For most people, the prospect of reading Crime and Punishment on their laptop or PDA may not seem particularly attractive. Even avid fans of e-book lending have encountered various problems with this format, such as defective DRM and batteries, or small screens that are non-conducive to reading. But whether its Dostoevsky or Dan Brown you're after, a new e-book revolution may soon be underway. Yesterday, Adobe announced a free pre-release beta of its latest e-book software, Digital Editions - the first version of which will be available in early 2007.
At only 2.5MB in size, the Flash-based software is much smaller than Adobe Reader - so it's quick and easy to download. The program displays covers and contents of e-books, magazines and other publications; it also offers multiple views of covers, as well as clean, full-screen views of e-book pages. While Digital Editions has already been dubbed "iTunes for e-books," Bill McCoy, general manager of Adobe's ePublishing Business Unit, doesn't quite subscribe to that definition - although he does admit that the software is targeted towards the iTunes generation.
McCoy stated: "We tried to make it look like the other apps the target user might be using... [but] people tend to organize their music into playlists in kind of an obsessive way. We don't think those kind of use cases will apply to books. You tend to read them and put them on a shelf."
For some, this advance in e-book software may be reminiscent of the highly publicised Stephen King "Riding the Bullet" e-book six years ago - a phenomenon that fizzled out fast after the PDF's rights management was soundly beaten by hackers. McCoy, however, disagrees with voices that heralded the death of the e-book at the time.
"We believe the market has finally reached a tipping point. The reality is, despite what I call 'the e-book nuclear winter,' we see some very positive signs that we can measure around demand and supply."
But will the launch of Digital Editions really push out the current boundaries of the e-book market? Most book publishers have been building up catalogues of e-books since their first arrival, largely because they cost less to maintain than ordinary books. They also eliminate overdue fees, as the DRM on a particular file will simply expire on the borrower's device. According to McCoy, over 1000 libraries, including the New York Public Library, currently lend e-books to its members. Similarly, e-books are much more convenient in an educational context; children appreciate their interactive nature, as well as the fact that they no longer have to carry so many heavy books around.
Moreover, as a bigmouth media article highlighted last week, the new expansions in mobile search and the development of new content displays will make e-books a much more user-friendly option for many. But while many may persist with more traditional literary mediums, it is impossible to deny that e-books and digitised literature seem to be entering new territories. For instance, Google, the world's leading search engine, is continuing in its quest to digitise the world's books despite being faced with some hefty lawsuits - a sure sign of its commitment to providing the world with an unparalleled source of information. And while Adobe Digital Editions will only be available on Windows to begin with - its Mac and Linux versions are still under development - it will likely be a key factor in changing the way we read books in the future.
