Fuck you ebooks
Here are a couple stories I found interesting this week.
Traditional Publishers Release Enhanced E-books for iPhone and iPad
“Scribner and Simon & Schuster Digital have released what they are calling their first-ever “enhanced e-book,” Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland, via Apple’s iBookstore application.”
This is nothing new, but what is interesting is the filetype used to create this enhanced ebook. Typically, the epub format has been limited, but people are beginning to use HTML, CSS, and even JAVA in ePub documents, which makes sense, as the language itself is basically a variation of HTML. Although Java is not yet officially supported, it’s interesting to see what may come from the open source ePub file. Perhaps people will begin thinking more concretely about this filetype inorder to deliver more advanced content.
The Mashable article also ponders what an enhanced book may mean for the future of books. Although Lauren Indvik doesn’t delve too deeply, she’s talking about what this Blog loves talking about, which is exciting.
At This NFL Stadium You Can Watch Replays On Your Phone [Sports]
from Gizmodo by Kyle VanHemert
“When it opens this fall, the New Meadowlands Stadium will be the NFL’s most state of the art facility. That means queuing up replays on demand on your smartphone (or just checking how long the concession lines are)…”
Amazing, right? Our mobile phones are an adjunct for experience, a way to enhance what we experience. Augmented reality apps and opportunities to take with us the luxuries of our home entertainment centers will, perhaps, encourage more of us to, ironically, go out and observe them.
Bezos On iPad: “You are not going to improve Hemingway by adding video snippets.”
from TechCrunch by MG Siegler
“The larger problem remains for Amazon as well. While the Kindle is undoubtedly easier on the eyes than reading with the backlit iPad, the wide range of things that the iPad and other tablets can do will eventually win the day. Amazon’s price cuts have extended that day quite a bit, but it’s still inevitable.
So is Amazon content to rule the space for a couple of years while not making a lot of money on devices? Or is Bezos simply bluffing on Amazon’s future Kindle aspirations?
Also, does anyone really think Hemingway would have been pleased with his work on a Kindle?”
Great insights here on Amazon’s strategy for the Kindle, a device I find interesting but also contradictory. Sure, yes, it delivers traditional narrative fiction and traditional print on a portable device, but it does nothing for those works that traditional print cannot. This problem will continue to affect the Kindle as users grow to want more from electronic devices.
Can Gadgets Become Heirlooms? [Sentimental]
from Gizmodo by Rosa Golijan
“Heirlooms are significant objects—often jewelry or prized items—passed through generations. But as our priorities in life change, will our choices of heirlooms as well? Will I find myself entrusting an original Game Boy to my child one day?”
Fascinating! I already view my first gen iPhone as something of a collector’s item, despite it only being a few years old. Still, I’m not certain there’s much of a difference between a gadget and, say, a Juno 60. Depending on what the gadget is capable of producing for the user, the quality of the gadget’s potential output is what will define its worth. That being said, as we become, increasingly, a culture obsessed with the tech that delivers our content and not the content itself (let’s admit it, all information on the web is judged by its “breaking news” quality) we also become a culture who will value the artifact despite its inability to produce anything. It becomes an artifact, a representation of the moment when we began to change as a culture.
More:
10 Cool Crowdsourced Music Video Projects
How the Internet is Affecting Traditional Journalism [SURVEY]
from Mashable by Jolie O’Dell
The Web Means the End of Forgetting (Jeffrey Rosen/New York Times)
from Techmeme
iPad Web Video Views Last 2.5 Times As Long As On Desktop (AAPL)
from Silicon Alley Insider by Jay Yarow
Flipboard, an iPad Magazine About Nothing [Apple]
from Gizmodo by Gary Cutlack
A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Social Media
from Mashable by Adam Ostrow
Reading Faceoff: E-books vs. Print Books
from Mashable by Ben Parr
New Media Fiction 