Wilkert suggests that EPUB could be a solution to this if Amazon could be convinced to adopt it and drop DRM. (Well, of course it could. Heck, pretty much any e-book format would work if Amazon dropped DRM, thanks to Calibre.) He reiterates the usual music-industry-based arguments for ditching DRM.

Several years ago Steve Jobs posted a letter to the music industry pleading for DRM to be abandoned. My favorite part of that letter is where Jobs asked why the music industry would allow DRM to go away. The answer: "DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy." In fact, a study last year by Rice University and Duke University contends that removing DRM can actually decrease piracy.

Publishing-industry observers and consultants have certainly ramped up the anti-DRM rhetoric in the last few weeks, haven’t they? I wonder if there’s some particular reason for that. The Kindle Fire securing Amazon’s lead in the e-book market bringing on a fresh wave of lock-in panic?

I also wonder whether anything will come of it. Are publishers taking heed and even now holding secret discussions on whether to follow the music industry’s lead? I suppose we can hope, at least.

Here at Teleread we’ve highlighted a couple of websites that offer a related service. Book Buzzes watches Amazon and alerts you when an author has a new book coming out, while BookWatch is an iOS app that performs a similar service for iBooks. But those are linked to single bookstores and don’t watch for articles, posts and tweets.

Wikert thinks Amazon should just roll out a Kindle product that addresses this need:

Why not just have an author feed subscription via the Kindle? Yes, Amazon sells blog feed subscriptions, but that’s a ripoff and I’m looking for more. I don’t want something I can get via an RSS reader for free. I want a combined feed of the author’s blog, their Twitter activity and any publication/website they write for. All in one. I’d be willing to pay a modest amount for this ($10/year?), at least for the 4 or 5 authors I care most about. And heck, go ahead and include some advertisements in it if necessary.

The easy solution, if you’re an author and you want to do this, is to do it yourself by setting up a catch-all blog that you maintain. But of course the more interesting problem is figuring out a way to create this service for every author, not just the ones good at self-promotion and social networking.

Could a service like Google’s authorship markup help provide the basis for a more automated and scalable solution? The Google approach currently isn’t much help here at solving Wikert’s problem, because all authorship roads lead back to a Google Profile page, and a typical Google Profile is frequently cluttered with third-party content the person finds interesting. But I think it points to a possible solution.

“Why Can’t I Subscribe to an Author?” [Kindleville]
(Photo: simon.carr)

I love it that there’s so much experimentation going on now with apps, but oftentimes they’re one-off’s that require a reinvention of the wheel for each new product. I also hate the fact that we’re creating a bunch of book apps that don’t talk to each another. One of the simple features I’ve been asking for in reader apps is the ability to search across a library. It’s far more likely we’ll see that implemented in the Kindle reader, for example, before we’ll ever see all these individual apps communicating with each other.

What really needs to happen, IMHO, is for the reader apps to evolve much faster than they are today. Apple just added the ability to separate your ebooks into different shelves in the iBooks app. What a concept. The Kindle app has been around much longer than iBooks and it still doesn’t support something as simple as this.

Awhile back I suggested that Amazon ought to get out of the hardware business and focus all their efforts on making their reader app the finest on the planet. Even though they’re not taking that advice, I’ve got a new idea for them to consider: Turn the Kindle apps into open source projects and enlist the help of the community to enhance and improve them. Imagine how many great new features would be implemented in this model. Rather than being limited by the fixed (and apparently small) number of developers assigned to the internal Kindle apps dev team they’d suddently have access to as many developers as they could recruit to the open source project. They could create a world class set of apps and quickly distance themselves from the competition.

Via Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog

That brings me to my second key takeaway from Web 2.0: The importance of a social strategy for every industry, inculding publishing. I can already hear the skeptics saying, “reading is a time of solitude, not something that’s done socially.” That’s mostly right, but it ignores at least two key areas where a social strategy can have a profound impact on the publishing industry: recommendations and remixes.

Amazon pretty much pioneered the online recommendation aspect of book publishing. Everyone wants 5-star reviews of their book, but I’m pretty sure we could also agree that a trusted friend’s recommendation is even more powerful than a stranger’s. Almost every ebook purchase I make these days is because a friend suggested it. There are just too many options (and too little time!) to risk buying a dud, even if it’s only $9.99.

What’s missing in the recommendation area though is a fast and easy way to share excerpts. If I come across a terrific sentence or paragraph I want to share from Drew Brees’ ebook, Coming Back Stronger (a terrific read so far, btw), what are my options? The Kindle reader on my iPad doesn’t offer a way for me to even tweet/email from within the app let alone share an excerpt.

Even though I mentioned Google could face challenging times ahead I think they’re on to a solution for this particular problem. Google Books lets you share links right into the book’s content. For example, I love it when Brees says, “Anyone can see the adversity in a difficult situation, but it takes a stronger person to see the opportunity.” I could tweet that sentence but it wouldn’t leave much room for an attribution. I prefer to share a link, like this one, which takes you right to that page in the book (the quote starts at the bottom of the previous page and runs through the top of the one linked to).

Since Google Books already offers this service it seems likely the much-anticipated Google Editions will too. If it does, that’s one reason I’ll seriously consider switching from Amazon to Google for all my future ebook purchases. I want to be able to not only share excerpts but also give my friends more context though a service that lets them dive right into the book I’m talking about.

Even though Google lets publishers determine what percentage of a book visitors can view for free in their Books service it’s clear many publishers aren’t participating. For example, I’ve queued up Bill Bryson’s At Home to read soon but all you’ll find about it on Google Books is this content-free catalog page.

Any publishers who are skittish about sharing content previews today are likely to choke on the idea of content remix in the future. Remix isn’t great for all types of content but it lends itself to formats like how-to, for example. The author may have one way of solving a problem but a reader might find an even better approach. Why not make that reader’s solution available to other readers, even if it’s just a small change to one of the steps originally provided by the author? Some readers will offer their appoach for free and others might want some form of compensation; we need to come up with a model that supports both. And remember, nobody’s trying to jam these remixes down anyone else’s throat. I envision an ereader app that lets you hide all other reader comments and content. But for those of us who are curious to see what other readers, especially our own friends, have to say, I think this will be a nice new service.

The social publishing/content options suggested in this post are things that can’t effectively be executed in the print world. Up to now, ebooks have mostly been nothing more than quick-and-dirty conversions of the print product. I look forward to a future where social options and other features more fully leverage the ebook medium.

Via Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 blog

While Nick’s content is extremely fascinating, the reading experience on my iPad has been painfully frustrating. I want to mark it up and pass excerpts along to colleagues. That’s next to impossible with all the ereader apps out there. I’m reading it via the Kindle app on my iPad. Does anyone feel the Kindle app’s note-taking feature is adequate? Anyone at all? I didn’t think so.

At the same time, I’m using a new note-taking app on my iPad. It’s called Noterize (App Store link) and you can find my review of it here. As I mention in the review, Noterize excels as a document mark-up tool, but imagine an ebook reader app with Noterize functionality built-in.

Click on the image at the top of this blog post to see how it would work. What I’ve done there is doctor up a screen shot of Nick Bilton’s book from the Kindle iPad app. I imported it into Noterize and added a bit of highlighting, a handwritten note and a PostIt note. Know of any ereader apps that let you do this? No, there aren’t any.

I realize what I’m asking for isn’t all that useful if you’re reading a novel, but how many other types of books have you read where you wrote in the margin or added a PostIt note? I’ve got plenty and I think it’s ridiculous that something you can do so easily in a physical book can’t be done in an ebook.

Now take this to the next level and add the ability to share portions of the book and your notes. Let readers press a button and share an excerpt via email, Twitter, etc. Incorporate a “buy now” button and it quickly becomes a marketing tool. Old-school publishers are already cringing! So what? Make it optional by title and let publishers opt out if they’re afraid of change. Over time those publishers will either support it or die off because their products don’t offer the same features as competitors.

The first ereader app vendor who adds Noterize-like functionality to their product becomes my preferred ebook store. I’m just hoping it’s not Apple since multi-platform support remains an even more important issue for me.

Via Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 blog

#1: Which bookstore experience do you prefer, Apple’s iBookstore or Amazon’s Kindle bookstore?

#2: Which e-reader device do you believe is going to “win”?

My answers to both of these might surprise you.

Regarding the first question, I thought when I bought my iPad I’d never buy another ebook from Amazon. Boy, was I wrong! I’ve owned an iPad for almost 5 months and all but one of my ebook purchases have been from Amazon. And the one iBookstore purchase I made is one I’d like to take a mulligan on and buy from Amazon instead.

Why? One (hyphenated) word: multi-platform.

Although I’m extremely down on Amazon’s continued investment in the e-reader hardware space, I’m a huge fan of their ebook business. (Well, all except for the crazy DRM they still implement…but that’s more a problem with publishers than Amazon.)

Towards the end of my Kindle usage I was feeling pretty stupid for buying all those Kindle ebooks. Now I’m glad I did. Anything I bought from Amazon can be read on my iPad, my iPhone, my Mac, a Windows computer and pretty much any other piece of hardware I’m likely to use. Has anyone seen Apple’s iBooks app for Windows? How about the iBooks app for the Blackberry? Better yet, do you think there’s a chance Apple will release an iBooks app for the Android platform? No, none of these exist today and the likelihood of them ever coming about is slim to none. Steve Jobs makes some awesome products but he’s not a fan of cross-platform usage.
So although the iBooks app is nice, I refuse to paint myself into a corner and be limited to a single platform. Gee, that sounds like what I used to say about the Kindle platform, which leads me to the second question…

I’m lumping all dedicated e-readers (e.g., Kindle) as well as multi-purpose devices (e.g., iPad) into my thinking. Sure, eInk is great in the sun, but as I like to say, if it’s a sunny day I’d rather be doing something other than sitting around reading! With that in mind, my answer to the “which device wins” question is…Android.

Yep, that’s right, I’m picking the Android platform. And yes, I know there’s no single Android “device” and as of today you can’t even buy an Android tablet. But when the Android tablets start rolling out, I’ll be exploring them for my next purchase.

I have about 10 months left on my current AT&T/iPhone agreement, so next summer looks like the right time for me to make the platform jump to Android for both phone and tablet. The Android app market is still pretty thin and that gives developers even more time to fill in all the holes. Everyone I know who has already switched from iPhone to Android loves the latter. I’ll probably also be ready to buy a new tablet next summer and you can bet the Android prices will be attractive compared to the iPad ones.

Then there’s the Google Editions release that always seems to be “a couple of months from now.” You can bet Editions will support all hardware platforms, which probably means when it hits I may need to reconsider my answer to question #1!

Via Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog

That’s silly, right? On a regular computer, yes, it is. So why do we accept those sorts of restrictions on our ereader devices? I can’t open two books simultaneously on my old Kindle or my new iPad. I have to close the first book before I can open the second.

I know what you’re thinking… When you use your Kindle, iPad or other device you’re only interested in opening one book at a time. That’s fine, but what about being able to open that book in two different places? You’ve always been hold a spot with your finger and flip to another location in a print book. It’s so easy we often do it without thinking. That includes the index, btw. How often do you hold your place in a print book, flip back to the index to look something up, then simultaneously open another page in the book without ever having to close the original page? I do that pretty regularly in print. Good luck doing it in an ereader app.

Here’s another common scenario: you’re using a cookbook or reading a how-to-guide with step-by-step instructions. There are definitely times when it’s handy to be able to flip back and forth between an illustration and the written steps, for example. Again, easy to do in print but impossible with today’s ereader apps.

Now let’s go back to the “one open book at a time” problem I started out with. What if you’re a student and you’ve got an etextbook as well as another ebook on the same topic. Why shouldn’t you be able to open them both at the same time to compare related explanations, diagrams, code, etc.?

I’m amazed that with today’s state-of-the-art ereaders, you can’t do something as simple as have the screen split into two panes for different views into the same book, let alone having two different books open at the same time.

Why am I highlighting such a simple missing feature? Because it shows just how far we still need to go to implement common print reading capabilities in today’s ereader apps. I’m still a huge advocate for richer content models that truly leverage the ereader device itself, but I’d love to see Amazon, Apple or anyone else who’s paying attention to build more basic functionality into their apps. As it currently stands, every time I open the Kindle or iBooks apps on my iPad I feel like I’m using a time machine, heading back to the late 80′s when DOS was king, only one app at a time could be opened on my 80286 computer, the music was bad and the hair was big.

Living through the 80′s once was painful enough. eReader developers, please, oh please bring us into the modern era by adding some cool functionality into your apps, OK?

Via Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog

Over the course of this summer I’ve read a couple of great Yankees books: Munson and The Bronx is Burning.  The former was read on my iPad and the latter, because it’s not available digitally, was read from a dead tree.  After seeing countless references in both to another Yankee classic, The Bronx Zoo, I decided that should be on my reading list too.  Unfortunately for me, that’s another book that’s not available digitally.  I also was unable to find a copy at the local brick-and-mortars or even the second-hand bookstore, which got me thinking…

What’s the definition of “good enough” in the digital and print-on-demand (POD) worlds?  Ideally, when I couldn’t find The Bronx Zoo in my local bookstore they would have offered to create a POD copy for me while I sip a cup of coffee.  On-site POD solutions like the Espresso machine have been “a year or so away” and I’m starting to think they always will be.  Not only are they prohibitively expensive but I’m also told they require 24×7 on-site tech support; think of the copy machine guy who’s frequently at your office, only worse.

Are we over-thinking this?  I don’t need an offset-quality (or near offset-quality) copy of The Bronx Zoo to be happy.  I’d take a copy machine-quality one.  And with FedEx/Kinko’s outlets everywhere, why hasn’t a partnership between brick-and-mortar bookstores and Kinko’s developed by now?  Borders doesn’t have the book?  No problem.  Pay at the counter (or online) and pick up a copy machine-quality version as you pass Kinko’s on your way home.  No time to stop at Kinko’s?  They’ll be glad to put your copy on a FedEx Ground truck that’s heading to your neighborhood later today anyway; for an additional small fee they’ll bring it to you, that same day.

Isn’t this Amazon’s worst nightmare? Btw, yes, I know I could order the book on Amazon and have it tomorrow.  That’s not my point.  I’m trying to address those situations where you’re looking for instant gratification but the local brick-and-mortar stores can’t help you…today.  Again, I’ve seen plenty of POD-produced boks and they’re great, but they require a hefty investment in hardware.  So what about an option that creates something that’s not quite as elegant?  It would still be bound with a cover, although that cover might just be one-color.

Then there’s the “good enough” question in ebook readers.  Thanks to competitive pressure from B&N Amazon recently reduced the price on their Kindles.  And then they announced the $139 wifi-only Kindle.  I think Amazon realizes they can’t compete with the flexibility of the iPad; there’s only so far the monochrome, animation-free Kindle can go.  And a lot of people are interested in a one-trick pony like the Kindle, so perhaps they’ll continue to have that niche…until Apple creates smaller and less expensive iPads.

Yes, the $139 wifi-only Kindle is sold out, but if Amazon really wants to create an ereader for the masses they should come out with a sub-$100 device with no connectivity other than a USB port. Just about everyone on the planet now has a smartphone.  Why not let this bare bones Kindle tether to a smartphone (or computer) for content purchases?  Imagine how many $79 tethering Kindles Amazon could sell.  Heck, I’d buy one for each of my kids.

An ereader with built-in connectivity is nice; market dominance is nicer though.

P.S. — Btw, Amazon, if eInk is still the production bottleneck, get that problem fixed before it’s too late.  You’ve still got a chance to own what’s left of the dedicated ereader market, but if you don’t act soon Apple will completely clobber you.

Via Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog

Where I buy a print book often comes down to convenience (which store is closest), pricing, availability (is the book in stock?) and loyalty programs (e.g., member discounts).  The choice of a brick-and-mortar vs. an online store adds in the component of urgency; do you need the book today or can it wait till tomorrow?

I’m buying ebooks almost exclusively now.  In fact, I can’t even recall the last print book I bought for myself.  Although I ditched my Kindle on day one with my iPad, I do most of my book reading in the Kindle app on the iPad.  Although Amazon has a major selection advantage of the iBookstore, Apple will catch up at some point.  Then there’s B&N and Borders.  Both of them have iPad apps and ebook stores.  And don’t forget about Google and their upcoming Editions program as well a host of other up-and-coming e-tailers.

So here’s the question: With all these ebook retailers just a click away from each other, what must they do to earn your business on a repeat basis? This is a critical question for all the e-tailers looking for loyal customers.  I’ve come up with a list of some of the items that affect my buying habits:

Reader Features – I’m referring to the bells and whistles the vendor builds into their ereader apps.  Today they’re all about the same but I believe this will be a critical point of distinction in the years ahead.  Integration of social networks (easily sending excerpts to your friends, tweeting them, etc.) is just a simple example.  I’m willing to bet the features we’ll see in ereader apps in a year or two will make today’s apps look pretty basic.

Sharable Content — B&N took the first steps of this for the Nook but that’s not going to cut it long term.  Customers need to be able to share their purchases with all their friends, one by one, of course, just like they can with a print book.  Which leads to…

Eliminating DRM – Which major ebook retailer will be the first to feature nothing but DRM-free books?  We sell a lot of ebook bundles on oreilly.com and I believe one of the reasons why is because we’ve totally eliminated DRM from the transaction.  We trust our customers to do the right thing and they reward us by coming back and buying more.  This is a tough one though as it’s the publishers who need to be convinced DRM is bad, not so much the retailers.  I was pleased to see that one of the larger, old-school publishers who was a huge advocate of DRM at our 2009 TOC conference became a convert by the time they attended our 2010 TOC show.  I figure if they can make the change, anyone can!

Price — It’s the obvious way of winning customers, but is it a legitimate, significant long-term advantage?  Probably not.  I compare the top e-tailers before I buy books for my iPad and I rarely find a price difference.  On top of that, I’d be willing to pay more for each book if the more expensive option offers me some of the other advantages I’ve listed in this post.

Loyalty Programs – Here’s one we really haven’t seen tapped into yet.  When will I be able to take advantage of a “buy-2-get-1-free” ebook campaign?  We’ve done some experimentation like this on oreilly.com and it works.  What’s nice about this model is that the e-tailer has easy access to your account, so you could accumulate buyer points, buy 1 book now and come back a week or two later to buy the 2nd book that gets you the 3rd one free.  Good luck trying that at your local brick-and-mortar store.  If I know that I’m one book away from getting a free one I’m much more likely to go back to that same store for my next purchase.

Non-book Content — Up to now all I’ve been talking about is books.  What about magazines and newspapers though?  When I bought my Kindle v1 I thought it would be a way to always have my newspapers and magazines on the road.  Unfortunately for Amazon, the user experience for newspapers and magazines was awful, so I quickly dropped my subscriptions.  Although most of these publishers are trying to go direct to customers (e.g., iPad apps), there will also be subscriptions through larger e-tailers.  Part of this has to do with discovery, which is why print magazines/newspapers are still at your local convenience store.  How could e-tailers leverage these products to make their site/reader the most compelling one available?

Those are just a few ideas off the top of my head.  What have I missed?  What products and services can an e-tailer offer to earn your repeat business?  Or, with all these stores just a click away, are we less likely to remain loyal to only one or two of them?

Via Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog

Google Editions is said to be cloud-based and hardware agnostic. Great so far. After all, I often worried about being locked into Amazon’s Kindle platform each time I bought another $9.99 book for it. To Amazon’s credit though, they’re heading away from their original locked-in hardware model where you had to own a Kindle to enjoy a Kindle ebook. Most of the books I read on my iPad now are from the Kindle store, so kudos to Amazon.

The NY Times article linked to above talks about how Google could change the game by cozying up to the independent booksellers. Interesting idea. I’ve always thought the independents should have banded together years ago to create an uber virtual bookstore chain, both online and as brick-and-mortars. Think of it as a federation of indies. Networked together they’d stand a much better chance of competing with Amazon, B&N and Borders, for example.

Here’s one way this could work: You search for a print book on an indie’s website. They don’t have it but the indie two down street does. In this new federation of independents, Google ties everything together on the back end as it helps them refine their sites and search results to show that book is available down the street at indie #2. Indie #1 gets a finders fee on the resulting transaction. Again, everything is handled with a state-of-the-art Google back-end system.

Extend that same thinking to a combined online presence, all backed by Google to do things like provide the best local information (depending on the customer’s IP address or what’s being searched for). In other words, take what’s always made the indie stores so attractive (extensive local knowledge and specialization) and bring it online, not individually as they are today, but as one super-sized independent. Think of it as all these stores banding together with Google to create a large Amazon-like presence but with an indie personality, one that changes on the fly from one region to another based on where you are and what you’re looking for. That sounds like a compelling model to me.

So what does the ebook retailing landscape look like for the next couple of years? First of all, the Kindle will continue to take on more meaning as a bookstore rather than a hardware device. In fact, as I predicted last November, I believe Amazon will completely abandon the Kindle hardware space by late 2012. The only adjustment I’d like to make to that prediction is that the iPad (and the upcoming flood of Android-based tablets) will cause it to happen even sooner.

Next, Google will probably cozy up with indies but Amazon’s Kindle apps will help it expand onto all platforms. Google, however, will be more aggressive on the advertising front and (finally!) give book publishers the option of selling different versions of their products (regular-priced ones without ads and lower-priced ones with ads, for example). For all you anti-book ad people, please remember that there will still be versions without ads; nobody will force you to buy books with ads! For cheapskates like me who have no problem with ads everywhere else, we’ll save a few bucks along the way.

Meanwhile, Apple has to decide whether to create their own iBooks apps for Windows and Android devices. That’s the only way they’ll truly be competitive with Amazon and Google. If they stick with apps just for Apple products they’ll really stunt their growth for the future. I’m thinking this won’t happen though. After all, can you imagine how hard it would be for Steve Jobs to green-light development of an iBooks app for an Android phone?!

Editor’s note: the above is reprinted, with permission, from Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog. PB

I bought the initial Wired edition for $4.99 but I’m not buying the second one. Over the weekend I realized I played around a bit with the Wired iPad edition but never finished reading it. In fact, I’m more likely to read the print copy that’s sitting on my desk than the iPad version. And since I get the print version for $10/year, why in the world would I even think about paying $4.99 per iPad issue?
I’m certainly not the first to blog about this and I doubt I’ll be the last. What I can’t understand though is why, after Apple made in-app subscriptions possible months ago, are none of the big guys selling their magazines that way?

Does it have to do with Apple’s 30% cut? Are they all trying to find a way to get around this and sell direct? That’s what Amazon does. When you buy a Kindle edition via the iPad app you’re actually just going direct through the browser, not buying through iTunes. I’m assuming Amazon therefore doesn’t have to pay Apple a cent on the transaction. Why wouldn’t magazine publishers want to do the same, especially on longer-term subscriptions?

Of course, with magazines and newspapers we’re talking about publishers who aren’t exactly on the cutting edge when it comes to technology solutions. They’re still clinging to their print models as much as possible. Why else would I get at least 2-3 “please come back” snail mails from BusinessWeek every month?! So all these magazine/newspaper publishers are probably operating independent of one other, each trying to come up with their own direct sales app/tool. I wonder how much time and money is being wasted because they’re not working together on this.

Here’s a crazy idea: Maybe they should consider pushing it all through Amazon. If Amazon were smart, they’d pull an end-around on Apple and tell the magazine/newspaper publishers, “hey, sell your subscriptions through us…we won’t charge you 30% like Apple…how about 20%, or maybe even 10%?” Amazon already has the infrastructure in place to push content to the iPad as well as a terrific customer service operation, so why shouldn’t they leverage their platform for something like this?

One potential pitfall is that Apple might decide it was OK for Amazon to sell their books for the iPad without getting a percentage, but if they’re going to be magazine/newspaper distributors for the platform they’ll cut off Amazon’s iPad access. Let’s hope not. After all, if Amazon could take this on, it would create a very healthy competition with Apple, and that would likely be a good thing for consumers.

Editor’s Note: The above is reprinted, with permission, from Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 blog. PB

Let’s start with a “back” button in the e-reader, to take you back to where you just came from. Every time I’ve clicked on a link in an ebook and it takes me to an earlier/later spot, there’s no easy way to go back. Or how about when you’re in the index and you click on an entry, hop to it but it’s not what you were looking for? You’re stuck on that page and you have to manually find your spot back in the index again. Imagine a web browser without a back button. Pretty awful, right? So why do we have to live with e-readers without back buttons?

How about pop-up windows? Why are all the popular reading apps typically built with just a single window in mind? Imagine how frustrated and less efficient your day would be if your computer only let you open one window! In the index, if I press and hold an entry, show me a preview of where I’ll be taken if I make that selection. It’s the same concept I use all the time in my Bing search results, so that I can preview where I’m heading before I leave the current page.

And how about similar functionality in the body of the book? Press and hold a word or phrase and you get a list of related entries and “see also’s” from the index. For example, let’s say I’m reading the “Get Online” chapter of iPad: The Missing Manual and I see the term “3G”. If I press and hold it in my iPad ebook reader there should be a list of links to where 3G is first defined in the book. But there should also be links to where related topics are covered, such as AT&T, cellular network and even wifi, so that I can understand the difference.

Next, similar to pop-ups, why not let me have a split view into the book, or, heaven forbid, allow me to have two books open at the same time, both visible on the screen, one using the top half and the other using the bottom; these are basic features we take for granted in apps like Word or Excel but they’re nonexistent in the ebook app world.

The index is such a critical element of a print book and it could take on so much more functionality in ebooks. Which reader app will be the first to enable these types of enhancements? I’m not particularly loyal to any one of them, so I just hope at least one of them offers these features sooner rather than later.

Editor’s Note: the above is reprinted, with permission, from Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog. PB

There are also so many missed link opportunities. For example, DoubleTree’s URL is shown at the bottom of their ad. Wouldn’t it be convenient to let readers touch it so that it takes them to DoubleTree’s website, possibly featuring a special deal for Wired readers? The magazine could get a finder’s fee for any reservations made through that link. Even something as simple and obvious as this was missed. Btw, you’ll find a mixed bag of ads with and without links in this issue. My guess is some advertisers agreed to pay more for their ads to include links in the app edition. Perhaps Wired thought this would be a good way to test ads with and without links. The result is a very confusing user experience for the reader as you don’t know whether touching a URL will open Safari or do nothing at all. Here’s a simple rule they should follow: All URLs should open a link!

You may have also heard that Wired tried a new UI approach where you scroll horizontally from one article to the next but you scroll vertically within an article. The mix of horizontal and vertical scrolling feels forced, like a gimmick that sounded interesting in theory but has no real value in practice. And as others are starting to complain about, if everyone implements their own UI tweaks we’ll never have standards and nothing will seem intuitive. Apple really needs to get their arms around this.

Like many people, I’m not wowed by interactive ads. I’m very much wowed by interactive content though, which is why I love The Elements. The Wired app tries too hard to just create the “faster horse” that Henry Ford referred to rather than the next gen content app. If Wired wants to draw readers into the ads they’ll need to better integrate them with the content, not have them as standalone pages, separate from the content. They’re still thinking like magazine publishers and it’s holding them back. Build an integrated approach so that I discover the ads while I’m doing a deep dive in an article.

Bottom line: if this is as good as it gets I’ll keep my print subscription. There’s no need for me to fork over 5 bucks more for each pseudo-enhanced digital edition when I can get an entire year’s worth in print for $10.

Editor’s Note: this article is reprinted, with permission, from Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 blog. PB

I’ve purposely avoided renewing all of my print magazines subscriptions for the past several months because I figured I’d switch them to iPad apps/subscriptions. My plan hasn’t worked so well. I no longer get BusinessWeek, Fast Company or The New York Times, but none of them are available as apps either. So what has this led to?

I now just bookmark all those magazine/newspaper web sites on my iPad and read pretty much everything I want for free. The longer these publishers delay introducing an iPad app for their content, the greater the likelihood I will have moved on and won’t ever buy it. What a mistake.

The whole experience has also caused me to wonder if there’s an opportunity for a whole new type of app. Think of it as a combination of Fluent News and Offline Pages. What I want is an app that automatically checks each of those magazine/newspaper sites and pushes me the full contents of the latest edition. Without this sort of app I’m forced to do this manually, looking through nytimes.com, clicking on each article that’s interesting and then hitting the “Save to Offline Pages” webmarklet that’s installed on my browser. Why make me go through all that effort? Why not let me tell this new app what newspapers and magazines I want the latest from and deliver them to

Before you say that’s what the RSS feeds are for think again. Many of those feeds are partial. They don’t include the entire article or they make you click and go to their website to see their ads. Fine, I’ll look at the ads…but in the version that’s cached in this new app I’m describing.

Isn’t this ridiculous though? These publishers are trying to control the flow and use of their content so they’re forcing customers like me to come up with better ways of using it. (Hey, that sounds a lot like the denial stage the music labels went through back in the Napster days.) And btw, I’m a customer who is more than willing to pay for online access to this content, but by not providing apps these publishers won’t let me! These are the same publishers, at least on the newspaper side, who constantly complain that Google has stolen their IP. Google hasn’t stolen anything. And if the publishers don’t get wise to the rapidly growing iPad platform they’ll probably see someone else swoop in and steal the app revenue opportunity they’re currently ignoring.

Editor’s Note: the above is reprinted, with permission, from Joe Wiket’s Publishing 2020 Blog. PB.

Now I’m amazed how quickly I’ll make a 99-cent purchase. Part of the reason is the seamless way iTunes is integrated into the overall iPhone/iPad ecosystem. Apple has created a model where payment is too temptingly simple. Amazon may have patented one-click payment but Apple is perfecting it. A quick check of my recent AMEX statement shows I paid Apple more last month (for mostly sub-$5, including a large number of 99-cent, transactions!) than I paid Amazon. That wasn’t the case 6 months ago.

There’s still a huge difference between grabbing a free app and paying for one, even if it’s only 99 cents. I’m still pretty stingy here and I want to feel confident I wasn’t snookered into paying for something that’s not even worth a dollar.

The problem in the book publishing world is that we haven’t found a good content model for the sub-$5 purchase. Customers don’t want to buy chapters, so don’t kid yourself about that model. And sure, you can do the quick-and-dirty print-to-e conversion and sell it for a fraction of the print price, but that’s not much of a future.

We need to create more product entry points that appeal to the masses with low initial prices that offer a great value proposition as well as upsell opportunities for additional irresistible content and/or services.

What can we learn from other experiments in the app world?:

* First, don’t assume the quick-and-dirty p-to-e conversion model is more viable just because the iPad offers a large, full-color screen. I still refuse to pay $4.99 for a single iPad issue of Time, for example. (You’d think the magazine folks would realize that’s no way to attract new customers. What about the free trial subscription to let me see what’s special and get me hooked?)
* Second, and perhaps most importantly, think about rich content, not just quick-and-dirty conversions (see my earlier highly relevant posts here and here). A chemistry textbook publisher creates this while a visionary creates this. The former is a yawner while the latter, even as a fairly high-priced iPad app lures me in because it’s so tempting to explore and discover with it. Question: How many customers would describe your e-products with words like “tempting”, “explore” or “discover”?
* Third, think about subscriptions, not just one-time payments.
* Fourth, think about selling the network, not just an individual product.
* And finally, don’t ignore the advertising and sponsorship worlds. Yes, I know many people say they won’t stand for in-book advertising. That’s fine. Offer two different versions, including the higher-priced one for those folks who won’t tolerate the ads.

Editor’s Note: The above is reprinted, with permission, from Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog. PB