The Death Of Books...Or At Least the Evolution Of Reading

Day 3 of the best of Mr. Blogger - March 13th
Every once in a while, Mr. Blogger and I agree about books

TW: One silver lining (at least I hope) to this mini-depression period will be waking up next year and beyond to some hot new technologies. Typically technologies are so hyped that they seem to be advancing at an almost snail's pace since we hear about them long before they are commercializable. In this environment, we are so focused on the mess that the technological troops are advancing somewhat below the radar screen.

One such technology maybe how we read books and magazines. I am an avowed cro-magnon in this area. I like the tactile feel of books and magazines. I am sure there are specific physical and psychological reasons but I am too lazy to discern them. Yet I suspect that by doing so I am now showing my age.

I suspect within the next decade physical book and magazine sales will plummet although digital book and magazine will skyrocket. In twenty years college kids may look back at folks like me and wonder how we could possibly be so retro as to yearn for a deadwood reading instrument.

The technology to deliver books and magazines in a form as readable as the physical version yet down loadable at a click is nearing fruition. The Amazon Kindle is merely the first of what will be many devices delivering information digitally. The remaining obstacle is the revenue model. How to create system whereby the user can pay sufficiently to support the suppliers with viable profitability.

From Fortune:
"...Today the Kindle and the Sony Reader are mostly suited to books because their six-inch-diagonal, black-and-white displays simply don't provide a good enough reading experience and advertising environment for magazines and newspapers. But at least a half-dozen companies, including giants like Hewlett-Packard...and Fujitsu and startups such as Polymer Vision, FirstPaper, and Plastic Logic, are developing a new crop of readers, some of which will start hitting the market later this year. Designed with the requirements of newspapers and magazines in mind, they will feature larger screens (to make it easier to navigate through stories), wireless updating (something the Kindle has made a requirement), better image resolution, and eventually color and video.

These gadgets could be pulled straight out of the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report. Imagine wirelessly downloading an issue of your favorite magazine onto an 8- by 11-inch plastic screen that is light and durable enough to throw into your briefcase, to take to the beach, or to read in your easy chair on a Sunday morning. The resolution of each page is as clear as what you find in today's magazines, and the photographs appear in striking color. Flip the page with a touch of your finger, and an ad for, say, BMW appears. Touch the image of that navy-blue 3 Series, and a video shows the car slicing through the hills of Bavaria.

...The Kindle might be the salvation of books, but magazines and newspapers have a different business model. They rely on revenue from reader subscriptions and from advertising, and those trends are not encouraging. The industry's contraction is happening at a time when paper prices are high and postal costs are rising. E-readers could dramatically reduce those costs. Buying paper and ink, printing, and delivering a newspaper or magazine can account for more than 50% of the overall cost of producing the periodical. E-readers also turn out to be good for the environment - fewer trees are cut down to make paper

...On a sunny winter day at Plastic Logic's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, CEO Archuleta pulls out an 8- by 11-inch white plastic sheet about an eighth-inch thick. He touches a button in the upper left corner, and a menu appears listing documents, spreadsheets, newspapers, and magazines. Less than a pound in weight, the Plastic Logic reader, which the company says it will start selling early next year, has the feel of a clipboard. A slim lithium ion battery powers it for several days' worth of reading on a single charge. Like the Kindle, the Plastic Logic reader permits uploading documents from a PC..."

~ CNN