I love OpenReader–I hate the Web site. It’s too much in techspeak and leaves civilians baffled.
We need to avoid stupid hype but play up the genuine benefits while still being helpful to geeks. Imagine a time when you buy e-books without having to load up your handheld with different programs to cope with the Tower of eBabel. Wouldn’t it also be great to be able to own e-books for real–without worrying whether Dobermanish DRM will get in the way when you switch to a better machine?
Luckily we’ve now reached the stage where even Jon Noring, Mr. OpenReader himself, agrees with me that the site needs a makeover, not just updating. Jon wants us to go to The Next Level.
So here’s the deal. If you’re a whiz of an artist or Web designer or journalist or copywriter or XHTML 1.1 or CSS expert, then send in your resume. Also pass on URLs or samples of your work. Nope: no pay. But we will give recognition through a credits page. And your participation will be a great advertisement for your skills. We’re also open to pro bono work from Web firms.
It’s important that your work fit in with the site. You may be brilliant at what you do, but we need just the right tone for our purposes. The reborn OpenReader site will not read like the TeleBlog, which is more informal than I’d like us to be. But if I have my druthers, the language will be less stilted than the present site’s, and there’ll be more of a human element. And the graphics will be memorable. Well-done photos might help.
One site that both Jon and I like is the one for Digital Radio Mondiale. Notice the cool features there? You can actually hear DRM in action. Well, wouldn’t it be cool to see mockups of books done with the typographical wrinkles that OpenReader will allow? I’d also love to see pages with the photos of publishers, booksellers and readers who tell how OpenReader will change their lives–or at least their work–for the better.
As for the geekish stuff, I want to see more content for the hardcore techies. But we need to present the tech side in a way that won’t frighten away civilians, especially geeks’ bosses.
If we can’t find the right folks through appeals like this, we’ll do the site ourselves. But we’d love to see what talent is lurking out there. So don’t be bashful.
Meanwhile, you can check out our format and dev lists.
