Neither will books. Mere text on a screen, the stuff that ebooks are made of, won't be enough. That presents opportunities to artists to create something wonderful.
Realize that the first movie cameras were used to film theater productions. It took early cinematic geniuses like Sergei Eisenstein, Fritz Lang, Charlie Chaplin and Abel Gance to untether the camera from what was and transform it into what it would become: a new art form. I believe that this dynamic will soon be replayed, except it will star the book in the role of the theater production, with authors acting more like directors and production companies than straight wordsmiths. Like early filmmakers, some of us will seek new ways to express ourselves through multimedia. Instead of stagnant words on a page we will layer video throughout the text, add photos, hyperlink material, engage social networks of readers who will add their own videos, photos, and wikified information so that these multimedia books become living, breathing, works of art. They will exist on the Web and be ported over to any and all mobile devices that can handle multimedia, laptops, netbooks, watches and other wearable tech, and beyond.
- Companies:
- Amazon.com
- Apple
- Fox
- Target
- People:
- Adam L. Penenberg