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e-reader

What Does The e-Book Want To Do When It Grows Up?

Monday January 18, 2010 – Myra Moore

You want to read the book, see the movie, or play the game? How about all three at the same time? Or, maybe little bites of all three at once. It sounds ridiculous but it’s plausible that the embryonic e-book market could be moving in that direction.

Until now, the e-book and the corresponding reader were pretty cut and dry – a good facsimile of printed text (in shades of gray) on an electronic device. Avid book readers and gadget geeks are the target consumer and several million of us have taken the bait. But now the apparently irresistible urge to turn the e-reader into another electronic Swiss army knife has officially begun.

It was inevitable. First, you add the ability to play back mp3 audio files and load up some photos and the features check -box list begins to grow. The rumors of an Apple device/tablet that includes numerous electronic Swiss army knife implements right down to video playback and 3D capabilities, begs the question: What is an e-book reader, and maybe more importantly, what is an e-book?

We have yet to see an application where text, audio and video have been combined into a single electronic book/program (or whatever we’re going to call another potentially new media format) for view on an e-book reader. A U.S. startup, Spring Design, announced it will sell an e-reader this year that plays video. It looks like the device keeps up a wall between the video playback (in a small screen at the bottom of the device) and the reading of an e-book.

So I don’t think we have to worry about naming this new hybrid media anytime soon. But the ability to cram multiple promotional messages (read the book! See the movie! Buy the sound track! Play the game! Just push this button!) into one electronic expression has to have marketing execs salivating. Although it sounds like promotional Nirvana, the technology isn’t fully baked enough to enable this kind of application just yet.

My bet is that technology won’t be the big barrier though.Business models, content ownership, and copy rights hold the greatest promise for inhibiting the production and distribution of hybrid supercharged e-books. Will a publisher, movie studio, music label and content distributor each take a cut of the sale? Will there be revenue sharing among all if a consumer buys another product promoted in the e-book/program? How will all parties that contributed content agree on content security and management? Digital Rights Management (DRM) promises to be an especially thorny issue especially if the supercharged device has e-mail capabilities. Getting all the kids to play nice in the sand box will either take the aplomb of a great diplomat or a huge contract so heavy the involved parties will want to review it on an e-reader.

However this new kind of media and device get created, I’m not sure the avid book readers now buying the Kindle and Sony Reader are the likely buyers. Although today’s e-readers incorporate truly innovative technology that mimics the printed page and displays that page with minimal power, they’re pretty low-tech devices. Look for a lot of trial-and-error marketing as the stake holders try to figure out what they’re selling and to whom.