Building a Better E-book

Great post from David Gilbert. Gilbert is exactly right! Publishers have done little to take full advantage of the abilities of current e-readers. I personally think we need to stop calling these E-Books because that narrows our view of what's possible. What do we call them? I'm not sure, but consider David Eagleman's iPad app Why The Net Matters: How the Internet Will Save Civilization.



Notice how this digital book/app differs from what we think of as a book. Among the elements that make this unique are (1) nonlinearity, (2) embedded links, and (3) interactive elements.

Building a Better eBook For The Future - 8 Features I Want To See:

I’ve noticed an interesting trend in recent years; when old media (tv, publishers) try to translate their wares into new media formats (smartphones, tablets) they often fail miserably because they translate the formats too literally. That is they try to make a digital newspaper look and behave like a paper newspaper, and so on, without considering the fundamental differences between the way you interact with both mediums.
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what I’d like to see in future eBook readers:

1. Better layout and typography
   
2. Unlimited lending
   
3. Collaborative reading
   
4. Copying & sharing
   
5. Interlinked information
   
6. Portability
   
7. Automatic revisions
   
8. Fair pricing
   
9. Paper trade-in