Education

Can I Borrow your eBook?

The race is on. Device makers and service providers, sensing growing consumer interest and acceptance, are launching eBook applications. Suppliers are offering dedicated and multi-function readers with a variety of features, content choices (as well as formats), and support services. These market entrants seek to offer a product with the right feature/price combination, hoping to capture a market lead and catapult the market from early-adopter to mainstream.

But this race seems vaguely familiar: proprietary formats; litigation; constrained consumer choice. Is this nothing more than another sprint to find a gadget and service that unwittingly locks-in consumers? Or, could there be an opportunity to rethink the value proposition?

To deliver a transformative product, an eReader device/eBook service should support natural human behavior, not inhibit it. Personalization sells. Consumers appreciate real content choices. The ability to share eBooks with friends is one such promising feature. Sharing can have all sorts of constraints – device requirements, time limits, number of shares allowed, etc. – but the greater the flexibility and choice for the consumer, the more it replicates natural human behavior. Natural, easy-to-use features will generate more consumer-driven demand.

Yet, to be successful in the long-run, the product can’t sacrifice the economic interests of one part of the value chain. We have all seen internet-based digital media distribution wreak havoc on traditional business models. A common technology platform could give all participants – from authors to distributors – the ability to set and enforce content policies across diverse computing environments. That would align the whole value chain and allow for innovative commerce options. This common infrastructure should be open, non-intrusive and provide predictable, secure, automated outcomes.

There are opportunities to deliver a truly innovative product. In education with e-textbooks or with print and electronic mainstream publishing. This race requires a marathon-like vision -- and the technology platform to support it -- that satisfies the entire value chain, from content creator to consumer.