Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Not Dead Yet

Still not sure what to turn this blog into - especially since my audience generally consists of my parents (currently living with them), my sister (too busy being a senior in college to update her own blog), and my aunt (I suppose I should just call you more often?).

Edited to add: Laura, I apologize. Are you still reading too?

Anyway, for now I'd like to share an article I found through LinkedIn:

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/11/02/why-e-book-distribution-is-completely-and-utterly-broken-and-how-to-fix-it/

There's plenty of good points made, although people have been analyzing ebooks for quite a while now and making many good points - some of them contradictory.

I guess the main idea to focus on is that the ebook is something new. It won't work like print books or online music sales, though both can be used to inform how we shape the market of this new product.

And I agree that DRM often causes more problems than it solves - and that proprietary formatting is little more than an egotistical, unnecessary complication. How would you like it if you could only buy movies made specifically for your brand of DVD player and television? Or if you could only get gas from the dealer that sold you your car? Or - so long as we're making comparisons - could only get books that were compatible with/sold by the furniture brand that made your bookshelf?