Digital Directions: E-Reader Evolution—Should We Think Beyond Ink?
Consumers now also can read PDF-based e-books on general-purpose platforms in the market today: PCs and mobile devices. These devices support a range of other functions, including the delivery of other media. However, they do not provide the specific characteristics of the electronic-ink display.
The essential question is whether or not electronic ink’s unique characteristics justify the need for a dedicated reading device. The marketplace ultimately will answer this. I would hazard to predict that while a segment of readers who prefer the e-ink experience may continue to exist, most will opt for the convenience of a general-purpose device for reading e-books. For the majority, the advantages of e-ink will not be worth carrying yet another device.
The Alternatives to E-ink
LCD and OLED display technologies—the alternatives to e-ink used in laptops and mobile devices—will clearly continue to improve. Key areas of innovation are lower cost, brightness, higher contrast, lower power consumption and faster refresh rate. As these characteristics improve, the advantages of e-paper will diminish. Over the next six months, these advances, and new products that take advantage of them, are likely to change how we view the digital delivery of e-books.
Prior to YouTube, the entertainment industry paid little attention to videos being posted on the Web. The compressed, low-res videos were considered to be of too low quality to compete with television, since the average PC was not able to support the technical requirements of video playback as defined by the industry.
As it turned out, the display resolution and refresh rate didn’t matter so much: Viewers liked the immediacy, involvement and choice of interacting with online videos regardless of the lower quality, and began leaving their TV sets to watch videos online. The industry was out of touch with the viewers’ priorities.
Perhaps that is a lesson to apply to how we think about e-books: Electronic ink implies the imperative for a reflected display, equivalent to ink on paper. This may be less of a priority to the marketplace than the convenience, flexibility and lower cost of LCD-based, general-purpose devices.
Maybe we need to get beyond the notion that a book requires ink, electronic or otherwise. The potential e-book market increases by an order of magnitude when one jumps from dedicated e-readers to general-purpose devices.
Andrew Brenneman is founder and president of Finitiv, a provider of digital content solutions. He has been leading digital media initiatives at major media and technology organizations for more than 20 years. Contact him at Andrew@Finitiv.com.
- Companies:
- IBM Corporation
- Sony
- YouTube
- People:
- Andrew Brenneman