I’ve done a lot of reading/research on the Kindle today. I’m uncomfortably interested in this product … which is driving me nuts since by very own Kindle is just sitting in my apartment building’s office in its box. Yup, that’s right. It’s just sitting there, not being experimented on, or read on, or being filled with lovely books and documents from various fields of study and interest.
I explicitly paid for expedited shipping so that I could have the Kindle by this weekend. I politely asked my landlord to sign for and place the box in my apartment – as I wouldn’t be home to receive it. And he kindly said he would. Except he didn’t. So now it’s sitting there. Until Monday. Alone and frightened. But enough complaining …
From my reading I came across some ideas and directions in which I can direct my research. From The Millions:
Looking at the Amazon option and the Google option, you can begin to see two separate, though not necessarily mutually exclusive paths that ebook evolution will follow. The Kindle path is one of verisimilitude with the printed page, a uni-tasker that wants to provide an experience as close to that of being a book as possible while using technology to improve upon the book by, for example, being lighter and letting you carry multiple titles in one small package.
This is probably the direction I will most likely point my survey. What are people looking for in an experience with a electronic book. Are they looking for “versimilitude with the printed page”? Are they simply looking for a digitized carbon copy of the experience they have always had? Or are do they not know what they want. Will it take a leap in an unexpected direction to move this technology forward?
Perhaps readers will adapt to the Kindle iPhone Application and we will find that readers really do not need a large book-like interface. They are content to continue with the micro-screened reading they have become accustomed to will phones, blackberries and (in the past) PDA’s. From John Siracusa’s revealing Arstechnica piece:
I honestly can’t remember the first e-book I read on its 160×160-pixel screen. Like I said, there was no blinding flash, no instant conversion. What happened instead is that I just put another e-book on it when I finished with the first. Because, again, what else was I going to do with it? (Yes, I know, it does other things!)
At a certain point, I realized I’d read my last five or six books on this thing. Without noticing, I’d gone off paper books entirely. Only then did I take the time to examine what had happened. Why was reading off of this tiny PDA not just tolerable, but (apparently) satisfying enough to keep me from returning to paper books.
Siracusa’s point, eventually, is the ” distinction between the device and the content.” That is, don’t necessarily look at the reader itself. That is simply a device. The content or eBook is what matters most. This is a product that has numerous advantages over the printed book (and yes, some deficiencies). The eBook is cheaper and easier to produce, replicate and store. It is quicker to aquire and, hopefully at some point, share. Speed, ease of use, and ubiquity are three very important qualities to the success of a product and the electronic book captures this. I will end this post with another (extensive) quote from Siracusa:
If you remain unconvinced, here’s one final exercise, in the grand tradition of a particular family of Internet analogies. Take all of your arguments against the inevitability of e-books and substitute the word “horse” for “book” and the word “car” for “e-book.” Here are a few examples to whet your appetite for the (really) inevitable debate in the discussion section at the end of this article.
“Books will never go away.” True! Horses have not gone away either.
“Books have advantages over e-books that will never be overcome.” True! Horses can travel over rough terrain that no car can navigate. Paved roads don’t go everywhere, nor should they.
“Books provide sensory/sentimental/sensual experiences that e-books can’t match.” True! Cars just can’t match the experience of caring for and riding a horse: the smells, the textures, the sensations, the companionship with another living being.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Did you ride a horse to work today? I didn’t. I’m sure plenty of people swore they would never ride in or operate a “horseless carriage”—and they never did! And then they died.
