The killer app is content.
We’ve known this for some time; people don’t buy devices, they buy devices that allow them to access content. In the case of the iPod, it is music. In the case of the computer, it is applications. Phones? The words of others—live, realtime, anywhere. The Internet itself is also a massive source of content, and many devices have been repurposed to allow access to that content; PDAs and phones finally have processors and displays that allow for (reasonably) effective access to the ‘net.
The iPod is probably the most powerful of these devices because of its simplicity. Music—rhythm and pitch—have been fundamental to human culture since the beginning of time. Giving people the ability to carry thousands upon thousands of songs with them anywhere is an incredibly powerful thing. eBooks will be no different.
The iPod of eBooks is coming. Sony will, no doubt, screw it up, but we’ll get there, in time. A year ago, they released the Libre, an e-ink based eBook. What is e-ink? It’s a display technology that doesn’t require power to hold state. So, the Libre’s battery life is measured in page turns—or, screen refreshes, if you prefer. Now, the first version of the Libre was broken: it couldn’t handle content in PDF (or any other ubiquitous format, like plain text), and it came encumbered with DRM. As if I want to buy books that will expire.
If Sony actually releases a new version of the Libre unto the world, and if they think for just a moment, they could take the world by storm. If the device can display unencumbered (DRM-free) PDFs and plain text, if it has an integrated MP3 player, and it is priced right, the Sony Libre will become not the must-have gadget, or must-have toy, but must-have tool for a literate society.
Consider what will happen. First of all, I can begin collecting all my favorite books in PDF (if the publishers ever get their heads out of their asses and sell them to me, DRM-free, as PDF downloads); now, I can pick up any book I’ve ever purchased, any time, and read it. I can start collecting papers pertinent to my work, and keep them with me, all the time. I already have thousands of papers related to my dissertation work on my laptop, but that’s a horrible place to try and read a paper—primarily because my laptop wasn’t designed for reading. This, though, is just the start.
Weblogs will render eBook friendly streams, into either plain text or directly into prettily typeset PDF. I’ll download eBook content from weblogs as readily as I download podcasts for my iPod… but moreso. Why? Partially because I ran my iPod Shuffle through the wash, but more importantly because I can read far faster than I can listen. eBook content takes up so little space—it costs me nothing to keep it, accessible anywhere, anytime, on my Libre. Micropayment infrastructures like BitPass will matter all the more, because now I’ll be able to subscribe to the Plain Dealer, in England, for cheap—and download it to my Libre for reading on the Tube.
Well, maybe I won’t read the Plain Dealer. But you catch my drift.
The Libre doesn’t need an interface to include an MP3 player; the iPod Shuffle demonstrated that. So, with an eBook and integrated MP3 player, I can sit and read the newspaper while listening to the Bach cello suites that I downloaded from Magnatune.com. Or I can call up the complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—a wholly remarkable book. The Libre could, even, replace textbooks the world over. And, someday, eBooks will. $100 laptops matter, too… but eBooks will be every bit, if not more, important.
The iPod is amazing; 50 years ago, you could only listen to music in one place, using a large reel-to-reel player or vinyl. Today, I can take thousands upon thousands of hours of audio with me in my pocket. I still cannot, however, transport thousands of pages of text with me everywhere, all the time.
So do it right, Sony. Give me an eBook that lets me load thousands of PDFs and ASCII files onto a (more than one) memory stick, hundreds of MP3s onto another (with two separate, replaceable batteries, please), and don’t screw it up by locking it down. You’ll change the world.
And I’ll buy one.
