Though less than a month since Mike Hyatt editorialized about the digital dissolution of traditional book publishing, he has needed to write several updates. Here is the latest: Sony has developed a new technology and is planning an online store to be for text what itunes is for Google.
Mark,
I’m a bit sceptical about e-book technology. iPod offers users a better way to purchase music (song by song) and a convenient way to carry a huge digital content in a tiny portable device.
What are the advantages of e-books that will make them catch on?
1. If E-books catch on, they will save publishers a great deal of money (assuming they can keep them from being pirated). Yet, most book buyers will not save enough money to pay for the reader. Those of us who purchase dozens of books per year are not a large enough target market to make the device a hit.
2. As Michael Hyatt mentioned, “reference content is better accessed on the computer”. Go to any graduate school today and it seems like nearly every student has a lap top. What this means, of course, is that they have no need for a new reader – unless it will do everything that their lap top already does. Doesn’t this make it unlikely that a new and better “reader” will drive the book industry to e-books? If e-books are to take off, my guess is that they would take off on computers first and that the innovative electronic readers would follow. Which leads to a very real problem for publishers – piracy.
3. Consumers may not like being treated like thieves (I don’t), but intellectual property theft is a huge problem in the U.S. Many people who would never think of stealing a printer seem to have no problem stealing Microsoft Office (or photocopying sheet music). Yet, all of the technology driven solutions to date alienate consumers who want to be able to copy the digital content that they have purchased from device to device. The very reason that was given for Sony’s failed e-reader launch 2 years ago in Japan was that consumer’s didn’t like the draconian anti-piracy software that was being used.
It is difficult to see how consumers would have the ability to download their e-books from device to device – but not have the ability to steal the product and give it away to all their friends. This is not a problem with paper based books, because it costs as much to photo-copy most books as it does to buy new copies.
Could things change? Of course. Who would have imagined 20 years ago that we could so easily post messages from anywhere in the world on each other’s blogs? On the other hand, the compelling economic forces that have made iPod such a success seem to be largely absent from the publishing industry.