[LINK] The once and future e-book: on reading in the digital age

[Kim Holburn]

An interesting view.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/02/the-once-and-future-e-book.ars

A couple of choice quotes that caught my eye:

> "I can't read an entire novel off a screen!" "I'll stick to paper  
> with its vastly superior contrast ratio." "Eye strain! Eye strain!"  
> "Yawn. Wake me up when we have 1200dpi displays."

> The amount of time people in the industrialized world spend reading  
> text off a screen has long since nullified this complaint. Literally  
> billions of people have proven that they're willing and able to read  
> huge volumes of text off absolutely horrible screens. Think of text  
> messaging on pagers and early cell phones, for example. Text  
> messages are short, you say? I'm willing to bet that the average  
> American will read substantially more text off his or her cell phone  
> screen this year than from a book.


> I'll say it again: people will read text off screens. The optical  
> superiority of paper is still very real, but also irrelevant. The  
> minimum quality threshold for extended reading was passed a long,  
> long time ago.


....

> In short, the terms (of e-publishing) are *unbelievably favorable*  
> for publishers. It essentially moves them from print publishing  
> margins to software publishing margins: pay once for the creation of  
> the content, sell an infinite number of times with no additional per- 
> unit cost.

-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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