John Naughton, writing in The Guardian, identifies excellent reasons why eBooks must fail:
I own my copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four and can do with it what I wish. I can, for example, lend it to friends, family and students. I can, if I wish, tear out pages and send them to people in the post, or stick them up on noticeboards. I can sell the book - if I could find a buyer. I can donate it to the local Oxfam shop. I can read sobering or inflammatory passages from it at political demonstrations. And so on.
But if I had purchased an electronic copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four to read on my Kindle device, I would have none of those freedoms
[...]
Up to now, the debate about eBooks has been dominated by technical issues: ergonomics, portability, storage capacity, the readability of display screens, the quality of the user interface and so on. These are important matters, but ignore the biggest issue of all, namely the ways in which the technology enables content owners to assert a level of control over the reader that would be deemed unconscionable - and unacceptable - in the world of print.
He's right - designers tend to focus on the aesthetic and affective aspects - how useable is the technology, how open is it, does it replicate the "experience" of reading a paperback... but the real "experience" of reading a book is bound up in the tactile and the social. Lending a book to someone - or even just saying you'll lend it to someone, is an important part of reading.
All the hoo-hah about Amazon deleting books and tracking what you do with what you buy aside, the real issue with eBooks is that all the focus and research has gone into the technology and completely missed what it means to read a really good book.
(Via MediaGuardian.co.uk.)
Visual Communication: From Theory to Practice
(Winner of 'Best Higher Education Title' at the British Book Awards 2006)
by Jonathan Baldwin and Lucienne Roberts
More Than A Name: An introduction to branding
by Melissa Davis and Jonathan Baldwin
6 comments:
This sounds almost as bad as one of the many reasons MP3s should have failed.
Ebooks have their place and wont be failing any time soon, I certainly hope they don't.
Not really the same thing - MP3s are a file format, not a delivery mechanism.
But for a long time MP3 players didn't really take off, partly because they were difficult to use , but mainly because they didn't capture what it means to listen to music.
Most discussions of the iPod, which brought MP3 players in to the mainstream, focus on the physical design but that's a mistake - Apple succeeded with the iPod by understanding how people listen to music, how they talk about it, how they care about it.
Now take that to eBooks and you'll see that they're still at the stage where people go ga-ga over the Kindle because of what it looks like, and completely miss the real issue, which is how people use books, and how people experience reading.
The "convenience" of having your entire library is an odd thing to sell eBooks on - it's not like music where having a lot of music available to you might be a good thing.
Think about it this way - before the iPod I carried around loads of cassettes I'd made up myself from CDs. Going on a trip meant choosing which tapes to take, and usually making new ones at the last minute. It was a hassle.
Now I don't reckon many people go through the same process with books (actually, I'll be honest, I do - I usually take at least two books with me on trips even though I never need to!)
So that "feature" of eBooks is a non-starter for most people.
And like I said above, you can't share eBooks. You cant stare at your book case for years to come and remember reading them, you can't show off your tastes to others - these are actually major reasons why people buy and keep books.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no luddite. I store PDFs of academic papers on my iPhone, I keep a lot of documentation digitally. If a good eBook reader came out I might buy it for those specific reasons, but I can't see myself ditching books any time soon.
The key difference between eBooks and MP3s is that eBooks are a method of distribution looking for content. MP3s were content looking for a method of distribution.
Books are inherently social. The killer eBook device will be one that understands that.
I was talking about the reasons given for "digital music" not taking off: You don't have the physical item, you can't lend them, you can't absorb the artwork, they're soulless bits of data etc. Very similar arguments in my opinion.
The problem for me is the Kindle isn't a viable solution. The solution in my mind would be software installed on any device with a screen... and preferably an MP3 player... and a phone... and a web browser ;)
- The "convenience" of having your entire library is an odd thing to sell eBooks on - it's not like music where having a lot of music available to you might be a good thing. -
If I could have my entire music library and my entire book collection that would be brilliant... I almost can.
- And like I said above, you can't share eBooks. -
I have and I do share them amongst friends. Many file sharing sites even have dedicated ebook sections.
- You cant stare at your book case for years to come and remember reading them -
This was said about digital music collections and hasn't halted the uptake.
Having said that, even though I fully support ebooks I have to admit I hate reading anything longer than a short article on screen. I use ebooks for reference, for dipping in and out and finding what I want quickly. They have their place and I'd like this to improve.
I prefer to buy vinyl also.
Why why why are people getting so riled up about the 1984 thing being taken off Amazon?
If you bought stolen goods (which the copy of '1984' and 'Animal Farm' on Amazon was as I understand it... was it?!?) then it's not yours, even if you have paid money for it.
The quote from the Guardian paper says -
"The books - downloaded from Amazon.com by American Kindle users - were remotely deleted after what the US company now says was a rights issue regarding the publisher, MobileReference.com.
"These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books," spokesman Drew Herdener told the Guardian. "When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers."
The customers got money back for it. If they really wanted the book then they could go out and buy another copy. At least we can assume that Amazon is a company acting under the law, fair, would have probably got fined millions of dollars if found out that they had done nothing about it blah blah blah.
John Naughton writing:
"...But if I had purchased an electronic copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four to read on my Kindle device, I would have none of those freedoms."
I'm not sure if this is still the case but a while back if you bought your music from iTunes you had restrictions on what you could do with the music you had purchased which infringed on your rights as an individual to use your own personal property as you wished.
This was really really annoying for little things like having a limited number of computers to put your music on... you did need a number of computers to go over this though, but putting my music on an external hard disk for back-up was one, putting music on my laptop for when I moved around, that's another one, and the list could go on.
Didn't Apple get sued by Denmark or something for Apple having crap restrictions or something a while back?
Anyway, I don't think Ebooks will fail, it's just the technology isn't great just yet and it just needs a bit of perfecting. I'd have an Ebook if I had the money since I like to travel light... but then there's the charging battery issue which is annoying!
...Also, are we really allowed to share books? Isn't it that we've done it for so long (like CDs Tapes and Vinyls) that it's become the norm' and the Ebook thing is just the same as music computer file formats that we have now, it's just easier to have more control over the issue now.
David, David, David... never start a message with "why why why", it makes you sound like the sort of person who writes letters to the Times in green ink!
Anyway, the point isn't the status of the books, it's the way in which Amazon accessed users' devices and wiped content. It's a privacy issue apart from anything else but it also becomes an issue of ownership.
You clearly cannot "own" anything on the Kindle, you only "possess" it. Imagine if you bought a t-shirt that ripped off someone else's design and six months later you woke up to find that Gap had sent people round to your wardrobe and taken the t-shirt away, leaving you a voucher for the original sale value.
You wouldn't accept that, regardless of the legality of the product.
The status of 1984 (and other titles) isn't the issue. Amazon made a mistake, not the consumers. The correct way to approach it would have been a product recall - contacting all purchasers, explaining the issue and either offering a refund in return for deleting the file on the next sync or offering a replacement, legitimate copy of the book for no extra charge.
The iTunes issue is different. It was the publishers of the music, not the vendor, who imposed the restrictions. However, if the music were burned to CD there were no restrictions.
The publishers have now agreed with Apple that DRM is silly and taken it off.
The nearest analogy is actually streaming music services like the one operated by Microsoft (and others) where you paid a monthly fee for music but where, if you stopped paying, you owned nothing.
That was fairly transparent, but what wasn’t transparent was when many of the services were withdrawn, people lost their investment.
Apple were sued by Norway but I think they pointed out the issue was with the music companies not them and when the music companies dropped DRM the issue went away.
(Also, backing your music up to a hard drive would not count as one of your computers. The limit was four, I think, and I've yet to meet anyone who ever came up against that limit. Which was really part of Apple's argument with the music companies that it was stupid).
However, it's only a close analogy but it's not correct to use it. The nearest analogy is with physical retail of books. So move the scenario above with the t-shirt to you buying an actual copy of 1984 from Amazon who then discovered they weren't allowed to sell it.
How should they handle it? If your answer includes coming round to your house when you're not there and doing the equivalent of the tooth fairy, then you have a point - I disagree with it, but at least you're being consistent ;-)
If, however, you say anything involving letters, requests, offers of a replacement or refund or the option of the purchaser keeping the book and Amazon recompensing the copyright holder for their error, and claiming the costs back from the original publisher who acted improperly, then you see why people have a problem.
As for eBooks failing, my point is that it isn't to do with the technology or the interface or whatever, it's to do with understanding how people read.
Until the iPod, which was "just" another MP3 player, the MP3 player was a niche product which would never have taken off. What Apple added wasn't the cool design or the white earbuds, it was the understanding of how people use music.
So there's my point. Until manufacturers, publishers and designers understand how people read and use books and other sources of literature, the eBook will not take off. Seeing it as a temporary repository of files that can be deleted at will is an example of behaviour that, if not changed, leads me to say that eBooks must fail. It's not a demand, it's a prediction.
Lol, I'll remember the 'why why why' part for everything else I write, & good points!
Can't really add anything to that... :)
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