In 1998 I rejoiced that the Open eBook Forum would help us avoid the VHS-vs.-Beta mess. Was I wrong! Open eBook’s still talkin’ and promisin’ more than actin’.
Meanwhile over in Korea, the e-book industry has its act together–with a universal e-book viewer to appear soon. Over there, at least, the format wars will matter a lot less than they would otherwise. I like the viewer solution. While I support the idea of a universal consumer format for e-books, I’ve always loved the idea of a multi-format viewer. Let a zillion app-optimized formats exist if need be, just so consumers can cope with them.
Congratulations, then, to the South Koreans, assuming that they indeed live up to the ballyhoo, which I suspect they will, based on that country’s fast adoption of broadband–another area in which they lead the States. Here’s the lowdown on the e-book viewer from the April 11 issue of the Korean Herald:
Publishers, book distributors and technology solution companies have put together a consortium to promote the development of e-books.
The Korea e-book Library Association (KOBLA), representing 500 publishing firms, digital content providers and technology firms, was launched Wednesday, aimed at promoting the development of e-books.
The participation of Wisebooktopia, the largest solution provider and publisher, which was initially reluctant to enter the consortium because of concerns about copyright, is expected to result in the integration of different e-book solutions currently on the market. The lack of integration of technological solutions has been a major impediment in the growth of the e-book market.
The consortium is expected to declare a unified solution soon, offering it free-of-charge to makers of e-books and distributors. The integrated viewer put forward by the consortium supports XML, PDF, flash, voice as well as multi-media, in effect, allowing all forms of e-books to be viewed. The viewer also runs on personal computers, personal digital assistants and tablet personal computers.
“The integrated solution will allow more e-books to be published. Libraries which are keen on acquiring e-books, particularly academic titles, will soon be able to see more title offerings,” said Shim Sung-bo, manager at Pakyoungsa, a publishing firm which is a member of KOBLA.
What’s Open eBook to do now that the Koreans are making fools of the group by taking some meaningful action? But the real people I feel sorry for are the smaller warriors in the format battles here in the States. The longer Open eBook goes without a consumer-level solution, the more the big question arises. Was the whole idea just a scheme to institutionalize balkanization–while Microsoft and other biggies cleaned up with their still-rather-proprietary formats?
Beyond the format issue, I wouldn’t be surprised if countries such as Korea beat the States to having a true, TeleRead-style national digital library. Not surprisingly, a good number of accesses to the TeleRead site come from abroad. The e-book biz and the rest of publishing in the U.S. are still clinging on to outdated copyright concepts–an issue very much related to the format wars. Beyond the usual reasons, I now have a new one for hoping that the two Koreas can settle their differences peacefully. I’d hate for a blood-and-guts war to distract Koreans from dealing with the e-book format wars and serving as a much-needed role model for us benighted Yanks.
Meanwhile I would suggest that librarians in the States start asking some pesky questions of ALA President Mitch Freedman. Why are librarians letting him be a PR man for OEBF (“Only principled open standards like the Open eBook Publication Structure can help digital publishing achieve its full potential and make abundant rich content available to our nation”) [without noting the limitations of a mere production format, as opposed to a consumer one]? Shouldn’t he be more aggressive in fighting the balkanization that bedevils e-book boosters among librarians? Can’t he handle the e-book issue and the pay battle at the same time?
ALA should give the Open eBook Forum a tight deadline for coming up with either a universal consumer-level format or a Korean-style viewer. Then, if the deadline isn’t met, it should withdraw from Open eBook and look to other standards groups for help in coping with the format battles. Libraries carry clout not only as buyers, er, renters, of e-books but also as a path toward popularization of hardware, software and format standards with the public. They should use it.
Look, Open eBook can clear up this mess, quickly, if enough people speak up. However frustrated I am with the group, I will give it credit for developing standards for publishers, conversion houses and the rest—apparently the XML-related ones that the Korean e-book industry seems to have built on. If Open eBook wants to show a genuine interest in popularizing e-books, not just kow-towing to certain companies that benefit from the present format confusion, it should catch up with the Koreans and promptly release a universal viewer for consumers, or else a truly common format in the vein of VHS within the video world. Five years is long enough to wait.
Update, Feb. 16, 2006: Given the advances in OpenReader-type technology, I wouldn’t even think these days of a Korean-style viewer despite its superiority to an eBabel approach. Let’s add value with shared annotations, deep interbook linking and the like via a powerful common format.
