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Electronic PublishingJun 17 '00 (Updated Aug 10 '00) Write an essay on this topic.Electronic publishing has been disappointing to the average user. The promise of a paperless office and electronic books has not materialized. Even those who have made an effort to use electronic media often come away disappointed. Never the less it is an idea that keeps resurrecting itself. I recently came across three products, which may finally bring ebooks into the main stream. The first two are an electronic publishing tool and ebook reader from Microsoft. The third is a very stylish ebook reader from a company called Glassbook. What makes these products attractive is that they focus on the user rather than just attempting to cut publishing costs. All computer applications tend to evolve in the same way. The first step is functional replacement of an existing infrastructure. Reduced costs are the primary motivation. In the 1960’s, the publishing world began adopting computers to replace typesetting. Eventually the savings associated with the initial change fades and leads to an emphasis on efficiency. The least controversial way to leverage efficiency from electronic media is emulation. This was electronic publishing in the 70’s. It represented a revolution in technology that was mostly transparent to the end user. Books, magazines, newspapers, etc. still looked liked they always looked. With the advent of personal computers in the 1980’s, electronic publishing reached public awareness. For the first time, there was a potential user base. Unfortunately, it was more hype than reality. There was no effective means of getting electronic versions of books, magazines, and newspapers into the hands of users. The expense and aggravation of trying to use electronic media combined with quality issues doomed the initial efforts. By the early 1990’s, desktop publishing and word processing had established themselves as synonymous with personal computers. The primary product was still paper, but it legitimized the need for collecting information in an electronic format. Users began to get comfortable with the idea that electronic files were interchangeable with paper files. Then three things happened that aligned the advances in commercial publishing with users. Pentium class computers became widely available. These were the first machines powerful enough to support quality multimedia. Windows 95 broadened the appeal of PC’s. It created a standard platform for sound and video. The Internet became widely available creating a completely new information delivery vehicle. For the first time, a user infrastructure existed that could benefit from the promise of electronic publishing. Major newspapers and magazines quickly established web sites that duplicated their traditional products. Initially these sites were little more than promotional activities, but many have evolved in ways quite different from the printed original. I find I am getting more and more information from reading online products rather than the morning newspaper. These sites have become so good that almost without realizing it I transitioned from primarily a reader of paper documents to primarily a reader of electronic documents. This is an important step because once you get accustomed to the benefits of electronic publishing you start to want more. So where are we now? We have an adequate infrastructure at both the manufacturing and consumer level. We have a significant and growing user base. What is missing is a business model that can take advantage of this situation. A business model that will drive new products and provide value to the user rather than just cut publishing costs. Here are three products that have broken from the pack and are user focused: The first is Microsoft’s ReaderWorks Standard (free for download at www.readerworks.com). This software lets you turn word processing documents into published form. The potential is huge. To view your creations you also need Microsoft's new ebook reader(free for download at www.microsoft.com/reader). The third product is a commercial ebook reader (www.glassbook.com). The standard version is free for download. It works on any PC and has the ability to let you share and borrow books. It makes the idea of online libraries viable. Online libraries exist today, but are awkward and expensive to use. Last but not least it has style, something that is sorely lacking in most of the current electronic book devices. Historically it usually takes about 30 years for a technology to take hold and begin driving change. That is about the length of time electronic publishing has been around so the future looks bright.  |
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