E-books and e-publishing by Samuel Vaknin (essential reading .TXT) 📕

discrete.

The solution is an efficient way to translate computer screens

to printed matter. It is hard to believe, but no such thing

exists. Computer screens are still hostile to offline

printing. In other words: if a user copies information from

the Internet to his Word Processor (or vice versa, for that

matter) - he ends up with a fragmented, garbage-filled and

non-aesthetic document.

Very few site developers try to do something about it - even

fewer succeed.

One of the biggest mistakes of content suppliers is that they

do not mix contents or have a “static-dynamic interaction”.

The Internet can now easily interact with other media

(especially with audio CDs and with CD-ROMs) - even as the

user surfs.

Examples abound:

A shopping catalogue can be distributed on a CD-ROM by mail.

The Internet Site will allow the user to order a product

previously selected from the catalogue, while offline. The

catalogue could also be updated through the site (as is done

with CD-ROM encyclopedias).

The advantages of the CD-ROM are clear: very fast access time

(dozens of times faster than the access to a site using a dial

up connection) and a data storage capacity tens of times

bigger than the average website.

Another example: a CD-ROM can be distributed, containing

hundreds of advertisements. The consumer will select the ad

that he wants to see and will connect to the Internet to view

a relevant video.

He could then also have an interactive chat (or a conference)

with a salesperson, receive information about the company,

about the ad, about the advertising agency which created the

ad - and so on.

CD-ROM based encyclopedias (such as the Britannica, Encarta,

Grolier) already contain hyperlinks which carry the user to

sites selected by an Editorial Board.

But CD-ROMs are probably a doomed medium. This industry chose

to emphasize the wrong things. Storage capacity increased

exponentially and, within a year, desktops with 80 Gb hard

disks will be common. Moreover, the Network Computer - the

stripped down version of the personal computer - will put at

the disposal of the average user terabytes in storage capacity

and the processing power of a supercomputer. What separates

computer users from this utopia is the communication

bandwidth. With the introduction of radio, statellite, ADSL

broadband services, cable modems and compression methods -

video (on demand), audio and data will be available speedily

and plentifully.

The CD-ROM, on the other hand, is not mobile. It requires

installation and the utilization of sophisticated hardware and

software. This is no user friendly push technology. It is

nerd-oriented. As a result, CD-ROMs are not an immediate

medium. There is a long time lapse between the moment they are

purchased and the moment the first data become accessible to

the user. Compare this to a book or a magazine. Data in these

oldest of media is instantly available to the user and allows

for easy and accurate “back” and “forward” functions.

Perhaps the biggest mistake of CD-ROM manufacturers has been

their inability to offer an integrated hardware and software

package. CD-ROMs are not compact. A Walkman is a compact

hardware-cum-software package. It is easily transportable, it

is thin, it contains numerous, user-friendly, sophisticated

functions, it provides immediate access to data. So does the

discman or the MP3-man. This cannot be said of the CD-ROM. By

tying its future to the obsolete concept of standalone,

expensive, inefficient and technologically unreliable personal

computers - CD-ROMs have sentenced themselves to oblivion

(with the possible exception of reference material).

These already exist. A visit to the on-line Encyclopaedia

Britannica exemplifies some of the tremendous, mind boggling

possibilities:

Each entry is hyperlinked to sites on the Internet which deal

with the same subject matter. The sites are carefully screened

(though more detailed descriptions of each site should be

available - they could be prepared either by the staff of the

encyclopaedia or by the site owner). Links are available to

data in various forms, including audio and video. Everything

can be copied to the hard disk or to CD-ROMs.

This is a new conception of a knowledge centre - not just an

assortment of material. It is modular, can be added on and

subtracted from. It can be linked to a voice Q&A centre.

Queries by subscribers can be answered by e-mail, by fax,

posted on the site, hard copies can be sent by post. This

“Trivial Pursuit” service could be very popular - there is

considerable appetite for “Just in Time Information”. The

Library of Congress - together with a few other libraries - is

in the process of making just such a service available to the

public (CDRS - Collaborative Digital Reference Service).

Hard to believe, but very few sites encourage their guests to

express an opinion about the site, its contents and its

aesthetics. This indicates an ossified mode of thinking about

the most dynamic mass medium ever created, the only

interactive mass medium yet. Each site must absolutely contain

feedback and rating questionnaires. It has the side benefit of

creating a database of the visitors to the site.

Moreover, each site can easily become a “knowledge centre”.

Let us consider a site dedicated to advertising and marketing:

It can contain feedback questionnaires (what do you think

about the site, suggestions for improvement, mailto and leave

message facilities, etc.)

It can contain rating questionnaires (rate these ads, these TV

or radio shows, these advertising campaigns).

It can allocate some space to clients to create their home

pages in (these home pages could lead to their sites, to other

sites, to other sections of the host site - and, in any case,

will serve as a display of the creative talent of the site

owners). This will give the site owners a picture of the

distribution of the areas of interest of the visitors to the

site.

The site can include statistical, tracking and counter

software.

Such a site can refer to hundreds of useful shareware

applications (which deal with different aspects of advertising

and marketing, for instance). Developers of applications will

be able to use the site to promote their products. Other

practical applications could also be referred to from - or

reside on - the site (browsers, games, search engines).

And all this can be organized in a portal structure (for

instance, by adopting the open software of the Open Directory

Project).

The Internet is an enormous reservoir of freely available,

public domain, information.

With a minimal investment, this information can be gathered

into coherent, theme oriented, cheap CD-ROMs. Each such CD-ROM

can contain:

Addresses of web sites specific to the subject matter

* The first pages of each of these sites

* Hyperlinks to each of the sites

* A browser

* Access to all the important search engines

* Recommended search strings (it is extremely difficult to

formulate a successful search in the Internet, it takes

expertise. “Ready-made searches” will be a hit in the

future, as the number of sites grows)

* A dictionary of professional terms, a speller and a

thesaurus

* A list of general reference sites

* Shareware specific to the field

The Internet is the world’s largest “publisher”, by far. It

“publishes” FAQs (Frequent Answers and Questions regarding

almost every technical matter in the world), e-zines

(electronic versions of magazines, not a very profitable

pursuit), the electronic versions of dailies (together with

on-line news and information services), reference and other ebooks, monographs, articles and minutes of discussions

(“threads”), among other types of material.

Publishing an e-zine has a few advantages: it promotes the

sales of the printed edition, it helps to sign on subscribers

and it leads to the sale of advertising space. The electronic

archive function (see next section) saves the need to file

back issues, the space required to do so and the irritating

search for data items.

The future trend is a combined subscription: electronic

(mainly for the archival value and the ability to hyperlink to

additional information) and printed (easier to browse current

issue).

The electronic daily presents other advantages:

It allows for immediate feedback and for flowing, almost real-time, communication between writers and readers. The

electronic version, therefore, acquires a gyroscopic function:

a navigation instrument, always indicating deviations from the

“right” course. The content can be instantly updated and

immediacy has its premium (remember the Lewinsky affair?).

Strangely, this (conventional) field was the first to develop

a “virtual reality” facet. There are virtual “magazine

stalls”. They look exactly like the real thing and the user

can buy a paper using his mouse.

Specialty hand held devices already allow for downloading and

storage of vast quantities of data (up to 4000 print pages).

The user gains access to libraries containing hundreds of

texts, adapted to be downloaded, stored and read by the

specific device. Again, a convergence of standards is to be

expected in this field as well (the final contenders will

probably be Adobe’s PDF against Microsoft’s MS-Reader).

Broadly, e-books are treated either as:

Continuation of print books (p-books) by other means

or as

A whole new publishing universe.

Since p-books are a more convenient medium then e-books - they

will prevail in any straightforward “medium replacement” or

“medium displacement” battle.

In other words, if publishers will persist in the simple and

straightforward conversion of p-books to e-books - then ebooks are doomed. They are simply inferior to the price,

comfort, tactile delights, browseability and scanability of p-books.

But e-books - being digital - open up a vista of hitherto

neglected possibilities. These will only be enhanced and

enriched by the introduction of e-paper and e-ink. Among them:

* Hyperlinks within the e-book and without it - to web

content, reference works, etc.

* Embedded instant shopping and ordering links

* Divergent, user-interactive, decision driven plotlines

* Interaction with other e-books (using a wireless

standard) - collaborative authoring

* Interaction with other e-books - gaming and community

activities

* Automatically or periodically updated content

* Multimedia

* Database, Favourites and History Maintenance (reading

habits, shopping habits, interaction with other readers,

plot related decisions and much more)

* Automatic and embedded audio conversion and translation

capabilities

* Full wireless piconetworking and scatternetworking

capabilities

The technology is still not fully there. Wars rage in both the

wireless and the ebook realms. Platforms compete. Standards

clash. Gurus debate. But convergence is inevitable and with it

the e-book of the future.

The Internet is also the world’s biggest cemetery: tens of

thousands of deadbeat sites, still accessible - the “Ghost

Sites” of this electronic frontier.

This, in a way, is collective memory. One of the Internet’s

main functions will be to preserve and transfer knowledge

through time. It is called “memory” in biology - and “archive”

in library science. The history of the Internet is being

documented by search engines (Google) and specialized services

(Alexa) alike.

The Internet as a Collective Brain

Drawing a comparison from the development of a human baby -

the human race has just commenced to develop its neural

system.

The Internet fulfils all the functions of the Nervous System

in the body and is, both functionally and structurally, pretty

similar. It is decentralized, redundant (each part can serve

as functional backup in case of malfunction). It hosts

information which is accessible in a few ways, it contains a

memory function, it is multimodal (multimedia - textual,

visual, audio and animation).

I believe that the comparison is not superficial and that

studying the functions of the brain (from infancy to

adulthood) - amounts to perusing the future of the Net itself.

To carry the metaphor of “a collective brain” further, we

would expect the processing of information to take place in

the Internet, rather than inside the end-user’s hardware (the

same way that information is processed in the brain, not in

the eyes). Desktops will receive the results and communicate

with the Net