Needed: The right e-book standards to accompany Google's open phone platform

Google wanted an edge on the iPhone (left photo).

So it’s backing the open Android platform of the 34-company Open Handset Alliance.

Why the devil should Google break into phone hardware when it can leverage the manufacturing and marketing savvy of the LG Group, Samsung and others?

Now, here’s another standards-related idea. Google should offer full-strength support of the IDPF‘s .epub standard and encourage other members of the Open Handset Alliance to do the same. It would be silly, sily, sily for Google to follow Amazon’s Kindle example and saddle e-bookdom with a new member of the Tower of eBabel.

Heeding the howls of eBabel victims

Google likes to sell itself as a do-no-evil kind of corporation, in which case it should heed the howls from readers, publishers, retailers and librarians who have been caught up in the eBabel mess—as documented by the MCLC Library Tech Talk blog in the Phoenix area. The OverDrive e-library service, for example, can work with certain PDAs and Smartphones but not with the Kindle reader, and ultimately even the phone users suffer, since eBabel costs money and thus reduces the range of books online.

Despite all the current Kindle ballyhoo, coming not that long after the mass media told us that Sony would provide the solution, cellphones will most likely be the real platform for e-books in time. Rollout E Ink displays or similar technologies will eventually take over—allowing even phones to sport six-inch displays. Google’s hardware friends could enjoy a head start in the phone market if they looked ahead, -not to mention the contributions they could make to literacy, since phones are far, far more ubiquitous than dedicated e-reading devices and thus lend themselves better to the economies of mass production.

Already coming to Android: .epub-capable FBReader

So now’s the time to think strategically—and tactically, too. It turns out that FBReader, a very good open source program, can already read .epub on the Android platform or at least will be able to in the near future—see mock screenshots of a Java version. In fact, I’ll reproduce a shot here. CSS support isn’t available yet in current FBReader versions, but that should come in time. In Google’s pace I’d encourage the developers of FBReader and other open source programs to come up with advanced apps that could display e-books in a nice, reflowable format that didn’t require the owners of small-screen machines to constantly keep scrolling from left to right, PDF fashion, or suffer other inconveniences.

Along the way, Google should encourage publishers to experiment with social DRM, through which people’s names are embedded into books to discourage piracy—as opposed to the current encrypted-related shackles, which tend to be company-specific.

Without proprietary digital rights management and with the .epub format, the same e-files could be work on a variety of machines. And as I’ve written before, there could even be an “Intel Inside”-style logo to brand the .epub  standard for nonDRMed books and remove all the ifs that face shoppers today. If publishers continued to insist on DRMing of books for sale, despite the sensible movement of the music industry away from encryption, then the IDPF could take a stab at a DRM standard and an all-inclusive logo. But meanwhile the IDPF and its members shouldn’t lose valuable time by being so DRM-fixated; give social DRM and the logo idea a chance with .epub books rather than linking the cause of a core format with the rather problematic DRM cause. My own strong preference, of course, continues to be no DRM—and even changes in library business models in time if that’s what it takes to get away from this literary and sales toxin.

Turning around the IDPF

But why should Google involve itself with .epub rather than creating a rival, refined standard? Because, as I learned the hard way, in fighting for the OpenReader standard, major publishers have cast their lot with the .epub and the IDPF. In fact, Mike Smith, the IDPF’s new executive director, comes not from a technology company but from Harlequin. Meanwhile Hachette is already relying on .epub as its sole distribution format, saving itself a pile of money and allowing more books to be E than otherwise.

Financial support would be one way for Google to win over Harlequin, Hachette and other the publishers—and remove the current questions that arise when Adobe plays so important a role in the IDPF’s funding. Both technology companies could participate, making the IDPF more credible to many than it is today. What we don’t need is for Adobe to get the IDPF to support a proprietary encryption scheme that in effect turns .epub into an Adobe format, which it is not now. Same for Google. No one company should be able to call all the shots, or .epub won’t find the same wide support it can in time if the IDPF does things right.

The network factor

Here’s another pro-.epub argument for Google. It could help the IDPF come up with standards better suited for a truly networked oriented company. The current .epub lacks annotations standards and reliable interbook linking, the very stuff that could help Google turn its vast Web archives of books into coherent collections. Google’s geeks could work with others in the IDPF to make certain the job was done right—in the open, rather than dissing standards, Kindle fashion. They could also consult with Wowio and other design-oriented companies to give .epub some relevant capabilities (for that matter, Wowio, too, should join the IDPF).

Finally, Google could use its clout and resources to help the IDPF get serious about decent standards for encapsulated Web sites—which in plain English means files that could store entire editions of newspapers and magazines in the proper fashion.  This would be one way for Google to help befriend the news publishers with whom it has been tangling at times in copyright battles. Encapsulated editions would provide the newspaper with a nice revenue opportunity, since you can read them everywhere, without worries over WiFi. Come to think of it, Google also has had a few disputes with book publishers as well. Its involvement in the IDPF in the right way would help smooth things over.

Simply put, whether in adding value to Google’s book archives or in rewarding its allies in the Open Handset Alliance, Larry and Sergy and friends should reach out to the IDPF, which in turn should be open-minded toward Google. That includes you, Adobe, if you don’t want proprietry e-book standards from Apple or another rival to win out in the world of phones. While Apple has been mum on the topic of e-book standards, this could change, and we all know about its proprietary tendencies. 

iPhone image: From Wowio’s Gerry Manacsa.

Usual disclaimer: I own a tiny amount of Google via a long-term retirement investment—something that has not prevented me from being rather grouchy on issues such as the E-Book Museum question or company’s watermarking of public domain documents.