e-Book에 대한 짧은 생각..

Although I touched e-book phenomena, especially about Kindle, in this case study, those changes around books can be applied to other traditional media contents as well. The keyword that represents nowadays phenomena around media contents could be described as ‘Being Digital’. Since without ‘Being Digital’ concepts we couldn’t fully understand real contexts behind the changes, we need to pay attention to how ‘Digital’ change ecosystem of media, how ‘Digital’ change the behavior of consumer & producer. I would like to state here several key points that I learned from this case study as follows: 

At first, books are going to ‘Being Digital’ not only by being converted into digital format from old traditional printed books, but also by being written in digital format itself. But ‘Being Digital’ doesn’t mean simply media converting from paper to digital media. This involves whole change of the way of book writing, the way of book distribution, and the way of book reading eventually. As a result of this trend, whole participants of book ecosystem will face unprecedented change. 

Second, we will see the power-shift among participants around book ecosystems. The power of traditional book publisher will be decreased while e-book portal will gain power. We already witnessed similar case in music industry, where Apple gained power over traditional music publisher through huge success of iTunes. E-book portal will play important role as open market, where e-book writer upload their writings and e-book reader simply download e-book. On the contrary many of traditional book publishers will lose their power and even disappear. 

Third, we will see totally different e-book publishing & distribution system. E-book will be created, distributed and consumed in a way of so called Web2.0 style, which is ‘create, collaborate, distribute by yourself’. In the era of e-book system, virtually anybody could be a writer of e-book without complicated traditional book publishing process. Also virtually anybody could distribute his/her writings through e-book portal by him/herself. Therefore the number of amateur writer will increase and they will widen their power and market. From the perspective of e-book reader, e-book reader could affect the contents, directions and style of e-book by participating in e-book writing process. They can be ‘prosumer’ of e-book also. Collective writing, network writing and group writing also will be possible through participation. Readers of e-book could already download e-book contents through wireless internet in anywhere, anytime. Through this wireless internet in e-book device, e-book reader will be able to participate in e-book publishing process soon. 

Fourth, e-book contents can be consumed just like instant noodle or popcorn. This means media change from printed book to digital will eventually change habits and attitudes of book reader also. That is, the way of book reading or consuming is also going to be changed. E-book reader already showed much interest in forward-moving, fast narrative novel while they don’t care much about beautiful words, grammar, and well organized structure of e-book. 

Last, as a result of e-book booming, book industry will be tightly locked-in to the IT technology. E-book will be consumed as a part of multimedia or as a part of other digital contents. Reader will be able to see pictures or maps that are described in e-book by clicking that phrases. Reader also will be able to listen to music that is described in e-book.

In terms of H/W that convey e-book contents, e-book device like Amazone’s Kindle or Sony’s Reader Digital Book will disappear soon. MP3 player, PMP and e-book device will be converged into just one digital device. Smart phone will be potential candidate, I think. 

In conclusion, whether the change around book ecosystem is good to society, literature or book industry, the change is inevitable. We need to embrace new era of e-book by actively adopting new technology. However the contents of e-book still will be the key! 

2010년 1월 30일

E-Books_Case_Study.pdf