E-books are a practical thing. They have no weight, take up no space, and cost less than regular books. All you need is a little electricity and a suitable reading device.
E-books Polarize
But e-books polarize. Hardly any technology divides users into such clear pro and contra camps. No conversation about e-books goes by without the sentence: “It’s practical in any case. But it won’t be able to replace the book!”
In fact, the e-book has not replaced the printed book. There are different statistics. Some speak of steady growth. Others say that e-book sales have collapsed recently. All studies agree that the number of e-books sold doesn’t come close to the sales of printed books.
Technology in its Infancy
Let’s not forget: e-books as we know them today (Amazon Kindle, Tolino, etc.) are not even 10 years old. Compared to the art of book printing, which has been around for half a millennium, this baby has just learned to walk. There’s much more to come, no question.
In fact, the technology behind e-books is still in its infancy. It took a while until a common format, a kind of standard was developed: ePub – a subset of HTML – has been around since 2001. However, the format was only brought into its current common form (version 3.0) in 2011. And since then, it has remained in this form. There was a small update (3.1) last year (6 years later!), but ultimately, the capabilities of ePub are limited to text formatting, headings, and tables. Video, audio, interactivity? Not available. This only works if the manufacturer of an e-book solution builds additional proprietary features around the standard.
The Matter of the Reader
Such proprietary extensions, however, only work on a dedicated e-book reader. Apple fully utilizes the capabilities of an iPad for its e-books: a whole multimedia arsenal is available, and the display of magnificent visual worlds is, of course, a given on the Retina display of an iPad. Storage space is also abundant. All of this, of course, at a – let’s say – premium price.
But what about e-books that also run on the cheap reader from the supermarket? Display? Black and white, pixelated. Multimedia? How, without speakers and without a graphics chip? Storage space? Certainly not enough for video and high-resolution images. These devices make up the main market for e-book readers. They are cheap, light, robust – and they can’t really do anything.
No wonder, then, that practically only fiction with a lot of text is read on these readers. No wonder that ePub can’t do much more than display this text as optimally and “book-like” as possible. It doesn’t need to do more.
Disruption
Nevertheless, the impact of e-books so far has been enormous. Not so much the technology as the business models around it. Can you remember the times before Amazon? Going to the bookstore, browsing, buying or ordering. On site. At certain opening hours. Depending on the size of the bookstore, with a very limited selection.
Today we buy books online. Day and night. On weekends, during holidays. We no longer browse but read reviews. An endless selection is available to us. The book is delivered in a package, the e-book via Wi-Fi.
Amazon’s success is mainly based on the distribution of e-books. And the realization that this distribution model can be scaled almost infinitely and applied to practically all goods. Even to those that are large and heavy, or even to perishable foodstuffs. To put it simply: e-books have turned the old distribution models upside down. And along with that, the packaging industry and the transport industry. Not to mention the publishing industry (self-publishing), the library system (how do you lend e-books?), and e-commerce (micropayment with credit cards).
Last but not least, e-books have globalized and democratized access to knowledge.
Hit or Miss?
So, are e-books to be considered a success or a failure? It’s probably too early to tell. The product itself still has room for improvement. However, the waves that e-books, and closely linked to them, the company Amazon with its distribution model, have created are enormous. So big that one must ride on them or else sink.
In my next post, I’ll look at e-books from the perspective of a textbook maker. Spoiler: e-books don’t seem to me to be the appropriate digital teaching tool yet. In this context, also a small note on my own behalf:
