Should an e-book look like a book, complete with double pages, or do only the words count? It’s an ancient debate, and in this video, a researcher concludes that for many people, the traditional format will matter—especially with longer documents.
But that’s not the only point of interest here, as Jon Noring has noted on the eBook Community List. Might the seminar hint of a strong interest at Google in improving the e-book experience? Alas, the experience is disappointing right now for many e-book-lovers. Google Book Search gives us PDFs on which PDAs and even small tablets choke (a plain text alterative is hardly optimal or presented for easy download). But what surprises might Google have ahead in the future for desktop and handheld readers alike?
Another viewpoint
Meanwhile see Brenna Lyons’ just-posted challenge to the premise in the video. "I don’t believe you have to flip pages to assimilate material," she says. "People did it just fine, when they had scrolls, after all. Just because the generations before us did, that’s no reason to think everyone wants or needs to. After all, my generation and the one after me are quite used to reading off of screens. It’s a nice option, for those who prefer it, though." Amen, Brenna.
Now playing on YouTube
Other videos of possible interest–with a caveat that I can’t vouch for their impartiality or quality: Recent Hanlin e-book reader videos (product photos, display and page turning) and Chinese on Cybook Gen3, plus How to Add Note in Adobe and How to Create PDF Ebooks for Free via OpenOffice. Your newbie friends might also be interested in a video tutorial on downloading Gutenberg books. Also check out videos from Feedbooks, which now offers books in the IDPF’s new .epub format. Among them: a tutorial on how to create book using a mix of a blog and Feedbooks.
Related (photo): CyBook Gen3 review – comparison to a PDA, in MobileRead (not YouTube). Conclusion about CyBook: "Buy it you won’t regret it. You know you want it."
The paradox: I’ve got mixed feelings about YouTube and other multimedia. But, hey, whatever it takes to fire people up about e-books! Besides, in some cases, such as showing how a machine performs, video works out beautifully—especially when augmenting text. Video can mean anything from a dumb sitcom to the ergonomics lecture mentioned above.
And a formal reminder/disclosure: For retirement purposes, I own a tiny speck of Google stock—ironic, given all the times I’ve complained about various aspects of Google’s e-book efforts.
