Thursday, July 13, 2006
Standard for eBooks?
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "CONTENT" @ 07:00 AM
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=6833
On the whole, eBooks have not been much of a success. At best it is a niche market with limited appeal to people that have devices that can use them. It seems Microsoft's own Reader application has been left for dead, both on the desktop and mobile device, and with that insane DRM implementation, good riddance. Every hardware implementation seems to have fallen by the wayside too. I haven't heard much of Sony's latest product in this area either, the Sony Reader. Much of the problem is the books are in multiple formats. Some ebooks are only availble in one of the multiple formats - MS Reader, eReader.com (Palm .pdb), Adobe or worse, something totally proprietery to a given site. Perhaps that is all about to change.
"The e-book industry has come to agreement on e-book standard standards. Yes! Agreement by the e-book industry on standards. It's not completely finalized yet, but we appear to be on the verge of a monumental achievement that will propel the industry forward. "The combined standards efforts will result in a non-proprietary way for publishers to deliver digital books through the distribution chain to consumers, similar to the MP3 format for digital music. No patent encumbrances are expected of either new specification."
I hope this comes to pass, but for now, I'll file this under "I'll believe it when I see it."
On the whole, eBooks have not been much of a success. At best it is a niche market with limited appeal to people that have devices that can use them. It seems Microsoft's own Reader application has been left for dead, both on the desktop and mobile device, and with that insane DRM implementation, good riddance. Every hardware implementation seems to have fallen by the wayside too. I haven't heard much of Sony's latest product in this area either, the Sony Reader. Much of the problem is the books are in multiple formats. Some ebooks are only availble in one of the multiple formats - MS Reader, eReader.com (Palm .pdb), Adobe or worse, something totally proprietery to a given site. Perhaps that is all about to change.
"The e-book industry has come to agreement on e-book standard standards. Yes! Agreement by the e-book industry on standards. It's not completely finalized yet, but we appear to be on the verge of a monumental achievement that will propel the industry forward. "The combined standards efforts will result in a non-proprietary way for publishers to deliver digital books through the distribution chain to consumers, similar to the MP3 format for digital music. No patent encumbrances are expected of either new specification."
I hope this comes to pass, but for now, I'll file this under "I'll believe it when I see it."
