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this could affect Amazon negatively in the future too...
read on:
Posted at 10:39 p.m. PDT Thursday, June 11, 1998
Electronic books open new chapter
June 12, 1998
BY DAN GILLMOR
Mercury News Technology Columnist
IS a book a collection of words, printed on sheets of paper bound into a
volume? Or is a book just a collection of words, period? Soon,
technology will let us choose.
At least two small Silicon Valley companies, SoftBook Press Inc. in
Menlo Park and Palo Alto-based NuvoMedia Inc., have opted for the latter
definition. And next Monday they'll announce some fascinating
information appliances: a new generation of electronic books, a
significant step toward an all-digital era of book-selling and reading.
The products, SoftBook Press' SoftBook and NuvoMedia's RocketBook, are
due to hit the market later this year. They won't be the first
electronic books, but they represent a breakthrough group.
You can thank technology's relentless progress. These devices boast much
better screens than earlier versions of electronic books. They use
cyberspace as a warehouse, rather than forcing readers to change
cartridges and disks. They're designed as electronic-publishing
platforms for many kinds of documents, not just traditional books. And
each holds several thousand pages, letting users consolidate lots of
reading material inside a single, stand-alone system.
And, crucially, they are not personal computers. An information
appliance doesn't try to do everything. It does one or several things
competently, simply and reliably.
I've been playing with a pre-release model of the SoftBook, and despite
some expected rough edges it seems to have all three of those qualities.
It's the size of a large notebook, with a leather cover and a remarkably
intuitive system of controls and menus. It weighs a little under three
pounds.
The opening screen is a virtual bookshelf, a list of volumes, reports,
reference material and other information stored in the SoftBook's
memory. I could open a title by tapping my finger on the screen, or by
using a small stylus that comes with the machine. The stylus is
especially useful for annotating, highlighting and underlining
information in the text; the SoftBook doesn't recognize handwriting,
however, as anything but painted scrawls on the screen.
Visiting the online bookstore was as simple as plugging a phone cord
into the built-in modem, then tapping on a ''Connect to Bookstore''
icon. Upon connection, I was given a list of current titles, including a
featured book, plus a directory of other online bookstores. Had I been
an actual customer, I'd have paid a charge for the content I downloaded.
Prices will vary according to content, but I'd expect to pay less for an
electronic version of a book than a paper one; after all, publishers
will save on printing and transportation.
Jim Sachs, SoftBook's co-founder and chief executive, expects the
product to be commercially available by September. He has a long history
of designing consumer goods, including the first Apple Macintosh mouse
and some popular toys.
Sachs and his colleagues have tried to be rigorous about keeping the
SoftBook in a certain category of appliance, and not trying to make it a
do-it-all computer. Other people may want to add new functions to the
machine, which Sachs said will sell for about $300 plus content fees,
but Virtual Press' big chore was keeping a properly narrow focus.
The same is true for NuvoMedia's upcoming RocketBook, a prototype of
which I saw at the company's offices this week. Doug Klein, the
company's president and chief operating officer, says the price is still
uncertain but should be in the $500 range (plus content fees) for the
first version, which is scheduled for October or November.
The RocketBook I saw was roughly the size of a large paperback book and,
with its docking cradle, weighed a little over a pound. I found its
screen slightly more readable than the one on the SoftBook, and I could
easily use it with just one hand.
The RocketBook links indirectly to the online bookstore, via a cradle
that connects to a personal computer. Users will go to a Web site to
download books and other information, first into the PC and then into
the electronic book.
Both NuvoMedia and SoftBook believe they've solved one of the previous
impediments to the downloadable book. They say they've come up with
hardware and software methods to keep people from making unauthorized
copies. Publishers have been paranoid about electronic books, because
making text and pictures available in digital form tends to increase the
opportunity for piracy.
SoftBook is working with such major publishers as Simon & Schuster,
Random House and HarperCollins. NuvoMedia has several publishers aboard,
too, and one of its investors is the online arm of bookseller Barnes &
Noble.
The companies also recognize that customers will create new,
roll-your-own kinds of books. Consider a digital equivalent of the
loose-leaf binders we all used in high school and college, including
course materials taken from a variety of sources. News services will
likely want to offer their material this way. And users will also be
able to dump material from their personal computers into the devices for
future reference.
At least at first, everyday consumers won't be the prime audience.
Professionals are likely to be the major initial target. A trial lawyer
who carts around briefcases full of documents is a natural target, for
example.
It's clearly too early to guage the business models. But the
implications of these devices and the others that will certainly follow
-- including a product called ''Everybook,'' now under development in
Pennsylvania -- are easier to grasp.
At the top of my list is the potential for more, not less, diversity in
publishing. When a publisher can deliver a book electronically, the
difference between ''in print'' and ''out of print'' disappears.
Happily, technology is also making life better for those of us who still
prefer to read books the traditional way. IBM and Ingram, a big
wholesaler, recently announced a system that takes electronic text and
creates a single, bound book at an affordable price. The companies
expect to keep many more books ''in print'' this way, too.
I'm not sure whether I'll buy an electronic book, at least in the
initial generation of the SoftBook and RocketBook devices. It's not just
that I prefer the feel of a real volume. I'll probably hold out for an
even better screen, and a model that weighs less.
Technology won't keep me waiting long, Sachs noted. Holding up one of
his Version 1 SoftBooks, he predicted, with absolute assurance: This is
the heaviest version, with the worst screen resolution, least amount of
memory and highest price, that they'll ever sell.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Gillmor's column appears each Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. Write Dan
at the Mercury News, 750 Ridder Park Dr., San Jose, Calif. 95190;
e-mail: dgillmor@sjmercury.com; phone (408) 920-5016; fax (408)
920-5917.
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