ANY E-BOOK READER IS BOUND TO INVOLVE COMRPOMISES
The Sony Reader's storage capacity is effectively unlimited, since you can
add memory cards. This lets you carry a library of books in a tiny package.
On the other hand, the reading experience is far inferior to that of a real
book, partly because all concept of page design is lost. For example, in the
best-selling Freakonomics, tables that are barely legible on the Reader to
begin with sometimes break over two pages. Files downloaded from a computer
(via a usb cable) fare worse. I found that most pdf files were unreadable
even in the largest type size, and I could not get Word files to download at
all.
Another big limitation is that the display can show
only four shades of gray, thus restricting graphics to line drawings. This
essentially disqualifies the Reader from one of its most attractive uses,
textbooks.
These deficits, however, pale compared to Sony's
Connect bookstore (eBooks.connect.com), which seems to be the work of
someone who has never visited Amazon.com (AMZN ). Sony offers 10,000 titles,
but that doesn't mean you will find what you want. For example, only four of
the top 10 titles on the Oct. 1 New York Times paperback best-seller list
showed up. On the other hand, many books are priced below their print
equivalents—most $7.99 paperbacks go for $6.39—and can be shared among any
combination of three Readers or pcs, much as Apple (AAPL ) iTunes allows
multiple devices to share songs.
The worst problem is that search, the essence of an
online bookstore, is broken. An author search for Dan Brown turned up 84
books, three of them by Dan Brown, the rest by people named Dan or Brown, or
sometimes neither. Putting a search term in quotes should limit the results
to those where the exact phrase occurs, but at the Sony store, it produced
chaos. "Dan Brown" yielded 500 titles, mostly by people named neither Dan
nor Brown. And the store doesn't provide suggestions for related titles,
reviews, previews—all those little extras that make Amazon great.
The problems of the store and software are fixable.
But unless Sony repairs them fast, the Reader may be headed for the scrap
heap of failed e-book readers.
At 7 inches by 5 inches and with a 6-inch diagonal
screen, the Sony Reader approximates paperback size, though at only 0.5
inches high it's skinnier than most. Visually, the reading experience is
uncannily like that of its paper counterpart: The Reader's 800-by-600
resolution is typographically crisp at any normal (and even abnormal)
reading angle, and eminently readable in the sharpest sunlight.
This revelation is due to E Ink technology:
Positively or negatively charged microcapsules display black or white on the
screen, which holds that charge -- and the screen's image -- until another
page's charge replaces it. The upshot of that is that you experience a
static, non-flickering screen -- albeit a grayscale one -- with the added
benefit of very low power consumption. I could discern some "ghosting" of
the previous screen's contents on the display, but a Sony spokesman said
that effect would be reduced at release time, though not completely
eradicated.
Books have been a bit of the orphan in the digital
world. Music has the iPod. Video has YouTube. Books have, well, Amazon.com,
where you can buy them printed on paper.
Sure, there are electronic books available for
download at Amazon and elsewhere, but they haven't really caught on. Sony
Corp. is now tackling part of the problem with the U.S. launch of the first
e-book reader that imitates the look of paper by using an innovative screen
technology.
Is this the iPod for books? Not quite. But it is a
step forward.
The Sony Reader is a handsome affair the size of a
paperback book, but only a third of an inch thick. It goes on sale for $350
on Sony's Web site Wednesday, and in Borders stores in October.
The 6-inch screen can be taken for a monochrome
liquid-crystal display at first glance, but on closer inspection looks like
no other electronic display. It's behind a thin pane of glass, but unlike an
LCD it shows no ''depth'' -- it pretty much looks like a light gray piece of
paper with dark gray text.
The display, based on technology from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology spinoff E Ink Corp., is composed of tiny capsules
with electrically charged particles of white and black ink. When a static
electric charge is applied on the side of the capsule that faces the reader,
it attracts the white particles to the face of the display, making that
pixel show light gray. Reversing the charge brings the black pigments
floating through the capsule to replace the white pigments, and the pixel
shows as dark gray.
Like paper, the display is readable from any angle,
but it doesn't look as good as the real thing, chiefly because the contrast
doesn't compare well. The background isn't white and the letters aren't
black. The letters show some jaggedness, even though the resolution is a
very respectable 800 by 600 pixels. It will display photos, though they look
a bit like black-and-white photocopies.
But it's still a more comfortable reading medium
than any other electronic display. The text is easy on the eyes in almost
any light you could read a book by.
The other major advantage of the display is that
it's a real power sipper. Sony says a Reader with a full charge in its
lithium battery can show up to 7,500 pages, an amazing figure that I
unfortunately didn't have the time to test.
The reason behind this trilogy-busting stamina is
that the display only consumes power when it flips to a new page. Displaying
the same page continuously consumes no power, though the electronics of the
device itself do use a little bit.
The Reader's internal memory holds up to 100 books,
depending on their size. The memory can be expanded with inexpensive SD
cards or Memory Sticks.
Yale University Press Goes the E-Book Route Yale
University Press is relying on a new piece of software to make its titles
more widely available. The program, CoreSource, interfaces with Microsoft's
Live Search Books program. The idea is that the press will be able to
digitize more of its books and potential buyers will be able to find them
through Live Search Books. If motivated by the text, users can become buyers
through print-on-demand programs.
Clearly, the movement toward digital content delivery
is gaining steam. And, as such, it is not surprising to read that the
technology’s more vocal enthusiasts are forecasting nothing short of a
revolution in academic research, teaching, reading, writing, and publishing once
it becomes ubiquitous.Over atif:book,
the collective blog of the “Institute for the Future of the Book,” commentators
have had a great deal to say about the immense transformations that digital
delivery and online publishing will effect on the academy and academics.
Scott W. Palmer, "If:book, Then What?" Inside Higher Ed, August 15, 2006
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/08/15/palmer
My name is Ivy, and I work for ECNext, Inc. After
reviewing your website, specifically the Links section,
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000aaa/eBooks.htm ,
I wanted to propose you consider adding a new online textbooks site,
iChapters.com.
iChapters.com offers brand new textbooks, in
electronic & print formats. Electronic versions of college textbooks,
including individual chapters, are available for immediate download at
affordable prices. Only at iChapters.com can you choose to buy just what you
need at the price you want to pay.
Students who frequent your website, especially
those with a tight budget, will surely benefit from iChapters. I am hoping
that you can help them find us by including iChapters (
http://www.iChapters.com
) on your Links section.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me (
ibanaag@ecnext.com )
if you have any questions.
I really appreciated your remark about what your
print publications have meant to you as compared to the web based stuff. I
have mentioned that to many since and pointed out how anachronistic paper
publishing seems to be. Check out the new Sony book reader. Uses the
electronic ink technology developed at MIT several years ago to render the
screen infinitely more readable and brighter than the LCD screens and
brighter than ink on paper. I am hoping this is the e-book reader that will
end the talk of "I can't read from a computer screen."
chuck
Charles B. White
V.P. Information Resources and Administrative Affairs,
Trinity University
The Renewed Upward Trend in Portable Electronic Books Richard D. Warren, a 58-year-old lawyer in California,
is halfway through Ken Follett's novel Jackdaws. But he doesn't bother carrying
around the book itself. Instead, he has a digital version of Follett he reads on
his Palm Treo each morning as he commutes by train to San Francisco from his
home in Berkeley. He's a big fan of such digital books. Usually, there are
around seven titles on his Treo, and he buys at least two new ones each month.
"It's just so versatile," he says. "I've tried to convert some friends to this,
but they think it's kind of geeky." Geeky? For now, maybe, but not for much
longer. Many experts are convinced that digital books, after plenty of false
starts, are finally ready for takeoff. "Every other form of media has gone
digital -- music, newspapers, movies," says Joni Evans, a top literary agent who
just left the William Morris Agency to start her own company that will focus on
books and technology. "We're the only industry that hasn't lived up to the pace
of technology. A revolution is around the corner."
"Digital Books: Start A New Chapter Lighter devices, better displays, and
the iPod craze could make them best-sellers," Business Week, February 27,
2006 ---
Click Here
1. Many of these "free" books are books that have
been dropped by publishing firms or were never accepted by publishing firms
in the first place. If they were dropped, they have met a rigorous reviewing
process and may have made money for the authors. In fact they might have
been dropped simply due to the all-to-frequent process of publishing company
mergers that left publisher oligopolists with too many textbooks on a given
topic.
2. Whereas the end consumer makes many choices about
whether to use a product with advertising (e.g., magazine subscriptions,
newspaper purchases, Google searches, etc.), the choice of a textbook is
usually in the hands of instructors rather than end user students. In
general, students are ceteris paribus grateful for free textbooks even if
they must endure a certain amount of advertising. It's the "ceteris paribus"
part that's a problem. Those new textbooks costing students $90 or more
(without advertising) provide incentives for authors to make careful revised
editions. Also publishing firms have the revenues to provide improved
supplements (most of which really need improving in the accounting textbook
market sector). As of yet free textbooks, with or without advertising,
provide little monetary incentive to authors or free-book publishing firms
to constantly improve the product.
3. Free textbooks are not available in hard copy.
Some electronic publishers offer hard copy versions, usually at prices
cheaper than photocopying entire books would cost. Many of us, and I mean me
especially, prefer a hard copy version to read and an electronic version to
search. Good electronic versions also provide convenient hypertext links and
possibly even some multimedia. Although Cybertext does not offer free
textbooks, I like the Cybertext option to also buy a hardcopy version. And I
like the hot links in the electronic versions and the option to take quizzes
online with results being graded and sent to instructors ---
http://www.cybertext.com/
Publishers of free textbooks are never likely to offer such services unless
advertising revenues become very successful. I don't think any of them are
at that point yet.
4. We should all be grateful that free textbooks
exist even if we do not ourselves adopt them for our courses. In this age of
price gouging by publisher oligopolies, the free textbook alternatives may
be about the only serious competition that publishers face, especially when,
not if, textbook publishers finally invent a way to eliminate the used
textbook market in their own books.
February 14, 2006 message from a distributor of free
textbooks (that do have advertising)
To date our free textbooks have been made possible
by a combination of angel investor money and by the principals in the
company, who have invested both their time and money. We have some
advertisers (download a book and you'll see) and seek more. We are actively
pursuing sponsorships. More investment has been promised. Authors receive a
percentage of our revenues -- "net receipts"-- per book. They sign on
because of their confidence in our business model and in us.
We sell the paperback copies pretty much at cost.
Regardless, those monies are very limited, inasmuch as only about 5 percent
of students, thus far, end up buying the print book.
What propels our business is the widespread
perception that text prices are unreasonable. We are addressing this
situation in an innovative way. Moreover, we do not skimp on instructor
support; all our titles come with ancillaries available to adopters.
In this case, "free" really does mean free. This is
not the proper forum, but I can provide testimonials and contact information
for many people who already have benefited from this service.
Sony Reader: The New eBook Alternative Electronic books have traditionally gone
straight from the manufacturer to the remainders bin -- but the market has
never gone away entirely, despite years of tepid sales and failed
predictions. Now a new device from Sony is generating buzz worthy of a
Stephen King novel. Some people are even wondering whether the Sony Reader
might be just the ticket to kick the e-book market into high gear.
Dylan Tweney, "Screening the Latest Bestseller," Wired News, January
24, 2006 ---
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70039-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_13
I've been watching companies' efforts to develop
e-book offerings for a long time. As a quadriplegic, I can't hold a book, so
reading literature on the computer seems like an obvious solution.
Alas, companies like Microsoft, Adobe and Palm have
failed in their e-book endeavors. They've introduced proprietary, encrypted
formats that require their respective software to be installed before
reading them, in effect destroying a book's inherent characteristic:
portability.
Amazon seems to be on the brink of doing e-books
right, and I'm keeping my proverbial fingers crossed. By taking advantage of
the web's ubiquity, Amazon can restore portability: Pay once, read anywhere.
In November, Amazon announced two new services for
accessing books online. The company seems to be targeting programmers and
students who would welcome freedom from toting enormous texts. But Amazon
has another, perhaps unforeseen, set of customers: the disabled.
Amazon Pages will allow readers to buy online
access to individual pages and chapters from books instead of the entire
thing, presumably for a few cents a page. Amazon Upgrade will let readers
purchase, for a similar premium, perpetual access to an online digital copy
of the text.
If the services turn out to be as good as they
sound, I plan on taking full advantage of them. I miss the comforting
sensation of curling up with a good book at night, promising myself that I
would only read one more chapter before becoming so engrossed in the story
that I devour it whole and am barely aware of the fact that, as my eyelids
are closing, the sun is rising on the next day.
It truly is the little things in life that make it
worth living.
The joy of holding a book again won't be happening
in the next year, but Amazon's proposed services, assuming they are well
implemented, will reopen the boundless horizons of literature to me and
other similarly disabled readers.
Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, told Fox
News that publishers will decide whether their books will be included in the
programs, unlike Google Print, which requires publishers to opt out. Among
the publishers I'm rooting for are Penguin Group and Tor. (So, give Mr.
Bezos a call. Today. Please? The Shadowrun and The Wheel of Time series,
among others, beckon.)
The Amazon services should allow publishers to have
their content available as plain text, as do niche sites such as The
National Academies Press, InformIT's Safari and Safari's predecessor site,
MacMillan's Personal Bookshelf (an all-time favorite, now deceased, that
allowed me to learn a lot for free).
Ariz. High School Swaps Books for Laptops Students at Empire High School here started class this
year with no textbooks _ but it wasn't because of a funding crisis. Instead, the
school issued iBooks _ laptop computers by Apple Computer Inc. _ to each of its
340 students, becoming one of the first U.S. public schools to shun printed
textbooks.
Arthur H. Rotstein, "Ariz. High School Swaps Books for Laptops," The
Washington Post, August 19, 2005 ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/19/AR2005081900273.html?referrer=email
More competition for readers than writers: How to write
your dream novel in the modern age "Steal This Book. Or at Least Download It Free," by Claudia H. Deutsch, The
New York Times, August 21, 2005 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/business/yourmoney/21lunch.html
The way Mr. Adler, 77 (there goes "you can't teach
an old dog new tricks"), sees it, portable electronic readers will soon do
to paper books what the Walkman and iPod did to boomboxes.
"Print publishing has had a great 500-year run, but
the print book is morphing into the screen book," he said during a recent
lunch at Pigalle, a French restaurant in Manhattan's theater district.
But what does that mean for those many, many people
who believe there is a novel inside them, clamoring to be let out? Making a
living as a writer has never been easy - even Mr. Adler was a self-described
"failed writer" until, at 45, he finally caught a publisher's attention. So
will all this technological upheaval make it easier or harder to get read?
Both, Mr. Adler insists. The Internet, with its
limitless capacity for blogs and whole books that can be electronically
whisked from place to place, means people can pretty well publish what they
want. On the downside, the competition for readers, already intense, will
become maddeningly so. But writers need not make it past the gatekeepers at
publishing houses to be published. Vanity publishing - a term Mr. Adler
hates - has come into the electronic age.
Continued in article
Hard Copy versus Electronic Textbooks
"E-Books' Varied Formats Make Citations a Mess for Scholars Kindle, Nook,
and other devices put the same text on different pages," by Tushar Rae,
Chronicle of Higher Education, February 6, 2011 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/E-Books-Varied-Formats-Make/126246/
As e-reading devices gain popularity, professors
and students are struggling to adapt them to an academic fundamental:
proper citations, which other scholars can use.
The trouble is that in electronic formats, there
are no fixed pages. The Kindle, developed by Amazon, does away with page
numbers entirely. Along with other e-book readers, the Kindle allows users
to change font style and size, so the number of words on a screen can vary.
Instead of pages, it uses "location numbers" that relate to a specific part
of a book.
Other devices, like the Sony Reader, which reflows
text based on font size and model of device, have different methods, so the
same passage might have a different identifier. Things get more confusing
when readers come in various screen sizes.
The inability to find passages limits scholarly
research, academics complain, because they depend on citations not only to
track down and analyze text, but also as a testament to the accuracy of
their own work. "The lack of page numbers is disconcerting," says Rosemary
G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association.
To provide guidance for the e-book world, the three
major keepers of academic-citation style—the Modern Language Association's
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, the American
Psychological Association, and the University of Chicago Press, publisher of
The Chicago Manual of Style—have taken steps to answer the question
of how to cite e-books. But many scholars are unaware of such guidelines, or
find the new citation styles awkward.
The MLA suggests treating all e-books in the same
way as a digital file (like a Microsoft Word document posted online) when
listed in a bibliography. That means simply adding the kind of digital file
used to the end of the traditional citation. To indicate where the snippet
comes from within the file, the MLA recommends using section and paragraph
numbers, if available. That's the same way the handbook suggests handling
any work that lacks page numbers.
"The periodical shelves at Stanford University are
nearly bare. Library chief Helen Josephine says that in the past five years,
more engineering periodicals have been moved online, making their print
versions pretty obsolete -- and books aren't doing much better. ... In 2005,
when the university realized it was running out of space for its growing
collection of 80,000 engineering books, administrators decided to build a
new library. But instead of creating more space for books, they chose to
create less. The new library is set to open in August with 10,000
engineering books off the shelves -- a decrease of more than 85 percent from
the old library ... eventually, there won't be any books on the shelves at
all."
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture.
Just get people to stop reading them."
--Ray Bradbury
The robotic voice, recorded on an endless loop,
droned on in the C Level cafetorium, explaining the dangers represented by
that dangerous artifact of an earlier civilization, the book.
The bored work crews filtered in and out of the
bare hall for their prefabricated rations, pausing now and then to use their
OCDs, or Online Communications Devices. Each of the small accessories, just
the right size to fit into a pocket of their government-issue coveralls, was
licensed, limited, and certified to have no more links than necessary to
barracks, work station, National Public Agitprop and the current Top Ten
beatmusiks.
Jaws masticated, thumbs clicked keyboards, knees
jerked in time with the rap. There was no melody. It had been proscribed by
the Prole Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2041, Title XI, Subsection
A. The same clause mandated continuous lectures on the danger of preserving
any "shards, pottery, ornaments, and/or books, scrolls, inscriptions or
fragments thereof which archaeologists, geologists, sewer workers and
affiliated trades might encounter" in their excavations.
The crew at lunch was working on the next big
transmission tower in the vicinity. The towers by now had largely replaced
the forests that had once stood across the countryside, for trees were
suspect, too, being possible sources of paper. More towers were constantly
being built to keep the public uninformed.
The masses (it was no longer permitted to refer to
them as the people) demanded more towers, more Breaking News and broken
musik. Anything but silence. Silence was frightening. It might leave them
with no recourse but to think. Or just see, and even perceive.
In the background Frequency 24/7 never ceased.
"Remember the three As," it was saying. "Beware of keeping any Artifacts,
Antiques, and/or Adornments, or anything else, you might come across in your
dig.
Enhanced ebooks. The first step
beyond simply putting the text of books onto ereading devices is,
essentially, adding different media to the mix. This doesn't mean just cute
animations (though there were a fair share of those in some of the demos I
saw). It means adding video — that's the hallmark of the "Vook"
and a feature of the forthcoming
Apple iPad's iBook as well. Those videos, as the
people at Vook told me, can be integral to the text itself (such as the
workout demos in a fitness book) or a kind of footnote with more information
(such as the scholarly incursions into their text of Sherlock Holmes
stories). Digital "footnotes" are available through visual search and
augmented reality: technologies that allow you to point your phone's camera
at a paragraph to bring up related content, such as opening up a set of
further-reading links or finding a song mentioned in the text with iTunes.
Vendors and speakers alike hailed the opportunities for adding synced audio,
interactive tables of contents, and for collecting fine-grained user data.
All of these possibilities go beyond what a physical book could
possibly do to add new value for readers and for publishers.
Community. The biggest push
throughout the conference was for technologies that allow readers to share
their reading experiences. In his annual program session on current ereaders,
Keith Fahlgren of Threepress Consulting noted that while "the first Kindle
didn't really offer that much more than a paper book," there is much more to
come in the form of networks of ereaders. In the future, ebooks will likely
be stored "on the cloud": out on the internet, ready for you to grab and
read from any device you have handy. This is the model showcased by
Copia, a major sponsor of the conference, in their
proposed social network–cum—ecommerce platform–cum–cloud
econtent provider. In their vision, users are be able to see not only what
their friends are reading, but where they are in the book, what their
annotations have been, and what else is on their shelves. This may not be
something we all make use of every day, but there are strong possibilities
for the value-add for educational users and could, in the end, become part
of the way we all read.
While the
Consumer Electronics Show in January marked the
apogee of ereader proliferation, at the time I was still irked by the fact
that the ebook didn't really have that much to offer consumers over a
physical book. Apple's iPad, introduced a few weeks later, showed more
promise in that regard. But the most exciting thing I've heard all spring is
what one of my fellow attendees at TOC told me: "What's new this year is
that ebooks have arrived — now we get to figure out what we can do with
them."
Ania Wieckowski is an Assistant Editor at the Harvard Business
Review.
Amazon claims sales of e-books surpassed sales of physical books
That's somewhat amazing since many physical books (especially popular textbooks)
are not yet available as e-books
"Amazon's Kindle Reader cuts book shipping: Book sales in the United States
surged during the holiday season, but in a dramatic shift for the shipping
world, retailer Amazon.com said this week sales of e-books for the first time
surpassed sales of physical books," Journal of Commerce, December 2009
---
http://joc.com/print/415491
Book sales in the United States surged during the
holiday season, but in a dramatic shift for the shipping world, retailer
Amazon.com said this week sales of e-books for the first time surpassed
sales of physical books.
Amazon’s peak in e-book sales occurred on Christmas
day as gift recipients used their new Kindle reading devices to make
purchases from among the 390,000 books available in Amazon’s Kindle Store.
The Kindle electronic reader, which allows users to
download books and other media from a variety of sources, was “the most
gifted item ever in our history,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
Overall retail spending the first of November
through Dec. 24 increased 3.6 percent compared with last year, according to
MasterCard’s SpendingPulse survey, which tracks cash as well as credit
purchases. The online portion of sales jumped 15.5 percent compared with
last year to account for 10 percent of all retail sales, the survey said.
Another retailer industry watcher said online
spending in the United States grew 10 percent in November over a year ago.
The comScore research firm said online sales reached $12.3 billion in
November, and the group said visits to the Web site of Wal-Mart grew 62
percent and visits to the Target site grew 43 percent over last year.
While independent booksellers have long feared
Amazon, they are now changing their view. Many of them are selling through
the Amazon website and some of them are having some real success. It's a
change that might have legs, and might point the way to a new business model
for the industry.
People who sell books over the Internet are finding that Affiliate marketing
seems to work the best. This method involves splitting the sales revenues
with an affiliate, but in exchange gaining access to a wider market. Often,
the split goes as high as 50%.
With Amazon, the split is normally 15%, which makes for a better deal. One
downside, however, is that Amazon is so big that individual sellers can get
lost in it. That means they still need to launch effective marketing
campaigns. Nevertheless, some independent booksellers and making a success
of it. Here's a Here's a
write-up on this approach.write-up
on this approach.
I’ve considered having my students purchase
electronic versions of textbooks, but I think even with a laptop the net
cost of electronic texts probably exceeds conventional textbooks for at
least 3 reasons.
· Students often purchase used textbooks.
· Many students resell their used textbooks
upon completion of the course.
· Printing out hard copy of selected portions
of the text, which most students will probably do at one time or
another, adds toner and paper costs.
Steve
September 2, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Steve,
I agree with every one of
your points. As an instructor, however, I would also consider the
following:
For years, before my retirement, I used
the Murthy and Groomer electronic textbook for AIS that students
downloaded inexpensively ----
https://www.cybertext.com/
This had many added features such as weekly online quizzes that were
graded by the publisher (Cybertext) with results passed on to me.
Each week a student received a new partner to monitor quiz taking
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5342/attest.htm
Quizzes generally accounted for about 10% of the grade and made it
necessary for students to keep up with the lessons week-to-week. I
never had a single complaint about the M&G text or the online
quizzes. A few students downloaded the hard copy for an added fee,
but most did not need the hard copy. It helped that it was such a
great book in terms of contents. My last course syllabus is at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5342/acct5342.htm#Preliminary1
Electronic versions are much easier to
search and generally permit margin notations that can also be
searched. This is especially handy in open book examinations. I
generally gave open book examinations before I retired from
teaching. Students wasted a lot of exam time fumbling through hard
copy pages.
Textbooks, especially new editions,
generally contain a lot of errors. Electronic textbooks can often be
updated with ease from publisher Websites.
Textbooks seem to grow larger and
heavier with each new edition such that carrying three in a backpack
each day is a burden that spine surgeons love, especially when
students bear the weight asymmetrically on only one shoulder.
Electronic versions often accompany
college requirements to own laptops with wireless connections
anywhere on campus. This has countless advantages for many purposes,
especially electronic communications with other students and
instructors. Also students can link easily to student guides at
publisher Websites.
If you really want students to save
money, there are some pretty good free online textbooks, videos, and
tutorials in accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Scroll down past the economics items to get to the accounting items.
One problem with the transition to IFRS is that there will initially
be fewer free financial accounting textbooks. I suspect there will
also be fewer IFRS-based videos and tutorials during the early years
of IFRS in the U.S. However, I was contacted recently by a
grant-funded operation that is developing new free IFRS-based
textbooks to be made available worldwide. In other words, a student
in Kenya or a student in Dayton, OH will soon be able to download
newly-written accounting and other business textbooks. Note that
nations in Africa do not have to have cable connections to download
materials in this era of satellite coverage. Laptops are now being
distributed free to millions of the poorest children of the world.
With e-book sales exploding in an otherwise sleepy
market, Random House Inc. announced Monday that it was making thousands of
additional books available in digital form, including novels by John Updike
and Harlan Coben, as well as several volumes of the "Magic Treehouse"
children's series.
Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement
that "more people everyday are enjoying reading in the electronic format and
Random House wants to extend our reach to them with more of our books."
The publisher already has more than 8,000 books in
the electronic format and will have a digital library of nearly 15,000. The
new round of e-books is expected to be completed within months; excerpts can
be viewed online through the publisher's Insight browsing service.
With e-book sales exploding in an otherwise sleepy
market, Random House Inc. announced Monday that it was making thousands of
additional books available in digital form, including novels by John Updike
and Harlan Coben, as well as several volumes of the "Magic Treehouse"
children's series.
Random House CEO Markus Dohle said in a statement
that "more people everyday are enjoying reading in the electronic format and
Random House wants to extend our reach to them with more of our books."
The publisher already has more than 8,000 books in
the electronic format and will have a digital library of nearly 15,000. The
new round of e-books is expected to be completed within months; excerpts can
be viewed online through the publisher's Insight browsing service.
An Oligopoly
To say they have to be is an understatement. The General Accounting Office says
textbook prices have increased at twice the rate of inflation since 1986.
Shopping for textbooks can be burdensome at best,
painful at worst. And it's no different for business students. By the time
students get to B-school, they're probably well-versed in the tricks of the
textbook trade. They need to be, with some books required at top B-schools
retailing for well over $200.
Although textbook shopping is as inevitable as
picking classes or group projects, spending tons of money on books doesn't
have to be part of the process. The catch is knowing what you're doing,
which isn't as obvious as it sounds, even for students with top-of-the-line
spreadsheet skills. Of course, you can still look for the least beat-up copy
in the campus bookstore, but that should be just the beginning.
The Web is overflowing with sites claiming to offer
the cheapest textbooks around. So, with book prices rising, the cost of
higher education higher than ever, and a dreary economy to boot, it'll
certainly pay off to spend some time shopping around. Publishers may be
resourceful, but students are, too.
An Oligopoly
To say they have to be is an understatement. The General Accounting Office
says textbook prices have increased at twice the rate of inflation since
1986. And today, students spend on average about $700 per year on required
course materials, according to a 2008 survey by the National Association of
College Stores (NACS).
Part of the problem is rising production costs, but
the textbook market itself plays a role. The industry is an oligopoly, says
James V. Koch, president of Old Dominion University, in a 2006 report by the
U.S. Education Dept. Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance.
According to Koch, five publishers—Thomson, Wiley, Houghton-Mifflin,
Pearson, and The McGraw-Hill Companies (Businessweek's parent)—control the
market, putting out about 80% of all college texts.
What's more, Koch says, the textbook market is
unique. Unlike markets for most consumer products, where demand is generated
by consumers themselves, textbook demand is created by another group: the
faculty choosing texts for their classes. That makes it possible for
publishers to introduce higher prices without much&mdashlif any—loss in
revenue.
Publishers can also introduce "bundled" versions of
books—books sealed with additional CD-ROMs or other materials—for higher
prices. This means, even if just the book itself is required, students are
stuck buying a more expensive version.
Tricks of the Trade
But the situation for students isn't as dire as it sounds. First of all, as
some economists point out, students are smart and know how to consume. Yes,
textbooks are expensive. But they are expensive at list price—usually the
highest price a student can find. The prices charged by most bookstores,
online retailers, and even online trading posts are well under this
publisher-set price.
As BusinessWeek found out, those retail prices can
vary wildly, which is why it pays to shop around. One of the easiest and
fastest ways to find the best prices is to use a site that aggregates prices
from many retailers. Booksprice.com and allbookstores.com are good places to
start. They both list prices from the most popular Web retailers, such as
alibris.com, half.com, bookbyte.com, and even Amazon.com. If aggregated
searches aren't turning up the results you want, you can go to individual
retailers' sites. Make sure to know the edition, author, and publisher of
the book you're looking for—some books, on topics such as microeconomics,
share the same title for completely different products.
Expect some surprises. Sometimes a retailer will
sell the new version of a textbook for much less than a used copy. AbeBooks,
for example, charges $69.99 for a new copy of Jonathan Berk's and Peter
DeMarzo's Corporate Finance and $120.54 for a used one. It's unclear why
this happens, but one possibility might be that the owners of the used books
simply overpriced their product.
I’m not in college any more, thank goodness, but I
remember every penny-pinching moment. Some days I hardly had enough money
for food, mainly because the materials and textbooks I had to buy ripped a
hole in my pocket the size of the Grand Canyon. And so I’m always on the
lookout for ways to help out college students. Today, I found two.
There are numerous methods available to search for
textbooks, including the ever-popular “shopping” search option in Google.
But if you want to go deeper, a few of my favorite sites in the past have
included:
No doubt you’ve used one or two of these already.
But it’s a pain to search each one and compare results. Usually, you find
the book you want, ponder the price and then pay. Not good enough for me. I
want to help students, who are suffering like the rest of us in this hellish
economy, to get the absolute rock-bottom price on any book they’re looking
for.
So I did a little more hunting around and found
some much more powerful search engines, devoted to scouring multiple books
sources at once. The two I like the most are
CAMPUSBOOKS.COM and
BIGWORDS.COM. And
they really are the ultimate search engines for books, especially textbooks.
All you need to know are a few basics about the
book you’re searching for. The easiest way is to have the ISBN number
readily at hand. If that’s not available, you can search by keyword, author,
title, the usual search engine options. And as you can see, the results from
both sites are impressive. Here are two searches I did for an advertising
book I love called “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.”
Community
College Open-Textbook Project G
Especially note the open sharing sources being used
The
Community College Open Textbook Project begins this week with a member meeting
in California," by Catherine Rampell, Chronicle of Higher Education,
April 29, 2008 --- Click Here
At the
meeting, representatives of institutions around the country will start reviewing
open-textbook models for “quality, usability, accessibility, and
sustainability,” according to a news release. They will initially review four
providers of free online educational resources: Connexions,
run by Rice University; Flat World Knowledge,
a commercial digital-textbook publisher that will begin
offering free textbooks online next year;
the University of California’s UC College Prep Online,
which offers Advanced Placement and other courses online; and the
Community College Consortium for Open Educational
Resources, which was founded by the Foothill-De Anza Community
College District and the League for Innovation in the Community College.
One of the most popular sites for textbooks is Bigwords ---
http://www.bigwords.com/ Be careful, however, when buying cheaper foreign editions such as European
editions of popular textbooks. There are often differences to be aware of such
as different orderings of chapters.
One of the first places to start is to look for used books on Amazon.com and
bn.com
I like buying from Amazon in order to reduce the number of online vendors that
have my credit card numbers. Also Amazon guarantees delivery of used books and
other merchandise from linked vendors.
Barnes & Noble's college-bookstore division has entered the growing
field of textbook rental for college students, the bookseller
announced Monday. After testing the waters with a
pilot program, the service has expanded. It will allow students to rent
textbooks through campus-bookstore Web sites at 25 college campuses or
through the Barnes & Noble stores on those campuses. Students can pay for
the service in several different ways, including financial aid and campus
debit cards
Jensen Comment
Students should carefully make comparisons between renting versus buying used
and possibly reselling. Campus bookstores will usually buy back books they sold
to students, and there are online buyers of used books.
Amazon unveiled a
Kindle Textbook
Rental, giving students the ability to rent
instead of buy digital textbooks. Amazon says that "tens of thousands" of
titles from some of the major textbook publishers - including John WIley &
Sons, Wlsevier, and Taylor & Francis - will be available for this school
year.
It's not just the selection that the company is
touting, of course, it's the savings: "now students can save up to 80% off
its textbook list prices by renting from the Kindle Store." Amazon's boasted
savings for students has put the company at odds with brick-and-mortar
college bookstores, and the National Association of College Stores has
accused the online retailer of misleading students
about the potential for savings when buying textbooks from Amazon.
But renting textbooks has becoming a popular
alternative to buying recently, with companies like
Chegg offering students
the ability to rent books just for the duration of a semester. Amazon's new
program is similar, but with the added bonus of being digital rather than
physical, letting students read the e-books on Kindles and on Kindle apps.
Buying Used Textbooks, Still Cheaper Than Renting
The Kindle Textbook Rental program also lets
students configure the length of the rental, from 30 days to 360 days. Of
course, the longer you rent, the more expensive it becomes. A $100 Kindle
purchase can be rented for $40 for a month, but that quickly increases the
longer you keep the book - and most students will keep it for at least a
semester. It's still cheaper to buy used textbooks in most cases, and when
you buy a physical book, of course, you can keep the book or sell it back as
you deem fit.
To make this option more appealing, Amazon has
added a new feature to the Kindle Textbook Rental program, the ability for
students to keep any of the notes they make in the textbooks they've rented.
Typically, when you borrow an e-book, any marks you make in the text
disappear when you return them. But Amazon says you'll be able to keep your
highlights and notes "in the Amazon Cloud," and should you buy or rent the
book again, the notes will be "just where you left them."
College Students Lukewarm about Kindles
The Kindle itself hasn't gained much traction among
college students, and
several studies have found that students say that
they don't find e-readers to be very useful for their note-taking and
studying needs. It's worth noting that on Amazon's page announcing the new
program that an actual Kindle isn't depicted. Instead, there's an e-book on
a laptop and displayed on a large monitor. You needn't use a Kindle, the
message seems to suggest, just a Kindle app.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
It's a little unfair to only compare eBooks with hard copy (including used hard
copy) books on the basis of price or rental fees alone. Electronic books are
different on other criteria. Word searches are easier in electronic books
whereas hard copy books don't crash and burn. All the electronic textbooks for
all courses ever taken can be carried in one reader weighing less than two
pounds. Try stuffing the hard copy textbooks for more than two courses into a
backpack.
Rentals in electronic books or hard copy have some drawbacks. I wish I could
have had all the textbooks for every course I ever took in college stored for
access today. But I took some of those courses before printing presses were
invented.
Cengage Learning
said Thursdaythat it would become the first higher
education publisher to let students rent as well as buy print textbooks directly
from the source. Cengage said it would transform its existing online platform,
known as
iChapters, into a broader
site that would allow students to rent print textbooks at 40 to 70 percent off
retail as well as purchase print and digital texts and other materials.
Publishers have been exploring a range of ways to enter the
burgeoning marketfor renting textbooks. Inside Higher Ed, August 14, 2009 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/14/qt#205700
Jensen Test:
Rent Textbooks from Chegg ---
http://www.chegg.com/
Rental prices are about half the so-called purchase price of a new book.
Buying a used book is probably a better idea since it, in turn, can be sold back
into the used market.
Jensen Comment
To get value for my money, I prefer used houses, cars, and books.
Of course, both Amazon and Google are now selling electronic versions of
textbooks. For Amazon you must have a Kindle reader. For Google, all you have to
have is a computer, although to date Amazon has a wider selection of textbooks
available.
The cost accounting book I'm using retails for
$190.30. I see on a textbook search website called Bigwords.com that no less
than 9 large dealers are offering it at under $50 for a new copy, including
shipping. How can this be possible?
My concern would be how to get the word to students
early enough so they could (1) not buy books at retail, and (2) get delivery
in time for the first assignment.
Convince your university/college/department to go
completely electronic (like Kindle) and the pricing problem would be gone.
This recession may well drive some cost-sensitive programs to go to
electronic books looking for a comparative advantage or a means of covering
a budgetary shortfall. The tipping point will center around the trade-off
costs of the campus book store versus outsourcing the textbooks
electronically.
Zane Swanson
Jensen Added Comment
Universities that are promoting Kindle are running into some resistance from
sight-impaired students. Although Kindle benefits some sight-impaired students
by being able to enlarge fonts, the issue is one of access to Kindle readers and
access to audio versions of the text. Many publishers have audio versions
restricted to sight-impaired students. To avoid conflicts with sight impaired
students, universities might have to offer audio versions to sight-impaired
students at deals as good as Kindle deals to other students.
The National Federation of the Blind and the
American Council of the Blind
filed a lawsuit last month against Arizona State University, saying that its
plan to use the Kindle to distribute books to students is illegal because blind
people cannot use the device as currently configured ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/06/kindle
A provider of subscription e-textbooks for college
students is making its 7,000-plus titles accessible on Apple Inc.'s iPhone
and iPod Touch as interest heats up in the digital-textbook arena.
The new applications, free for subscribers to
CourseSmart LLC, will let students access their full electronic textbooks,
read their digital notes and search for specific words and phrases.
"Nobody is going to use their iPhone to do their
homework, but this does provide real mobile learning," said Frank Lyman,
CourseSmart's executive vice president. "If you're in a study group and you
have a question, you can immediately access your text."
The move comes as Amazon.com Inc. is shipping its
$489 large-screen Kindle DX e-reader, which is aimed in part at college
students. Amazon is overseeing a DX pilot program at seven colleges this
fall involving hundreds of students who will experiment with reading
textbooks digitally. Last week, McGraw-Hill Education, a unit of McGraw-Hill
Cos., said it is making about 100 college textbooks available for use on
Amazon's Kindle and Kindle DX.
CourseSmart's titles aren't available on either
Amazon device. Mr. Lyman said he would like to see his books available
wherever college students want them but that the two companies haven't yet
had any conversations.
CourseSmart, which was created in 2007 as a joint
venture of six higher-education publishers, including McGraw-Hill Education
and Pearson PLC's Pearson Education, operates on a subscription model.
Typically students rent a book for 180 days; when their subscription
expires, they lose access to the title.
The company, which doesn't release financial
results, offers its digital books at about 50% of the retail price of the
corresponding physical textbook. Although students can't resell their
e-textbooks, Mr. Lyman said they typically don't get more than 50% of what
they paid for a new book when they resell it.
"Textbooks are the missing link in the e-reader
content base," said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research,
Inc. "The problem so far is that college students haven't really been
interested in reading on their laptops. The iPhone will help create
excitement and generate awareness of e-textbooks."
Mr. Lyman said he believes that lack of awareness
has been the largest barrier to students trying e-textbooks.
Albert N. Greco, a professor at the Fordham
Graduate School of Business Administration who studies the book industry,
estimates that sales of printed college textbook this year will reach $5.02
billion, up 3.5% from last year. He expects college e-textbooks to hit
$117.5 million in sales in 2009, up 10.3%. "Once the recession ends, we will
see a major, national push to make all higher education textbooks available
in digital formats, as well as a move in that direction for high-school
textbooks," Mr. Greco said.
Jensen Comment
I am truly amazed at the large number of accounting textbook listings, far
more than are available on Kindle or Google eBooks. Perhaps this is because
books are more difficult to copy books not actually stored on iPods and
iPhones. Many of the books have 2008 and 2009 copyrights such that these are
not obsolete editions. I cannot, however, even imagine reading textbooks on
such small screens. Also the subscription prices seem quite high.
Instructors can request examination copies.
For example, enter "Accounting" into the Instructor's search box at
http://www.coursesmart.com/
I think the
best way for us as academics to help students with the textbook pricing
problem is to self publish our books. Since we publish the textbooks, we
have some control over that in the longer term, and for those who have not
yet published a text, it could be done in the shorter term.
The current
publishing indistry is an anachronism that survives only through their
marketing system, the entrenched habits of writers, the fixed long term
contracts that they cannot get out of, and the residual attachment of some
prestige (arguably falsely grounded) to the traditional publications means
as opposed to self publishing To use my book as a comparison, it sells for
$125 per copy. The royalty is 20% of net sales. Lets ignore the net aspect
for the moment. That means a royalty of $25 per copy. If I were to publish
this same book through LuLu, for example, the "royalty" would be 80%, which
means I could sell the same book for $31.25 and make the same $25 each. If I
were to sell it through Booksurge, which has some marketing capability
through Amazon and other online outlets, the royalty would be 35%, so the
same book could be priced at $72 to make the 25 each. The fly in the
ointment is that LuLu has no marketing arm cruising around the universities
selling the books or displaying them at conferences. However, if we
academics made a little adjustment in our buying choices, and checked out
sources like LuLu, we could make a difference. It's really all in our hands.
If I could get
out of my existing contract, which I can't, I would love to move it over to
LuLu or Booksurge or an equivalent. I'd price the book at 19.95, giving the
students a break and still getting back some reward for my efforts. I would
also have more control over my book and could still get it reviewed by
colleagues. If I ever write another textbook, it will definitely be done
that way.
We could change
our ways and make life a little easier for the students if we really wanted
to.
The issue lies in what one
expects from a textbook. I seldom cared much about the text part itself,
because I usually thought I had better text in my course notes, my videos,
and my Websites.
But I almost always
assigned a textbook, and the reason was almost always to provide students
with problems, cases, and other assignments. It just took too much of my
time to develop the end-of-chapter stuff (complete with an answer book) for
my own materials. For example, I think one of the best textbooks ever
written was the one I assigned repeatedly for my accounting theory course
(where I did not assign accounting theory textbooks):
Before my students could
begin to comprehend FAS 133 and IAS 39, they had to understand derivatives.
I can, and did, explain derivatives in class. But I could not find the time
to develop assignment material like that found in Strong’s textbook. Nor
could I teach some of the hedging strategies developed by Strong in that
book.
I might add that one of
the huge problems in free textbooks is the loss of incentive to update the
end-of-chapter stuff that, in many cases, is not even written by the
textbook authors. Publishers often outsource the end-of-chapter stuff, and
with a free textbook there’s no longer any incentive to pay a lot of money
for updating the end-of-chapter material so vital to a textbook.
Of course there are many
textbook revisions that badly suffer from having updated the chapters
without updating the end-of-chapter material or only superficially updating
what’s at the end of the chapter.
When a
publisher’s rep sent me a new edition of a textbook to examine, the first
thing I always did is compare the ends of chapters between the old and the
new editions if I was seriously contemplating an adoption of the new
edition. I figure that the revision is a
cheapie if it does not significantly revise what’s at the end of the
chapters.
But in specialized fields like accountancy, our classics are seldom available
online. Now it is possible for our colleges to print hard copies of virtually
any classic or other book where there are no copyright restrictions at a clip of
about 15 minutes per book. This allows educators such as accounting educators to
adopt supplementary books for courses at reasonable prices.
If you wonder what the future of book publishing
might look, smell, and sound like, head north to the University of Alberta's
bookstore in Edmonton. There a $144,000 machine is churning out
made-to-order paperbacks at a cost of a penny a page.
It's the Espresso Book Machine, which converts
digital files into bound books, one order at a time, in under 15 minutes.
The contraption smells like glue, looks like a couple of copy machines
attached to a cabinet, and emits its share of clunking and thunking sounds,
said Jacqui Wong, the machine's operator, who calls it her "baby."
At least seven Espressos are in operation, several
on college campuses. Instead of publishers' printing thousands of books and
hoping some of them will find buyers — and losing money when they don't —
the machine prints on demand. Customers can submit an order for, say, an old
textbook or a copy of a 19th-century classic, and walk out with it several
minutes later.
But the machine has limitations. It cannot print
just any book. Copyright law limits the books that can be offered, the texts
must be PDF's, and it can take days to get a repairman when something
breaks.
The company behind the device is called On Demand
Books. Founded in 2003, On Demand is the brainchild of Jason Epstein, former
editorial director of Random House, who saw the machine's prototype in 1999
in a warehouse in St. Louis, where it was built by the inventor Jeff Marsh.
The company's chief executive is Dane Neller, former chief executive of the
gourmet food distributor Dean & Deluca.
"Our business proposition is to make books
available anywhere, in any language, immediately," Mr. Neller says.
Todd Anderson, the University of Alberta's
bookstore manager, says "tens of thousands" of books have been printed since
the machine arrived last November.
He says orders come from multiple sources: Some
professors order out-of-print textbooks to keep costs low for students.
Others order classics, scanned with their own handwritten notes in the
margins. Some customers want bound copies of book sections, like the first
10 chapters of a 20-chapter book. Hobbyists make custom books for gifts. A
science-fiction writer used it to self-publish his first novel.
"I get calls on this every day," says Mr. Anderson,
who adds that revenue is streaming in. "It's a symbol for change."
He can print an 800-page, out-of-print chemistry
textbook for $18, he said, and sell it for $37, making a tidy profit. (Yet
the price is well below what the text would cost elsewhere.) Mr. Anderson
said he has already run off and sold tens of thousands of books, earning
well over the cost of the machine.
Laws and Repairs
In addition to the technical restrictions, however,
U.S. copyright regulations require that books be in the public domain (which
includes anything printed before 1922), or that the copyright holder must
grant permission for reprinting. Canadian law offers more avenues for
reproduction under copyright, which may explain why two Canadian
universities — Alberta and McMaster University, in Ontario — are among the
sites using the machine. Printers in Canada must pay a royalty fee of no
more than $10 for each copy of an out-of-print book, Mr. Anderson says. The
law requires books in print to carry a royalty of no more than 10.3 cents
per page.
The machine is not immune to glitches that come
with human error and the wearing down of mechanical parts.
The University of Michigan Library bought one this
summer with alumni donations and started using it in October, within a few
steps of Shapiro Library's coffee shop. But the machine has been shut down
twice for repairs. Several dozen requests have come in, but only a few have
been fulfilled so far, says Terri Geitgey, the digital-projects librarian
who is taking the orders.
Because so few people know how to repair it, waits
for service can take several days, says Maria Bonn, the library's director
of scholarly publishing. But she emphasizes that On Demand Books has been
"very responsive."
Mr. Neller explained the Michigan glitches. "It was
a programming error and one of the cutting sticks was misaligned," he says,
adding that version 2.0, which became available this month, incorporates a
Xerox machine that can be repaired, or unjammed, by anyone with Xerox
training. The new machine is also more compact, with dimensions similar to
those of a large copy machine.
The Michigan library may be in a prime position to
produce public-domain books. It is part of the HathiTrust, a recently
announced repository of two million digitized books shared among the
universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (which includes
the Big Ten research universities), the University of California's campuses,
and the University of Virginia.
Printing Books at the Library
"We'd like to get to a point where, when you are
looking through the catalog, you see three options for each book," Ms. Bonn
says. "Do you want to check it out? Do you want to view it online? Or do you
want to buy your own copy?" Michigan's prices are $6 for a book under 16
pages and $10 for a longer one.
It might sound strange for a library to be printing
and selling books, but Ms. Bonn says the library's goal is no different than
it always has been: making books accessible.
The lines between publishers, printers, bookshops
and libraries were already blurring. With the book machine, they may be
scrambled up, too. At Alberta, for example, Mr. Anderson expected to be
printing mostly course packs and was surprised to find that self-publishers
have been among his most frequent customers.
Now, with the machine hitting its first birthday,
Mr. Anderson is considering buying a second one. "It paid for itself in 11
months," he says.
ebrary® is a leading e-content services and
technology provider that has been serving the library, publishing, and
corporate markets since 1999.
More than 1,400 customers around the world serving
more than 12.5 million end-users use the ebrary
platform to
acquire e-content from leading
publishers as well as
distribute their own PDF content online.
There is indeed a lot to like except one major
objection: Apple has once again opted not to
support open standards and instead chosen to implement interactive iBooks
via a proprietary format that could only be consumed on Apple-only devices.
Clearly, Apple is most interested in locking the
education market into a closed system where iBooks textbooks can only be
produced, sold, distributed and consumed by Apple-only technology.
Also, the iBooks Author app capability to export
interactive multimedia-rich books as plain-text or PDF is a lame face-saving
gimmic.
Shame on Apple for not fully supporting open
standards like HTML5 and ePub3, and for undermining the open Web and Web
browsers in favor of a closed proprietary system.
January 20, 2012 reply from Richard Campbell
One concern I have with Apple's iBooks Author
program is in respect to the EULA
I would prefer that Apple would charge for this
authoring program and allow the standard file format (epub) be sold wherever
the author wanted. Under the current conditions, Apple gets 30% of anything
created with this program.
On a brighter note, it means that individual
entrepreneurs who create their own works will be at a competive advantage
vis-a-vis the major publishers.
Richard
January 20, 2012 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Richard,
As one of the most diehard ToolBook users are you still writing ToolBooks?
It's amazing how iBooks have apparently borrowed almost all the ideas
(such as wizards) from ToolBook with a couple of major exceptions. ToolBook
has relatively expensive licensing fees but will play back on most Internet
Browsers, including 100 millions of Windows machines.
As far as I can tell, iBooks will only play back on iPads which has to
greatly limit the population of users to only those with access to iPad
machines. Meanwhile, Amazon is still winning the high volume user and price
wars on eBook downloads to its Kindle.
I would hate to have to author a textbook with touchscreen keys and a
small screen. I realize there are limited apps for iPad keyboards and screen
projections, but life would be so much simpler if IPads just had two or more
UBS ports and a VGA port.
Also there are many, many readers and authors who want optional hard copy
books. Depending too much upon multimedia for book authoring may be
premature until hard copy books themselves have built in video playback
screens on the inside back cover --- which is not yet a technology that I've
seen developed.
Alternately, hard copy books may one day have UBS-type ports where video
player headsets can be plugged into the binding of a hard copy book. This
might be a neat way to publish hard copy books with multimedia components.
The days of ubiquitous computing are just dawning and this may include a
small computer built into the binding of a hard copy book --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm
Respectfully,
Bob Jensen
PS I disagree with your implication that publishers have lost comparative
advantages vis-a-vis custom (Vanity Press) authoring. Since you teach CVP
analysis you must appreciate the fact that publishers still can add greatly
to the "V" in CVP. You witness this every semester when publisher book reps
walk up and down the halls outside your faculty office. The proportion of
accounting textbook market share held by major textbook publishers may be
declining slightly, but it's certainly not enough of a decline to contend
that major textbook publishing houses do not currently have very important
comparative advantages to authors of textbooks.
"Duke U. Press Rolls
Out Online Access to Its Books," by Jennifer
Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 10, 2008 ---
Click Here
Libraries can now sign up to buy access to all of
Duke University Press’s latest offerings in electronic form through the
just-launched
e-Duke Books Scholarly Program. The program
operates via
ebrary, a widely used online content provider.
Duke publishes about 115 books a year in the social
sciences and humanities, according to Michael McCullough, the press’s sales
manager. Subscribers to e-Duke Books will have online access to all those
and to all backlist titles available in electronic format — 900 and
counting. Although many university presses have partnerships with ebrary,
Mr. McCullough said he believed that Duke’s program is unique because it
offers access to the press’s full list, not just to individual titles.
Scholarly presses, including Duke’s, have watched
hardcover library sales slide. The e-Duke program is “a sort of long-range
response to the decline in sales of cloth monographs,” Mr. McCullough told
the Chronicle.
“We know that, increasingly, library resources are
moving toward electronic products rather than print books, and we want to
make sure that we’re participating in that in a way that’s as beneficial to
libraries and us as possible,” he said.
Greg Smith, chief information officer at George Fox,
said the iPad's technological limitations—its inability to multitask and print,
and its limited storage space—have kept students dependent on their notebooks.
"That's the problem with the iPad: It's not an independent device," he said.
"Classroom iPad Programs Get Mixed Response," by Travis Kaya,
Chronicle of Higher Education, September 20, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Classroom-iPad-Programs-Get/27046/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
A few weeks after a handful of colleges gave away
iPads to determine the tablet's place in the classroom, students and faculty
seem confident that the device has some future in academe.
But they're still not exactly sure where that might
be.
At those early-adopter schools, iPads are competing
with MacBooks as the students' go-to gadget for note taking and Web surfing.
Zach Kramberg, a first-year student at George Fox University, which allowed
incoming students to choose between a complimentary iPad or MacBook this
fall, said the tablet has become an important tool for recording and
organizing lecture notes. He also takes the device with him to the
university's dimly lit chapel so he can follow along with an app called
iBible. "The iPad's very easy to use once you figure them out," he said.
Still, Mr. Kramberg said the majority of students
rely on bound Bibles in chapel and stick to pen and paper or MacBooks in the
classroom.
Greg Smith, chief information officer at George
Fox, said the iPad's technological limitations—its inability to multitask
and print, and its limited storage space—have kept students dependent on
their notebooks. "That's the problem with the iPad: It's not an independent
device," he said.
Mr. Smith said that the 67 students—10 percent of
the freshman class—that opted for iPads over MacBooks are really excited
about the technology but have not been "pushing the capabilities" of the
device.
Caitlin Corning, a history professor at George Fox,
said it's been hard to meld iPads into the curriculum because only a small
subset of her students has the device. Ms. Corning used the iPad as a
portable teaching tool during a student art trip to Europe this summer,
flashing Van Gogh works on the screen when they were in the places he
painted them. Translating that portable-classroom experience into her
classroom back in Oregon, however, has not been easy. "It's still a work in
progress," she said. "It's a little complex because only some of the
freshmen have iPads."
Faculty members at Seton Hill University, which
gave iPads to all full-time students, are working with the developers of an
e-book app called Inkling to come up with new ways to integrate the iPad
into classroom instruction. The textbook software—one of many in
development—allows students to access interactive graphics and add notes as
they read along. Faculty members can access the students' marginalia to see
whether they understand the text. They can also remotely receive and answer
questions from students in real time.
Catherine Giunta, an associate professor of
business at Seton Hill, said the technology has changed the way students
interact with their textbooks and how she interacts with her students. While
reviewing the margin notes of a student in her marketing class, Ms. Giunta
was able to pinpoint and correct a student's apparent misunderstanding of a
concept that was going to be covered in class the next day. "The
misunderstanding may not have been apparent until [the student] did a
written report," Ms. Giunta said. "I could really give her individualized
instruction and guidance."
As students and faculty members around the country
feel around for new ways to integrate the iPad into academic life, a handful
of programs are taking a more formal approach to finding its place in the
classroom. Students in the Digital Cultures and Creativity program at the
University of Maryland at College Park will turn a critical eye on the iPad
as a study tool while integrating it into their curriculum. "I think
[students are] taking a sort of wait-and-see approach," said Matthew
Kirschenbaum, the program director and an associate professor of English.
Similarly, the faculty at Indiana University has
formed a 24-member focus group to evaluate iPad-driven teaching strategies.
The groups have started meeting this month to assess how their iPad
experiments are going, with a preliminary report due in January. "It's meant
to be a supportive, collaborative, formalized conversation," said Stacy
Morrone, Indiana's associate dean of learning technologies. "We don't expect
that everything will go perfectly."
Although not entirely related to the substance of
the iPad educational debate, a pilot program at Long Island University was
thrust into the spotlight over the weekend in an animated e-mail exchange
between a college journalist and Apple's founder Steve Jobs. As Gawker
reports it, complaints about a few unreturned media inquiries from a
deadline-stressed reporter led to a curt "leave us alone" response from the
Apple chief executive.
In the e-mail chain, Mr. Jobs said, "Our goals do
not include helping you get a good grade."
DIFFUSION eBooks are PDF files for readers to
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The DIFFUSION format challenges conventions of
interactivity - blending the physical and the virtual and breaking the
dominance of mouse and screen as the primary forms of human computer
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between producer and consumer of knowledge and information are blurred.
DIFFUSION eBooks are free to download and distribute,
electronically or as material objects. The format is 'open source': i.e.
Proboscis welcomes the adoption or re-interpretation of the format by anyone,
anywhere. Proboscis is also able to offer a design and production service for
clients wishing to use the format - please email for prices.
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When Health and Human Services
Secretary Tommy Thompson visited Afghanistan at the end of 2002, he found not
just wrecked hospitals and a scarcity of health-care workers.
He also found a pressing need for
health education among Afghan women. But in a country where 80% of women are
illiterate, the agency couldn't rely on the educational pamphlets commonly
used elsewhere in the world.
So Mr. Thompson turned to an unlikely
solution: the educational toy LeapPad, a product of LeapFrog
Enterprises Inc. of Emeryville, Calif. The electronic book sells for
around $40 and is a mainstay in suburban U.S. homes; it is designed to teach
reading, and recites out loud to kids when they touch the words on the page.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services plans to announce today that it is purchasing 20,000 LeapPads. Rather
than featuring the likes of Dr. Seuss, these modified LeapPads will educate
rural Afghan women about the benefits of immunization, the dangers of sexually
transmitted diseases and the perils of some homespun remedies, such as rubbing
dirt into cuts to heal them. The special LeapPads talk in either Pashto or
Dari, Afghanistan's two most common languages.
Mr. Thompson says such education is
sorely needed in a country where diarrhea or acute respiratory infections
kills nearly 40% of all children, and where 1,600 out of every 100,000 women
die in childbirth. (The U.S. rate is 7.5.) "If this works, we can make
this a tool across the world," says Mr. Thompson. "We can use it for
AIDS in Africa and for health care in Iraq."
The $1.25 million deal could also give
a much-needed boost to LeapFrog, one of the country's top toy makers. Launched
in 1995 as a technology-based education company, LeapFrog made its first big
splash with the 1999 introduction of LeapPad. Such electronic learning toys
are now one of the fastest-growing categories in the industry; from 1999 to
2003, LeapFrog's overall revenue jumped from $71.8 million to $680 million.
But lately, both the toy industry and
LeapFrog have seen sales dip. In LeapFrog's case, analysts said the company
shipped too much product last Christmas, resulting in soft demand after the
holidays. Those inventory problems helped push the company's share price down
to below $20 from a high last year of $47.30.
Geeks the world over have long dreamed
of the day when the content of books, magazines and newspapers will be
downloaded digitally onto electronic readers. Yet despite an explosion of
digital content and gadgets to read it on, paper still rules -- in part
because nobody has yet been able to beat its portability and readability.
Now the world's two biggest
consumer-electronics companies -- Sony
and Matsushita
Electric Industrial, the maker of Panasonic devices -- are giving the
digital book a whirl in Japan, though not yet anywhere else.
Both recently started selling
electronic readers that let users view a variety of material downloaded from
Internet sites. But despite some attractive services and compelling
technology, a week of testing the Sony Librie and Panasonic SigmaBook reminded
me how great paper still is.
The Sony Librie gets high marks for its
svelte size: at 8.5 ounces and 5 inches by 7.5 inches by 0.5 inches, it's
smaller and only a bit heavier than the 138-page instruction manual it ships
with.
But its best feature by far is its display -- the
first-ever consumer application of something called "electronic
ink." The technology, developed by E Ink of Cambridge, Mass., forms
images by electronically pulling around microscopic particles of black and
white pigment that float in tiny capsules inside the screen. The result is a
display that uses very little power and looks almost identical to black print
on white paper. For reading, it's a vast improvement over the liquid-crystal
displays common in noteBook computers, PDAs and cellphones.
I took the Librie with me on a coffee run -- down a
dim hallway, into the elevator and out into bright sunlight -- reading
comfortably all the way. It also let me enlarge the text size up to 200%, and
has a set of built-in dictionaries for easy reference.
But it didn't do as well on my graphics test, Vol. 1
of Shotaro Ishinomori's 1963 comic "Cyborg 009." The display left a
faint afterimage of the previous page's lines on the black areas of the
drawings. And with only four levels of gray shading, the images often looked
rough. The Librie's relatively small screen was also a problem. Rather than
shrinking the original page to fit the display, the publishers of "Cyborg
009" decided to put one frame on each page. The resulting story pace was
so slow I got bored, even in the middle of a pitched battle between cyborgs
and evil robots.
Part of the problem is that the Librie display's
response is excruciatingly slow. "Turning" a page takes a full
second, and using the jog wheel to move the cursor through menus is
frustrating. It's still tolerable if you're chugging through a story from
start to finish, but returning to a section you've read before is a real slog
unless you've had the foresight to "bookmark" the page you want.
Where the Librie really fails is in its handling of
digital content. It can only view content that comes from a site run by
Publishing Link, a Sony-affiliated company with investments from most of
Japan's big publishers. Users download digital books to their computers from
there and then transfer them to the Librie, but only about 600 are available.
What's more, your right to that content expires after 60 days. The only
English-language books I saw being offered were textbooks.
The rental model keeps prices relatively low. I paid
315 yen ($2.89) to "rent" the autobiography of comic artist Shigeru
Mizuki, which was selling for 609 yen ($5.60) new on Amazon Japan.
Though it costs the same hefty $370, Panasonic's
SigmaBook reader gets right a lot of what Sony gets wrong. Although
Panasonic's own online-content site, SigmaBook JP, has only a hundred titles,
the SigmaBook can also handle content downloaded from an independent site
called 10 Days Book, which mainly features comics but boasts around 5,400
titles.
The SigmaBook is also better suited to reading comics
because it has two screens. At 7.2 inches they are bigger than the Librie's
and capable of more tonal gradations. But the device is also twice as thick
and almost twice as heavy as the Librie.
When the curtain opens
at London's famous Old Vic Theatre on Wednesday evening, most people in the
audience won't realize they're watching what might be the world's first play
conceived on the Internet.
Last year,
e-publishing, print-on-demand and e-mail gave rise to a collection of essays
by journalists and non-journalists on the Sept. 11 tragedy called 09/11
8:48 AM; Documenting America's Greatest Tragedy, co-edited by Ethan
Casey and Jay Rosen, chairman of the journalism department at New York
University.
The Old
Vic performance -- a one-act play directed by veteran actor and director
Murray Woodfield -- has been adapted from the personal testimonies of Rosen,
Conor O'Clery, Peter Wong, Karmann Ghia, Kate Bolick, Dawn Shurmaitis and
Andrew Ross.
Woodfield said he was
gratified to be involved in the memorial performance.
"The fact that
writers online ended up on the London stage probably means that this has got
to be one of the first plays ever created solely via the Internet," he
said. "Any way you look at it -- this is a unique event."
Proceeds from the
event will go to The New York Firefighters 9-11 Disaster Relief Fund.
- - -
E-nabeling
readers: Students with visual impairments or learning disabilities can
listen to more than 97,000 digitally recorded books on CD.
The largest
collection of its kind, the catalog offered by nonprofit Recording for the
Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D)
includes 6,000 new titles -- from Harry Potter to Systems of
Psychotherapy: a Transtheoretical Analysis.
RFB&D is the
nation's largest educational library for students who are blind or visually
impaired, or who have learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
The digitally
recorded textbooks allow instant access to any page, chapter or subheading.
Unlike books recorded on analog cassette, the digital versions don't force
users to fast-forward through and count embedded beeps to find what they're
looking for.
The ideal for Kindle is where virtually all textbook publishers have Kindle
versions. Then for every semester all the required textbooks in all courses can
loaded onto Kindle. Gone are the heavy backpacks. The savings to students across
the years will depend upon how much discount is obtained on Kindle versions
relative to used hard copy prices.
It’s inevitable that the day will come when hard copy will no longer be an
option because of hard copy printing costs, inventory carrying costs, logistical
costs of shipping to stores or retail customers, and the costs of buying back
unsold copies from the stores. The question is when this day will arrive. My
guess is that we are at least ten years or more away from that point in time.
Between now and 2020, book readers will improve greatly just like laptop
computers improved greatly between 1995 and 2009.
Students gain the immense advantage of Kindle’s word search. Students lose
all the comfort and other traditional benefits of curling up in bed or chair
with a book.
There is much more risk with a Kindle. If a student loses a book or has a
book stolen it’s one book. If a Kindle is stolen it can be the loss of all of a
semester’s textbooks. There’s also the risk that Kindle needs to be repaired. I
might say Kindle becomes kindle that goes up in smoke, but that’s probably going
a bit too far. Eventually there might be local repair/replacement shops for
Kindles, but that day is way off into the future.
In ideal circumstances, students should be able to submit police reports to
publishers or Amazon for free replacement downloads in a replacement Kindle.
Perhaps the Kindle licensed repair shops of the future will be able to download
free replacement books.
Can you imagine 12 students coming ten days before the final exam and
reporting that their Kindles were stolen? In the past I’ve carried a few extra
textbooks for the occasional circumstance where a student needs to borrow a book
for a few days. Textbook reps usually supplied me with a few copies for such
purposes, but with Kindle the textbook rep will eventually be out of the
picture, especially when publishers cease to publish hard copy textbooks.
I personally think the risk of dependency on a Kindle is too high until
publishers and/or Amazon take away the worst risks. One possibility would be to
sell a backup hard drive that will only work with a given Kindle or replacement
Kindle. Then a student who must replace a Kindle could get the secret password
to download from the hard drive into the replacement Kindle.
I’ve not yet purchased a Kindle and am waiting for some improvements like
multimedia and computing capabilities. But if I were a student today given a
choice between hard copy and a Kindle version, I would go for the hard copy
every time in spite of putting my spine at risk with a heavy backpack. I guess
only nerds/faculty carry brief cases.
Eventually a book reader will not contain downloaded books. It will only
access student-rented books from one or two sources. One source might be an
on-campus library server. Backup servers might be available from publishers or
from distributors like Amazon. That eliminates much of the risk of loss of
purchased books stored on a Kindle. A book reader might have computing and note
storage drives.
Along fraternity/sorority row back at Iowa State University years ago, the
only accepted way to go to class was for fraternity men to carry a book and
clipboard on the opposite side from where a slide rule dangled from a belt.
Sorority women carried the clip board, book, and slide rule pressed to their
chests. Eventually students will be able to carry a Kindle that replaces all
this on their hips or chests. They won’t have to rush back to the fraternities
and sororities between classes just to change books.
Of course students today use back packs. I’m so old that I don’t recall
seeing a single fellow student at Iowa State University wearing a back pack. In
the rain, students usually wrapped their book and clipboard in plastic. If you
had two classes in a row, it was acceptable to carry two books and a clipboard.
More than two books turned you into a nerd.
The e-book
market is littered with the wreckage of failed ventures.
Question
Are eBooks dead?
Answer
I think there is still a big market in textbooks, but the market for popular
fiction and non-fiction has dwindled.
September 9, 2003 message from Barnes & Noble
Dear eBook Newsletter Subscriber,
As of September 9, 2003, Barnes & Noble.com will
no longer sell eBooks. At this time, we will also be terminating our eBook
Newsletter service.
Publishers, she
added, failed to make enough of a pricing distinction between hardcovers and
their e-book counterparts. Barnes & Noble Inc., the nation's largest
retailer, owns 38% of Barnes&Noble.com and is in the midst of buying
Bertelsmann AG's 37% stake in the business. That purchase is expected to close
within two weeks.
Some e-book
publishers tried to play down the company's decision to exit from e-book
retailing. Arthur Klebanoff, co-founder and chief executive of New York-based
Rosetta Books LLC, an e-book publisher that has released 117 titles from such
writers as George Orwell and John Updike, said the company's strongest
retailer is Palm Digital Media, a unit of PalmGear Inc.
"On a sales
basis, Barnes&Noble.com contributed a tiny percentage of Rosetta's
revenue," said Mr. Klebanoff. "But they had an early leadership role
in e-books. My guess is that they still believe in e-books in the long term,
but that the economics in the short term don't make sense."
Barnes&Noble.com's
decision comes at a difficult juncture for the e-book business. "Any
defection is going to be a negative," said Mike Segroves, director of
business development at Palm Digital Media. "While it will certainly be a
reduction in revenue for some publishers, our business has been growing. We'd
like to think that we can make up for the revenue publishers will lose from
this -- but time will prove whether we are right or wrong."
"The
e-book market is littered with the wreckage of failed ventures, and with some
justification, one might think that it is approaching total collapse." In
"Electronic Books: Reports of Their Death Have Been Exaggerated"
(ONLINE, vol. 26, no. 4, July/August 2002), Donald T. Hawkins, editor-in-chief
for Information Today, Inc. Information Science Abstracts and Fulltext Sources
Online, charts the ups and downs of e-books and the market's successes and
fiascos. Although e-book company failures have shaken the confidence of
early-adopters, Hawkins believes that e-books still have a future. The article
is available online at http://www.onlinemag.net/jul02/hawkins.htm
Online [ISSN:
0146-5422] is published six times per year by Information Today, Inc., 143 Old
Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055 USA; tel: 609-654-6266 or 800-300-9868; fax:
609-654-4309; Web: http://www.onlinemag.net/
In the article
"Students Complain About Devices for Reading E-Books, Study Finds"
(THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, August 26, 2002; http://chronicle.com/free/2002/08/2002082601t.htm),
Scott Carlson reports on a study of the usability of e-books and their
acceptance by college students. The study was conducted by Richard F. Bellaver,
Associate Director, Center for Information & Communication Studies, and
Jay Gillette, Director, Human Factors Institute, Ball State University. The
researchers concluded, that if future improvements are made in the technology,
e-books could be acceptable devices for delivering and storing students'
reading materials. The study's report, "The Usability of eBook
Technology: Practical Issues of an Application of Electronic Textbooks in a
Learning Environment," is available online at http://publish.bsu.edu/cics/eBook_final_result.asp
The Chronicle of
Higher Education [ISSN 0009-5982] is published weekly by The Chronicle of
Higher Education, Inc., 1255 Twenty-third Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037
USA; tel: 202-466-1000; fax: 202-452-1033;
But the e-book market
is still "clicking" in academe.
I thank Kevin Kobelsky (USC) for the link below:
"E-textbooks clicking with colleges Most greet e-books with enthusiasm, but
wariness remains, by Marsha Walton, CNN.com, September 1, 2002 --- http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/30/coolsc.eBooks/index.html Note that the link above also has
audio testimonials From students!
It's 4 a.m., the
astronomy homework is due in just a few hours, and there's still confusion
about some quirks in those mysterious quasars. What's a fretting college
student to do?
If you're in
professor Michael Ruiz's astronomy class at the University of North Carolina
at Asheville, your answer may be just a few clicks away, in an online forum
that every student in the class can access, 24-7.
"If you don't
understand something it's nice to be able to ask another student without
wandering the halls knocking on doors saying, 'Do you take astronomy? Do you
take astronomy?' Just type it in the forum, and ask your question about stars
or nebulae," said Margaret Eason, who is taking the class this semester.
The student forum is
one of dozens of interactive and multimedia features in the electronic
textbook written and produced by astronomy and physics professor Ruiz. Along
with his academic credentials, he's an accomplished musician, and a veteran
experimenter in all types of technology.
All three of those
interests contribute to the interactivity of his online texts, filled with
music, movies, experiments, and incentives. He's also created an e-book for
his physics of sound class, filled with online videos of his own piano and
keyboard performances.
Fast updates,
around-the-clock access Ruiz's electronic texts are Internet-based. Students
access the class Web site on a with a login and password.
"I'm more
effective with a class of 90 today than I was 20 years ago with 30 people and
some equipment up front. Let's face it, your best time might be 2 o'clock in
the morning, so if you're in here half falling asleep, you can see that
demonstration or experiment again at home, and absorb it," he told
students in his sound class the first day of this semester.
One major advantage
over traditional texts is Ruiz's ability to update information, literally
within minutes. And that's crucial, he says, in a field like astronomy, with
constant discoveries and debates.
How do instructors give
"open-book" exams without giving students full access to other
computer files and even the wireless Web?
This is a mixed blessing for
students. It makes storage, transport, and searching more convenient, but
it is difficult to read page after page on the screen. And printing the
pages is expensive. As pointed out in the article, there is not a used
book market.
Faced with mounting criticism that the
cost of new textbooks is too high, and vexed by students who buy cheaper used
texts, Pearson
PLC is making 300 of its most popular U.S. college textbooks available in a
Web-based format for half the price of the print versions.
Beginning this autumn, specialized
texts such as "Educational Research" and "Social
Psychology," which normally retail in hardback for about $100, can for
the first time be bought online for about $50.
"A lot of students have
affordability problems," says Will Ethridge, president of Pearson's
college-text unit.
Such price resistance poses a threat to
the $3.4 billion-a-year U.S. college-textbook industry -- as students either
buy used versions, seek cut-rate deals through foreign Web sites or do
without.
Pearson's new strategy, if successful,
will transform the college-textbook industry, which has been under attack from
parents and students stunned by the rising cost of higher education.
Complaints about high prices have become so bad that at a recent annual
meeting, the American Association of Publishers handed out a pamphlet
justifying the industry's prices, and the issue has become a heated topic at
educational conferences.
The prospect of online textbooks would seem to raise
piracy concerns, but Pearson, which is based in the United Kingdom, is
confident that the system is secure.
"There is a sophisticated security protocol
developed two years ago that protects the intellectual content from file
sharing or access by unauthorized subscribers," says Wendy Spiegel, a
spokeswoman for Pearson Education, based in New York. "This is not
downloadable. It is a Web-based book with the full function of the Web. You
can print it section by section, but not at one sitting. It won't continuously
print for you. We envision that students will print out the parts of the
chapter that they need that day. If you are a crook, you could duplicate a
printed book much easier."
Those who have seen early prototypes of the online
texts describe them as attractive and intriguing, and note that publishers
have a significant incentive to see that Web-formatted books go mainstream.
The traditional four-color hardcover book already is loaded up with related
CD-ROMs and links to additional Web sites -- thus boosting costs.
Web-based books may well provide the solution. By
transferring content to the Internet, publishers will be able to slash
inventory costs, eliminate returns, reduce shipping expenses, and perhaps put
a significant dent in the used-textbook business. Further, if they are able to
pass along those savings, they should be able to lure back budget-minded
students.
Pearson last year generated 19% of its revenue and
30% of its operating profit from college publishing. But executives have
expressed concern that price resistance poses a future pothole. By the
company's research, about a third of students say they don't buy all of their
required texts, while half say they are likely to buy a lower-cost version
online assuming a savings of at least $25.
Although textbook prices have been rising 2% to 3% a
year, well below college-tuition increases, texts are a conspicuous billboard
of college inflation, given that students pay for them directly. According to
the College Board, the average tuition and fees at a four-year private U.S.
college was $19,710 in the 2003-2004 school year, up 6% from the previous
year.
A spokeswoman for the National Association of College
Stores, representing more than 3,000 college retailers, says the group didn't
expect online versions to rapidly displace print editions. "Most students
in higher education still prefer a physical textbook" given that they
grew up on such texts since childhood, she says.
One book retailer suggests that interactive books
won't represent a significant price break for students, who usually sell their
books at the end of the semester.
Mark Oppegard, chief executive of closely held
Nebraska Book Co., which sells used and new college textbooks, notes that a
student who bought a $100 new textbook could sell it back for $50 at the end
of the semester. A student who bought a used book for $75 could get $37.50 for
it. "The interactive books don't represent a real savings," he says.
"Let's see how well they are received."
Publishing-industry officials say educational
publishers typically make between $15 and $20 profit from a book with a retail
list price of $100, after subtracting costs for author royalties, printing,
distribution and retailers' take. In a goodwill gesture to college bookstores,
Pearson said it would offer retailers a cut of revenue from online sales if
stores direct students to the publisher's Web site.
Continued in article
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Digitizing Education A Primer on
eBooks by MICHAEL A. LOONEY and MARK SHEEHAN
The eBook revolution has spawned several new
support businesses: companies that provide DRM technology; content conversion
houses, which aid publishers in converting existing print and electronic content
to eBook formats; and system integrators and clearinghouses--such as Lighting
Source ( http://www.lightningsource.com/
),
Reciprocal ( http://www.reciprocal.com/
),
iUniverse.com ( http://www.iuniverse.com/
),
and OverDrive (http://www.overdrive.com/)--which
provide encryption, hosting, and e-commerce integration services to authors,
publishers, and resellers. Before long, specialized rich-media authoring
services, copyright clearinghouses, and digital object vending services will
also be established. Besides these service providers, online resellers
such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble have begun vigorously marketing eBook
content, and online college bookstores will start to do the same fairly
soon. Finally, specialized system integrator companies will soon be
assisting libraries with integrating eBooks into their lending systems.
How
eBooks Add Value to Education
eBooks in the broad sense of electronic content)
are ideal for the academic environment. A number of social and economic
factors make eBooks or digital content preferable to paper textbooks and course
materials--or at least highly desirable as adjuncts to these materials.
First of all, eBooks provide a means for nontextbook course adoptions whether
the material is a trade book (nonfiction, biography, etc.) or customized content
authored by the faculty member or colleagues. This is particularly
appealing for upper-division courses, in which textbooks are used less
frequently.
In addition, textbooks in
eBook format can be
made modular. This will allow the faculty member to review a
fifteen-chapter textbook and simply select the three or four chapters that are
relevant to a course. This modular selection can be offered electronically
and as a POD book in the bookstore, with either option costing considerably less
than the price of the complete printed textbook.
Another distinct advantage of
eBooks is the
equality of access to learning materials they provide to both the campus-based
and the distant learner. Students who are literally anywhere in the world
will have access to the same content that is available to the student on campus,
whether that access is through the faculty Web site, the college bookstore, or
the digital library. Furthermore, with dictionary plug-ins and automated
text-to-speech technology, the eBook reader software can greatly benefit
students whose primary language is not English. Similarly, students and
faculty of foreign languages, as well as international students in the United
States, will be able to access digital content in real time from a broad range
of countries, whether it be a Manga comic from Japan or an original,
native-language version of a scholarly publication from France.
The eBook format also opens the door to the many
precious and rare documents that are currently under lock and key in collections
around the world. Typically inaccessible to the average student, these
will become available, as digital representations, to any student in any
location. Several examples of these rare publications, now available as
eBooks, can be experienced at the Octavo Web site (http://www.octavo.com/).
As previously mentioned,
eBooks can be enriched
with a broad range of media types to help with the learning process. For
example, MIT's Sloan School of Management is already preparing "Knowledge
Updates," brief research updates from MIT faculty. Complete with
video, audio, and potentially animated materials, these updates are current
research snapshots intended as much for alumni, corporate customers, and friends
of Sloan as for current students.
Keeping current is an additional advantage of
eBooks. For courses on cutting-edge technologies or current affairs,
textbooks are out-of-date the minute they are printed. eBooks can enable
daily, weekly, or monthly updates via the Internet. This would eliminate
out-of-date textbooks and would help the student and instructor stay on top of
developments relevant to their courses.
eBooks can also improve on qualities of
traditional printed books. Like a paper book, the eBook will become marked
with highlighting, with page corners turned down for quick reference, and with
notes made in the margins of the pages. The difference with the eBook is
that all of these aids will be the user's own amendments rather than the
vestiges of the learning habits of previous owners. In addition, the
digital medium is often simply more convenient or appropriate as either a
replacement for or an adjunct to the potentially heavier, environmentally
unfriendly paper medium.
Finally, another factor that may influence the
adoption of eBooks and other digital courseware is the financial model used by
traditional textbook publishers and the financial burden this model imposes on
students. The average price of a new textbook in 1998 was almost $62, and
this price is anticipated to increase 4-6 percent per year. This
represents a nearly 500 percent increase since 1965. Contributing factors
to this worsening economic scenario include the fact that 24 percent of all
academic books are returned to publishers from college bookstores and the
fact that each purchased book is turned over six times or more on average before
it is out of circulation. As a result, one-third of students buy used
books, and one-third do not even purchase the book required for the
course. Only 10 percent of textbook sales are to international markets,
due increasingly to hard-copy piracy as the costs of books increase. All
of these factors, coupled with bookstores' and publishers' profit margins, lead
to textbook prices that in some cases are higher than the tuition for the
course. Through the utilization of an eBook "workflow" process
that can leverage not only eBooks but also POD books and modular content, eBooks
are an opportunity for academic textbook publishers to provide students with
content that is of higher value and is potentially less expensive.
Textbook pages never
rustle during a University of Virginia seminar about the Salem witch trials,
because printed books have been replaced by electronic ones. Students in the
experimental course were lent hand-held computers loaded with several assigned
textbooks, as well as electronic versions of every warrant, indictment, and
deposition from the trials.
The course was
designed to take advantage of two of the most celebrated features of digital
textbooks -- their capacity to hold reams of data and their ability to let
readers easily search for any word or phrase. In the classroom, students
became on-the-spot historians, using the gadgets to home in on court documents
so they could argue for and against various interpretations of what happened
in Salem, Mass., more than 300 years ago.
Many futurists have
predicted the death of the book, but the printed word has proven extremely
difficult to replicate electronically in a form that is as elegant and easy to
read as text on paper. A pilot project here this spring, comprising two
courses, attempted to see whether the latest e-book technologies could allow
entire courses to go bookless.
During class
sessions, students tapping on tiny screens with plastic styluses looked more
as if they were taking scientific readings than discussing history and
religion. The setting was decidedly old-fashioned, though; the class met in
one of the few classrooms remaining from Jefferson's "academical
village."
"Whenever we got
to talking about something in a document, we would just go to the
document," says Amy Nichols, a senior who took the course. The students
say they used court records and other texts more than they would have with
bulky printed versions of the same documents.
What's more, the
students were bolder than usual in criticizing scholarly summaries of events
presented in their textbooks, says Benjamin C. Ray, the religious-studies
professor teaching the course. In fact, they were often too quick to dispute
scholarly accounts once they came upon source material that seemed to
contradict the textbook, he says. "I think they're going overboard.
They're trashing too much ... without knowing the historical methods."
For their part, the
students quickly discovered disadvantages of the high-tech texts. Unlike paper
books, e-books sometimes crash. Several students lost marginal notes and
bookmarks when their hand-held computers suddenly erased their data.
Some students said
reading from the tiny screens made the texts seem more fragmented. "When
I'm at home sitting on my chair curled up with the afghan on my lap, I don't
want to be flipping through this," says Kristen Buckstad, a student in
the course, holding up her Hewlett-Packard Journada, which sells for about
$450. The hand-held device is roughly the size of a Palm Pilot, with a
2½-by-3¼-inch color screen and enough memory to store about 90 books.
"The screen is too small," she says. "It's hard to get the
overall feeling of the flow of the narrative."
In the articles that follow, The
Chronicle examines the possibilities of e-textbooks, the impact that
e-books are having on academic libraries, and an experiment in teaching with
e-texts using specialized reading devices.
How many Microsoft Press books
can you afford to buy? What if you could just pick the chapters you want from
each book and make your own book of specialty advice and techniques? Now you
can! http://www.accountingweb.com/item/51821
From Syllabus e-News, Resources, and Trends August 14, 2001
Thomson Learning Offers eTextbooks this Fall
Course Technology, a computer education publishing
division of Thomson Learning, is offering flexible textbook content
electronically through eBooks. Course Technology will offer a library of more
than 50 of their best-selling textbook titles within eBook platforms beginning
in September 2001. Course Technology offers a secure system for accessing,
annotating and sharing copyrighted content online through its partnership with
Rovia. The Rovia-enabled etextbooks, which look exactly like the printed
version, integrate the entire offering of materials that accompany a textbook,
including interactive quizzes, movies and other multimedia enhancements, into
a single platform. Professors and students can customize their content by
annotating text, highlighting key passages, inserting "sticky
notes," and bookmarking pages.
From Syllabus e-News, Resources, and Trends August 14, 2001
Atomic Dog Publishing Launches My Backpack 2.0
Atomic Dog Publishing, a Cincinnati-based higher
education, online publisher, announced the release of its new online learning
environment, MyBackpack 2.0, the platform upon which all of Atomic Dog's
online textbooks are delivered. MyBackpack 2.0 presents textbooks in
real-time, allowing for a higher level of customization, currency, and
multimedia integration. The new learning environment features full text
searching, pop-up glossary terms and footnotes, bookmarking, integrated
study-guides, integrated video, audio, simulations, and animations, and a
hyperlinked table of contents, in full and brief. MyBackpack 2.0 also enables
students and instructors to customize their textbooks. Students can now enter
personal notes and highlights within any of Atomic Dog's online textbooks.
Instructors can also post notes, quizzes, Web exercises, alternative points of
view, case studies, current events and critical thinking questions to their
students. For more information, visit www.atomicdog.com
.
"The Premature Obituary of the
Book: Why Literature?" by Mario Vargas Llosa, The New Republic,
May 14, 2001 --- http://www.thenewrepublic.com/051401/llosa051401.html
This is a very long article. Llosa's concluding remarks are are as
follows:
So literature's unrealities, literature's lies, are
also a precious vehicle for the knowledge of the most hidden of human
realities. The truths that it reveals are not always flattering; and sometimes
the image of ourselves that emerges in the mirror of novels and poems is the
image of a monster. This happens when we read about the horrendous sexual
butchery fantasized by de Sade, or the dark lacerations and brutal sacrifices
that fill the cursed books of Sacher-Masoch and Bataille. At times the
spectacle is so offensive and ferocious that it becomes irresistible. Yet the
worst in these pages is not the blood, the humiliation, the abject love of
torture; the worst is the discovery that this violence and this excess are not
foreign to us, that they are a profound part of humanity. These monsters eager
for transgression are hidden in the most intimate recesses of our being; and
from the shadow where they live they seek a propitious occasion to manifest
themselves, to impose the rule of unbridled desire that destroys rationality,
community, and even existence. And it was not science that first ventured into
these tenebrous places in the human mind, and discovered the destructive and
the self-destructive potential that also shapes it. It was literature that
made this discovery. A world without literature would be partly blind to these
terrible depths, which we urgently need to see.
Uncivilized, barbarian, devoid of sensitivity and
crude of speech, ignorant and instinctual, inept at passion and crude at love,
this world without literature, this nightmare that I am delineating, would
have as its principal traits conformism and the universal submission of
humankind to power. In this sense, it would also be a purely animalistic
world. Basic instincts would determine the daily practices of a life
characterized by the struggle for survival, and the fear of the unknown, and
the satisfaction of physical necessities. There would be no place for the
spirit. In this world, moreover, the crushing monotony of living would be
accompanied by the sinister shadow of pessimism, the feeling that human life
is what it had to be and that it will always be thus, and that no one and
nothing can change it.
When one imagines such a world, one is tempted to
picture primitives in loincloths, the small magic-religious communities that
live at the margins of modernity in Latin America, Oceania, and Africa. But I
have a different failure in mind. The nightmare that I am warning about is the
result not of under-development but of over-development. As a consequence of
technology and our subservience to it, we may imagine a future society full of
computer screens and speakers, and without books, or a society in which
books--that is, works of literature--have become what alchemy became in the
era of physics: an archaic curiosity, practiced in the catacombs of the media
civilization by a neurotic minority. I am afraid that this cybernetic world,
in spite of its prosperity and its power, its high standard of living and its
scientific achievement would be profoundly uncivilized and utterly soulless--a
resigned humanity of post-literary automatons who have abdicated freedom.
It is highly improbable, of course, that this macabre
utopia will ever come about. The end of our story, the end of history, has not
yet been written, and it is not pre-determined. What we will become depends
entirely on our vision and our will. But if we wish to avoid the
impoverishment of our imagination, and the disappearance of the precious
dissatisfaction that refines our sensibility and teaches us to speak with
eloquence and rigor, and the weakening of our freedom, then we must act. More
precisely, we must read.
Commercial publishing interests are presenting the
future of the book in the digital world through the promotion of e-book
reading appliances and software. Implicit in this is a very complex and
problematic agenda that re-establishes the book as a digital cultural artifact
within a context of intellectual property rights management enforced by
hardware and software systems. With the convergence of different types of
content into a common digital bit-stream, developments in industries such as
music are establishing precedents that may define our view of digital books.
At the same time we find scholars exploring the ways in which the digital
medium can enhance the traditional communication functions of the printed
work, moving far beyond literal translations of the pages of printed books
into the digital world. This paper examines competing visions for the future
of the book in the digital environment, with particular attention to questions
about the social implications of controls over intellectual property, such as
continuity of cultural memory.
Contents
Introduction: Hyped Machines, Hidden Agendas and
Visions of the Future
Defining Digital Books and E-book Readers
Digital Books as Literal Translations of Printed
Books
New Content Genres: Reconceptualizing Books in a
Digital World
Converting Older Books to Digital Form: The Search
for Critical Mass
The Control of Digital Books: A Hidden Agenda with
Massive Consequences
Cautionary Tales from Other Content
Industries
Consumer Expectations and Technological Controls
on Content
The Global Marketplace: Rights Management,
Control, and Censorship
Books Are Not Music: Reframing the Debate About
Control Over Content
Restructuring the Publishing Value Chain and the
Publishing Industry
Assessing E-book Readers
The Role of Standards
A Brave New World for Readers
The Uncertain Future of Digital Books in
Libraries
Continuity of Access and the Preservation of Our
Intellectual Heritage
Defining the Future of the Book
Issues of preservation, continuity of access, and the
integrity of our cultural and intellectual record are particularly critical in
the context of e-book readers and the works designed for them. These have
enormous importance both for individual consumers and for society as a whole,
and for libraries, which manage much of the intellectual archives of our
society. Most fundamentally, we face the question of whether libraries can
continue to collect books as they move to digital form, particularly in
mass-market publishing. We must not overlook these issues in our rush to adopt
e-book readers and content distributed for them, and libraries will have a
special obligation to speak out on these issues and to educate society about
them, while also trying to work out viable arrangements with the content
industries.
Finally, we must continue to recognize that digital
books, in the broadest sense, are at least potentially much more than simply
digital content translated from the print framework that can be viewed by
e-book readers promoted by today's publishing establishment and technology
providers as part of an agenda of market share, new revenue opportunities, or
control over content. Digital books, in all of their complexity and potential,
are as yet only dimly defined, and will be a continued focus for the
creativity and ingenuity of present and future generations of authors,
teachers and scholars.
I have argued at length here that the printed word,
and particularly its manifestation in the book, holds a very special and
privileged place in our culture and our society. As we think about the
migration of authoring to the digital medium, the book - rather than other
cultural products such as musical works - should be the benchmark against
which we measure and test our assumptions and beliefs about the roles and uses
of intellectual property in the new environment. We must remain mindful of
this distinction, and not constrain the virtually unlimited potential of the
digital medium to the traditions and business interests that have coalesced
around the printed book over the centuries and that may now seek both to
define a new canon of "book" in the digital world, regaining the
control of the digital printing press that they suddenly lost with the
creation of the World Wide Web, and to surround these new eBooks with new
technology-enabled controls on content. We need to be careful not to
prematurely marginalize any of the new genres the digital medium may enable.
The most compelling case for eBooks as relatively literal of the printed book
is based on greater convenience and ubiquity of access, and somewhat enhanced
use. The case for digital books broadly, as new genres of works, is about more
effective communication of ideas, enhanced teaching and learning, and renewed
creativity. While the first case is a good one, if the price is not too high
(in social as well as economic terms), the second case is truly compelling and
inspiring. The future digital book will take us far beyond today's printed
books and publishing industry, in many different and sometimes unexpected
directions, though our points of departure will inevitably be an important
influence. Let us welcome the journey and be open to many destinations; we
will find treasures and wonderful surprises along the way
"The
Next Chapter In Electronic Books," by Arik Hesseldahl, Forbes, April
26, 2004 ---
