To take a break from the aggressive, competing forces of the E-book market, today I suggest an investigation of digital literature itself and what it truly means. The progression of digital literature does seem to be progressing towards many similar paths to physical books themselves as the e-book readers attempt to mimic actual books in order to appeal to consumers. However, the concept of digital literature still stands to trigger a new revolution as to what a book actually is and how readers approach the process of reading.

For example, while physical books do stand an opportunity for readers to interact with their text through marginal notes, footnotes, and such; they pale in comparison to the potential interactivity that could come from a new revolution of digital literature. What specifically is meant by this? I think one of the primary foundations to this new revolution of interactivity in literature lies in the ability to hyperlink. The internet itself is governed by hyperlinks which allow users to jump from one piece of information to another. What if books themselves had hyperlinks within them that allowed users to simply jump to an explanation of something that they did not initially understand? Say for example you were reading the classic novel Lord of the Flies and you did not have a firm understanding of what a conch shell was. To truly grasp the concept, you could simply link yourself, in the middle of reading the novel, to a picture and explanation of conch shells.

This sounds like an extremely helpful and convenient feature, however, scholars debate whether this is actually a good thing for literature as a whole. Considering the ability to suddenly jump from one place to the next at any given time amidst reading, it is very likely that readers’ attention spans would drastically decrease. This would make extended, more complex and in depth literature far more difficult for the average reader to pay attention to in an age of hyperlinks.

Hyperlinks do not just stand potential to link readers to extended explanations but also to link to other parts of the text they are reading. Reading could become an extremely active process in which the reader decides on the chronology to which a piece of text progresses. An article entitled “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ABOUT ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING” published in the Christian Science Monitor describes one of the first hyperlink stories. “One of the first hypertext novels to gain prominence was a 1992 work called "Afternoon, a Story." Author Michael Joyce writes about Peter, who on his way home from work sees the aftermath of a car wreck and suspects it involves his wife and son. The reader can choose to move in disjointed fashion through the story screen by screen. But at the "end," it's not clear what has happened to the mother and child. If readers click on various key words in the text, they can pick alternative routes that yield additional clues and context for other characters in the story.”
While interactivity itself may be the revolution of reading itself, its obvious that it offers many negative consequences like the destruction of permanent literature and the decrease of attention spans within its readers.

Sony & Google. A Worthy Adversary?

Since I have returned from my epic spring break trip to Barcelona and rejoined the news buzz around the Kindle, electronic literature, and the like. What I have discovered is that real competition that opposes Amazon’s current control of this specific market has officially stepped up.

In my previous post to this blog, I noted that Amazon was finally seeing some competition in terms of hardware gadgets (coming from the iriver company) and also seeing some competition in terms of the grander scheme of the e-book market (coming from big time book sellers Barnes & Noble). However, neither of these really posed a solid threat to Amazon. The Kindle 2 is by far the predominant e-book reader and Barnes and Nobles recent acquisition of smalltime e-book provider Fictionwise only added about 50k e-books to their library (peanuts in comparison to Amazon’s library which is over five times the size).

However, old rival Sony and their Reader product were recently backed by everyone’s favorite corporation: Google. The idea of Google entering the fray even sounds intimidating and Amazon might have a reason to be slightly worried. The new partnership between Sony and Google can be further analyzed at a New York Times article found HERE.

Yet, as the article mentions Amazon’s executives aren’t too worried because the books Google is providing to Sony’s catalogue are merely old books in which copyright licenses have expired. This library would include classics by Mark Twain for example but certainly wouldn’t provide books available on the current New York Times best sellers list. While the article is a little vague, it is my understanding that what Google is providing to Sony is actually their Google books section of their website, which is certainly a vast catalogue despite the fact it only provides full versions of books which have outdated copyright licenses.

The reason why I think Google stands so much potential is its open, “E-pub” format for providing e-books. This format is one that would make books extremely accessible and easy to digitally manage. This format alone could quite simply be appealing enough to consumers to make them the favored e-book provider over Amazon and its Kindle. This would also progress the concept of e-books to an MP3 like system of books, which are very easy to manage, send, transfer, etc. This format is undoubtedly more user friendly and less controlling than the current format provided by Amazon which seems to merely mimic a book store in digital form.

All in all, while I don’t believe that Amazon should be extremely intimidated just yet, Google is certainly a force to be reckoned with and certainly stands lots of potential to become a much more predominant player in this race to be leader of the e-book market. While its library primarily consists of older literature at the time, the moment it breaks through into the best sellers market and the like, it could easily launch Sony forward to take the reigns of the E-book market.

Race for the E-Book Market

Two New York Times articles caught my interest recently. While most news on the subject of digital literature usually focuses on E-book reading gadgets and hardware like Amazon’s “Kindle” and Sony’s “Reader”, these articles focused on the E-book market itself its potential suppliers. This of course is because most companies have approached the emerging market of digital literature by competing to create the dominant e-book reader that will win over consumers’ hearts. However, despite the fact that Amazon and its Kindle appear to lead this market, the company may be shifting gears and targeting the E-book market itself and its provision.

The biggest sign of this new focus comes from a New York Times article entitled “Amazon to Sell E-Books for Apple Devices” which was written by Brad Stone and published on March 4th, 2009. The article can be found HERE. This article describes Amazon’s recent move to supply E-books to other multimedia devices, primarily the popular Apple I-Phone, as a key indicator to the company’s newfound interest in becoming the top E-book provider. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Amazon has about 240,000 E-books for sale on Amazon.com, as reminded by the Times article.

One might ask why? Why would the company who has almost cornered the market on E-book readers and hardware suddenly shift their attention and potentially lose the Kindle’s role as top dog? I think one of the answers is fairly obvious. Being the key provider of E-books would certainly make Amazon the central player within the entire digital literature market. However, I think another important reason lies in the emerging competition from other companies. In the very near future it is inevitable that other companies will design and develop their own take on the E-Book reader. In fact, some already have and many of them stand potential to be more appealing to consumers due to their convergence with other multimedia. Iriver, for example has started some buzz over their new multimedia gadget called the “Libre”. The Libre is basically an E-book reader that also functions as an MP3 player and is expected to be a decent product due to iriver’s solid reputation. The most appealing part of the anticipated Libre is its convenient ability to read PDF text files, which are widely used amongst users today.. The Libre can be viewed HERE.

Lastly, I think the final key reason that Amazon aspires to be the primary provider of E-books is because they stand a very good chance to do for e-books what I-Tunes does for digital music. Yet there does appear to be a minor threat to Amazon’s potential conquest of the E-book market. Another New York Times article found HERE describes Barnes and Nobles recent acquisition of a fair sized, online e-book retailer. This spontaneous stock of e-book content placed Barnes Noble into play with the race to dominate the E-book market. However, what I found most significant about this article was the fact that Fictionwise (the recently acquired company by Barnes and Noble) “currently stocks 59,791 titles, according to a “stats” chart on its home page, and its prices are regularly more expensive than those sold on Amazon.com.” I think that the combination of Amazon’s substantially cheaper prices ($28 from B&N, $10 from Amazon) and their vastly more extensive library gives them a significant enough lead over competitors.

That is why I believe Amazon is redirecting their primary attention. If they continue in this manner they can crush competitors like B&N before they pose too much of a threat.