
The future of the book - e15ctr0n
http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21623373-which-something-old-and-powerful-encountered-vault
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smacktoward
Overall a very good piece, though I would have liked to see more time spent
grappling with the implications of this part:

 _> The printed book is an excellent means of channelling information from
writer to reader; the e-book can send information back as well. Teachers will
be able to learn of a pupil’s progress and questions; publishers will be able
to see which books are gulped down, which sipped slowly. Already readers can
see what other readers have thought worthy of note, and seek out like-minded
people for further discussion of what they have read. The private joys of the
book will remain; new public pleasures are there to be added._

All of this is true, but it elides an important facet of this shift from books
as one-way channels of communication to two-way, namely that _a book that can
talk back to its maker can do so in ways that work against the interests of
its reader_ as well as those that work with them.

In other words -- "teachers will be able to learn of a pupil’s progress and
questions; publishers will be able to see which books are gulped down, which
sipped slowly" are good examples of reader-positive things these new
capabilities could enable. (The teacher can use what she knows of the pupil's
reading patters to customize her curriculum for his needs; the publisher can
use it to bring to market more books that readers would enjoy.) But a book
that can tell your teacher how quickly you're reading it can also tell an
advertiser which ads you linger over and which you skip; a book that can tell
its publisher what type of literature you devour can also tell your government
which subversive ideas you obsessively re-read.

The technology itself is morally neutral, but without legal and social
controls, we're as likely to see reader-negative uses of these capabilities
emerge as we are reader-positive. (If anything, reader-negative approaches may
have an advantage, just because the interests that they serve are richer and
more powerful than reader-positive ones.)

Whenever there's a case of a knife that cuts both ways, it's useful to spend
time contemplating the implications of being sliced with each end of the
blade. But this article completely skips over that stuff, which is
disappointing in an otherwise solid essay.

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mstolpm
I'd agree with the need to address these problems, but aren't they already
everywhere right now - not for ebooks but by browsing and interacting with
websites or when using apps. The (mis)use of user interaction data is
everywhere and we just call it "analytics".

As an author I would like to know how far readers read in my books, where they
have difficulties with the text or would like additional information. That
could help enhancing the reading experience as well as my writing. But here
comes the problem: Part of this information IS already available for Adobe
(through its DRM mechanisms) and Amazon - intermediates! But these companies
don't share that information with authors (self-published or not) and will
most likely only sell that information to publishers or advertisers for hard
cash. The reader is the product and the author is out of the equation, so that
the positive effects can't really happen.

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steven777400
The traditional scrolled presentation seems appropriate. Page-oriented
presentations can work on smaller devices, but the skeuomorphic approach shown
for the "book" mode just seems dated and silly.

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pimlottc
I don't think the book mode is meant to be a better online approach but just
to make you think more consciously about the form of the information, not just
the content, and how the experience of reading differs based on the medium.

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markc
Sorry this is kind of off-topic, but what's the deal with the picture of the
Davis Square (Somerville, MA, USA) Red Line MBTA stop at the start of chapter
3? Anyone know if it's a photo or painting, and who's the artist/photographer?

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FragenAntworten
The source appears to be Reuters[1], but I couldn't find anything beyond that.

[1] [http://www.fr-online.de/literatur/selfpublishing-die-
demokra...](http://www.fr-online.de/literatur/selfpublishing-die-
demokratisierung-der-kreativitaet,1472266,26553766.html)

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benjah1
It is not as useful as we thought. I had it implemented back in 2008.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW4ADTCZc8E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW4ADTCZc8E)

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rhythmvs
Quite peculiar — and on topic — that the name of this excellent piece’s author
is nowhere to be found…

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whytaka
In case you may be unaware, the Economist has a tradition of not ascribing
authorship to any of its writers.

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gdulli
It's just a white screen for me.

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misaelm
If you have Ghostery (or anything similar) you need to enable DoubleClick for
it to work.

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gglitch
I'm both an beginner with html and css, and a subscriber to the Economist. As
an exercise, does anyone have any idea whether there's anything in this page's
markup that I can edit in Firefox's console to reveal the text?

Edit: Nevermind, I found the text in the debugger. If that's not good enough,
I should get my physical copy tomorrow.

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dredmorbius
The most straightforward method I've found so far is to do a rendered dump via
w3m or lynx.

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jvandonsel
Anybody have a link to an actual readable text version?

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Jgrubb
Man I tell ya, I am really coming to appreciate simplicity and predictability
in UI design. Efforts to transpose physical patterns like swiping through
pages onto the digital surface just feel wrong, and are never as intuitive as
just scrolling down a page.

I say this as a mobile UI app developer who is coming to grips with the
shittiness of some of the interfaces I've written that are out in the wild
right now.

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anigbrowl
Yes, but look ow much less text fits on screen. I mostly read at my desktop
and I am sick to the back teeth of super-pretty scrolling websites that only
use 1/3 - 1/2 of of my screen, and don't present a large volume of information
at once. There's a reason we abandoned paper scrolls in favor of pages,
they're a pain in the ass to navigate.

The web in 2014 is arguably a significant improvement on magazines, but I
still find it a vastly inferior reading experience compared to a book.

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markkat
That is not the future of web design. Didn't work on my phone, was awful on my
desktop.

