http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/morning-links-24/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Fri, 24 May 2013 22:21:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/morning-links-24/comment-page-1/#comment-1240839 Frank Lowney Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:42:20 +0000 http://www.teleread.com/?p=78996#comment-1240839 I think that Adam Engst (TidBits) sets up a straw man when he asserts that there is a movement afoot to gratuitously replace text with linear and interactive media, a movement that will inevitably fail. As he points out toward the end, we already have movies and television replacing text. What I think is actually happening is that authors are just beginning to grapple with the integration of media and text and the early results are less than stellar. This will improve just as desktop publishing got better once we got over our fascination with and abuse of fonts. That transition won't be eve either. For example, fiction may not benefit from new media as non-fiction might. I think that Adam Engst (TidBits) sets up a straw man when he asserts that there is a movement afoot to gratuitously replace text with linear and interactive media, a movement that will inevitably fail. As he points out toward the end, we already have movies and television replacing text.
What I think is actually happening is that authors are just beginning to grapple with the integration of media and text and the early results are less than stellar. This will improve just as desktop publishing got better once we got over our fascination with and abuse of fonts.
That transition won’t be eve either. For example, fiction may not benefit from new media as non-fiction might.

]]> http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/morning-links-24/comment-page-1/#comment-1240836 Frank Lowney Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:59:32 +0000 http://www.teleread.com/?p=78996#comment-1240836 Having just read a similar piece pitting HTML 5 against native apps (http://mashable.com/2012/09/12/web-vs-native-apps/), I was interested to see if the eBook world saw things the same way. I found Kleinfeld's position surprising because O'Reilly acquired Threepress Consulting and, with that, Ibis Reader. Ibis Reader is an eReader written in HTML 5 and a living example of how very close a web app can approximate a native app. The big problems with native apps is cost and scalability, problems that don't obtain with HTML 5 or ePub for that matter. Write once, read everywhere. Having just read a similar piece pitting HTML 5 against native apps (http://mashable.com/2012/09/12/web-vs-native-apps/), I was interested to see if the eBook world saw things the same way. I found Kleinfeld’s position surprising because O’Reilly acquired Threepress Consulting and, with that, Ibis Reader. Ibis Reader is an eReader written in HTML 5 and a living example of how very close a web app can approximate a native app. The big problems with native apps is cost and scalability, problems that don’t obtain with HTML 5 or ePub for that matter. Write once, read everywhere.

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