Books are dying. Long live books on screens.
As I walked through the bookstore, I passed stacks and stacks of books. Barnes and Noble used to carry around 100,000 titles. I don’t know how many they stock now, but they have a lot of books. I love books. I probably have something around 1000 books in my personal library. But I was struck by how strange all those books looked, all piled up, taking up so much….space. Books have lost much of their appeal for me. I like reading on my iPad. And seeing all those books piled up everywhere seemed so strange looking, like some wasteful warehouse.
I love my Nook and will most likely buy a color e-ink reader in the next year or two. There are several problems to overcome with e-books though:
- Once I pay for it I own it. You people can make up whatever licensing rules you want but I’m going to go looking for DRM removal tools if I ever decide to switch from Nook to Android.
- Battery life – it’s not even close to being long enough yet. That technology needs to improve.
- True versatility – make an e-ink pad with a 10″ screen that does everything my cell phone can do. I’d pay $1,000 for it.