Archive for March, 2010
The iPad and the Book
Interactive publishing
Along with the wheel, the engine and perhaps the bow and arrow, the book has to be one of our greatest inventions. And anyone interested in the future of it should probably take a look at the wonderful video (down at the bottom) that was released on Paid Content earlier on this month.
The video gives us a snapshot of how Penguin envisages its readers (if that’s the right word for them) might interact with books on the iPad.
It’s impressive stuff. You can point, paint, tilt and rattle at various prompted points, with each of these actions causing some different effect or other. It’s something of a mash up between an etch-a-sketch, a coffee table book and a computer – and it’s got quite a few people rather excited.
For me, this looks like an interesting step forward: turning publications into something far more interactive than they have ever been before. But I think it’s important not to muddle the arrival of the iPad up with the fate of the book.
3,000 years on
Reading a book is a solitary pastime, which requires concentration and reflection. All told, it is probably one of the most intellectually rewarding activities we have. To suggest that that might be replaced by the iPad seems, to me, to be a little short sighted. To give an analogy, it would be a little like replacing a gentle lie down on the beach with half an hour on a trampoline.
I saw Professor Iain Stevenson lecture at UCL last week on the future of the book and he said a great many sensible things. He pointed out that books are a durable technology (the original codex has been about for 3,000 years now and has not been replaced by anything more efficient), they are intuitive and attractive.
People can forge deep personal connections with books that I can’t ever imagine that they will do with an iPad. This emotional attachment is intangible but strong. People remember where they bought books and why they bought them. No two books are identical: some are marked; others scuffed, torn, stained or bulging at their bindings after an involuntary swim in the bath tub. (Heaven knows what would happen if the iPad went into the bath).
So, what Penguin demonstrate here is a new type of interactive publishing. I expect we’ll be seeing quite a bit more of it over the next few years.
A little more reading (and listening):
Shelf life: The future of the book – UCL Podcast
The Future of Reading in a Digital World – Clive Thompson in Wired
The Decline and Fall of Books – the Times
Charing Cross: the fading world of books – infographic from the Guardian
How Penguin will Reinvent Books – Paid Content
Digital directions and social media life expectancy
Making sense of it all
I’ve begun 2010 thinking a little about social media shelf life and the longevity of digital publications. Just how long will someone last on a particular social media site before they abandon it? How long could/should/might a blog trundle on?
These, I think, are interesting questions. We’re always told how to set things up on the Internet, but we’re very rarely told when to finish something. When is it time to stop?
When it comes to blogs, it seems, far too many are launched with the assured expectation that they are going to roll gloriously onwards into infinity. Therefore they usually evolve to the same familiar rhythm – which often means beginning in an explosion of energy before generally trailing off into obscurity.
I’ve already blogged here about the enjoyable experience of completing the Camervroom blog. It was a happy experience for a number of reasons: that I was experimenting with new technologies, that I was working from unfamiliar surroundings, and (importantly) that I knew that it was a temporary thing.
Camervroom had a very simple narrative arc. It started with the preparations of the car, continued with launch and the journey and concluded at the finish. There was one wrapping up post from my home in Islington and then that was it. Finished.
To end a blog off in that manner was satisfying. A little like finishing a book and slipping it back into the bookshelf, or sending a completed publication away the printers.
You’re left with a sense of achievement and the knowledge that you can take whatever it is that you’ve learnt on to the next project. The nagging blogger’s noose – the one that tends to appear after you’ve exhausted your first creative spurt – is gone, and because your blog is based over a shorter period of time you can ensure that it conforms to that most important of blogging essentials: that it stays niche.
Ok, jumping from one project to another means that you’ll forgo the benefits of pouring all your efforts (and Googlejuice) into a single domain, but as long as you keep your Twitter feed reasonably well updated then it will be easy to signpost new work and take your readership around the web with you.
This, I suppose, is why I think that Twitter will endure. It is the nerve that runs through all of our online projects, knitting them together and giving them context.
It’s understandable that many established (and very good) bloggers are, through page rank, brand recognition and emotional loyalty, wedded to their domains – but it doesn’t mean for those that are just starting out that it is the only way.
Moving from one carefully crafted web project to another is an underused alternative approach to digital publishing that might well suit those who are looking for a dalliance, and wanting to avoid a millstone.
Something to think about, at least.
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Image Credit: PhotoGraham