Time, Inc., in association with The Wonderfactory, has just announced a new eBook reader that is getting people excited. Could this be the end of print media such as books and magazines? You can check out the video below.
Exciting. Apparently. But, you know, in over fifteen years of working with cutting-edge technology I’ve seen a lot of would-be revolutions come and go. And I’ve noticed something. Marketing videos often change the world more than the products that they anticipate.
And so, I believe, it will be with this video. I don’t see anything here that makes me think the media universe is about to explode.
Michael Hyatt, president of book publisher Thomas Nelson, linked to this video with the title, “The End of Book Publishing As We Know It.” He offers a series of insightful predictions about the convergence of print and digital media, and foresees that, “Once consumers get used to this kind of rich media, they will not be content to read text alone.” The end of books could be just a few years away!
That’s a shocking idea for those of us who love books and magazines. It’s a challenging realization for those of us who produce media content.
I do believe the day will come when I buy my last floppy, dusty, delicious book. But announcements of the death of the tome are a little premature. Books aren’t going anywhere for a long while. Magazines—okay, maybe they’ve got a little less time on the clock than books do. They’ve been seeing sharp downturns in subscriptions for several years and no doubt that will continue. But the good old book is a beautiful technology, and I think we can still number its lifespan in decades rather than days.
The Time video should not amaze or startle us. Indeed, the striking thing about the video is that it really doesn’t show anything new. What ability, technology, or idea is Time unveiling that we haven’t seen before? Hyatt sees three innovations here that he believes will rock our world: rich media, portability, and touch. But are these really innovations?
The Rich Media Experience
The video presents a vision of how Sports Illustrated might interact with users. It’s a thrilling vision (especially when they get to the three-quarters naked swimsuit girls strolling unabashed through public places).
But what are we seeing here that any computer can’t do today? Can my MacBook not scroll between pictures? Is Firefox unable to show me an infomercial about grilling in the middle of my browsing experience? Can my iPhone not jump from photos of pretty girls to video of pretty girls?
There’s no new technology here. I see nothing that a web browser couldn’t do five years ago. If Sports Illustrated wants to hook me up with this content, hook me up. What’re’ya waiting around for?
What I do see that’s new is instant responsiveness. The full-motion videos fill the screen, yet there’s no download bar, no compression artifacts, no hitching. That’s exciting.
It’s also bogus. Because Time is not, as far as I’m aware, increasing the bandwidth of your cellular network. These videos, these images must still be downloaded. So either their eBook reader will download everything beforehand (like an eBook), perhaps overnight on the day the issue releases, or it will stream data down as you request it. Either way, this is nothing Sports Illustrated couldn’t do yesterday.
There’s one other new thing I see in the video: really dense, well-produced content. Pictures everywhere, and more pictures and more; lots of data, lots of tables, lots of text, all interacting and juicy and slick. It really is a beautiful vision of how Sports Illustrated might look.
But as Mike Hyatt points out, that kind of content is a lot of work. If Sports Illustrated decides they want to invest in that kind of rich media experience in 2010, that’s a major breakthrough. That would certainly put pressure on other media outlets to up the ante on their productions. But not everyone is going to do this overnight or even in ten years. There are supply-demand economics afoot here—not every publisher can afford this kind of media. Not every editor can turn into a film director overnight. And not every consumer demands it. Without major new production technology to ease the creation of this kind of media (and frankly, you can only make it so easy), going this direction is a matter of good old-fashioned elbow grease. And revolutions aren’t fueled by elbow-grease—not technical revolutions anyway.
Portability
Time’s eBook reader (does this vapor even have a name yet?) looks like a blown-up iPhone. The video shows a user interacting with it while watching T.V. and that seems like a reasonable use case. Any eBook reader worthy of the name is a kneetop—good for resting on the knees while reading in bed—and this reader is about that size.
Judging from the cartoon hands that swim around the device in the demo, Time’s entry in the eBook field would be bigger than most others. So portability is not a key revelation here. This is not a device you’re going to throw into your pocket—maybe not even your purse. Your backpack, maybe; your briefcase.
It’s hard to beat paperbacks for handy portability. They’re tough. They’re available in small sizes. You don’t worry about how you’ll carry them. Kneetops are handy but they’re no replacement.
If you’re looking for revolutions in portable media power, look at the iPhone. I don’t see any portability features in Time’s device that makes me think that print is dying.
Touch Interaction
And here again I don’t see what the fuss is. I’ve been fondling my iPhone for almost two years. I like touching it, it’s fun, it works well. Touch has disadvantages, like making it hard to draw or write anything accurately, and making the tapping of tiny links into an experience a surgeon would love. A larger screen would make touch targets easier to hit, so…bully. But where’s the revolution? I just don’t see it.
The Last Book I Will Ever Buy
So Time’s new eBook reader… I’m not sure what the fuss is all about. It won’t replace my iPhone. It won’t replace my Mac. It might replace my Kindle, if I had one. It won’t replace my dusty old copies of The Lord and the Rings or Books and Culture. If Sports Illustrated wants it to replace my (hypothetical) subscription to their print magazine, why don’t they just pretty up their website?
I will buy my last book when I can get a lightweight, tough, small (or foldable or rollable or teleportable-into-the-fourth-dimension or something) media viewer with margins I can write in and a built-in highlighter and a screen that makes my eyes smile. Under $200, please. If it plays videos and lets me toss images around with my fingertips and spontaneously teaches me how to grill—well, my iPhone does that already but…great. I’m there. Ten, fifteen years from now.
Talk to me: Am I missing out on something that should thrill me?
One Comment
I see this as wishful thinking on Time’s part – books aren’t so much in danger as print media such as newspapers and weekly news magazines such as Time. But they aren’t in danger so much from electronic versions of themselves, but from alternate sources of information. As long as they try to push their method of reporting, no method of packaging is going to draw readers.