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About that ePub logo, Mike: A friendly jog for the IDPF
November 23, 2009 | 1:28 am
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By David Rothman
Ugh, it’s time to broach the topic again. Why the devil doesn’t the International Digital Publishing Forum have an ePub logo so its format standard can compete better against the Kindle’s proprietary approach?
The IDPF said it would unveil a contest for the best logo design, but I haven’t seen a follow-up. I’ve emailed Director Michael Smith for an explanation. How about it, Mike? You’re a nice guy, and I know you’re busy, but this has been going on for months and months. I could move on to Board President Steve Potash of OverDrive, but I’m still counting on you to provide us with an updated answer to the routine questions of “Why?” and “When?”
With dozens of reader gizmos using ePub now or in the near future, a logo is not a minor detail. As I currently see it, there should be (1) a logo for nonDRMed ePub and (2) a requirement that brand names be used with "protected" kinds—for example, “Adobe-DRMed ePub.”
Proprietary DRM in effect turns ePub into a proprietary format. People need to know—right up front—which proprietary format is in use. Hardware able to read both DRMed and nonDRMed ePub could carry a logo with the words, “Open and Adobe-DRMed ePub.”
The above logo: It’s an unofficial version from Travis Alber of BookGlutton. By the way, my own preferred usage would be “ePub.” I’ll continuing the good fight to make that official. The aesthetics are so much better than a bunch of caps.
Also of interest: Paul Biba’s Nook-related post, telereaD editor goes into sTaTE of RebeLLiOn. I, too, hate "nook" without the first letter capitalized. Let’s keep the focus on the performance of the machine, as opposed to marketers’ silly distractions.
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Comments:
Why no mention of Steve Jordan’s version? It’s even been posted here before.
David,
i like your idea of “ePub”…and for nook, i mean, er, the Nook, yeh, common sense and common usage should dictate how we write that word. but here’s a puzzler for you to ponder, but too much: just as an aside: why do we in the Western world capitalize the word for God, our God, our real correct true God, but when we write about other Gods in the world, in the Eastern world especially, those Gods get lowercased, and are always called gods,as if they are of lesser importance than the one true real God of the West, which of course, is no more correct or real than the Gods of Japan or China or Vietnam of India. And then there are the orthodox who God as G-d in order not to take the name of “yahweh” in vain and they feel that by using the hyphen they are not taking His name (his name or His name) in vain. It’s not fair. Having lived in Asia since 1991, i see how God in the West gets capped, but the Gods of the East get lowercased because Western brainwashing tells us that our God is superior to their gods. Sigh. And then of course Jesus always gets called He, not he, and Allah also gets called He, not he, but Moses, who was not a god or a son of a god or a prophet of a god, just a lawgiver and parter of the Red Sea, he is just called he and never He. So see? Uppercase and lowercase do mean things! It all depends who is calling the shots and who is writing history, or herstory. I give up. I am going for nook, but i will accept Nook too. I have no choice!
I’m sticking with my OEB logo. I may even keep using it after the IDPF finally chooses one… we can’t wait all day, guys!
Maybe, to placate those who want the extension spelled out (cough-David!-cough), I’ll add “ePub” to my logo and make it… well, less international, but more palatable to Europeans and Americans, anyway…
There are a lot of ePub logos like that by my prefer logo is the Travis Alber’s version (it is simple, nice and direct).
I too think that a ePub logo is very important matter if we want that ePub will be the standard ebook format.
Hi, Igorsk. For time reasons, I ran just one logo. I hope Steve and many other talented folks will enter the contest when it finally happens. Thanks. David
The New York Times styledesk copydesk standards dept just told me they will always cap Nook and always call it the Nook, regardless or irregardless of what the pr dept at b&n says. So Nook it is. However, david, what about BlackBerry? Do you cap the second b or lowercase it. I always write it as above. What is your style on b-berries?
Hey, Dave: This one’s for you!
Way to go, Steve. Nice job. And a dot, too, for the extension stuff, lol. David
I certainly understand how well-intentioned this is, but ideally, readers wouldn’t ever hear the term “ePub”, or see it in print, or see the logo, or ever know what it is. For them, books in ePub with no DRM will “just work” and have great value, while those that are in DRM or odd formats will fail to work for them in many situations and they will see those books as having less value. The publishers who engage in the reader-hostile practices of nonstandard formats or DRM will do worse and the ones that publish books with long-term value will do very well.
In other words, readers will judge this issue not at the technical level, but at the practical results level.
The technical stuff is the publisher’s responsibility. Apple iTunes will send you updated versions of stuff you’ve already bought to fix bugs, remove DRM, improve fidelity … that is a digital publisher taking responsibility for their users and that is part of why the products you buy from iTunes are seen as being so valuable. And Apple gave the QuickTime file format away for standardization as ISO MPEG-4 rather than ship proprietary QuickTime files in iTunes. People who use iPods know nothing about all this and shouldn’t have to. They just keep going back to iTunes and shelling out more money because it just works.
If publishers aren’t taking responsibility for putting the words on the page then what are they doing? What is their job these days? When you sign a deal to publish on Kindle only in a nonstandard format with DRM, then you are saying to your paying customers “I refuse to make the words appear in a non-Kindle book reader” and that is much less valuable and readers will learn this through experience. You can’t tell them with logos. If you do want to tell them, you have to use plain words, i.e. “Dear Reader, please enjoy this book in any standard electronic book reader, thank-you, The Publisher.”