August 29, 2006
The 'E' Doesn't Stand for 'Easy to Use'
Even when they haven’t come littered with ads, e-books have been slow to catch on with scholars, students, and the reading public. Why haven’t they made more of an impact? According to David H. Rothman, author of the blog TeleRead, e-books just aren’t very consumer-friendly.
“In the past few decades, at least 20 clashing e-book formats have popped up, including the infamous Microsoft Reader,” Mr. Rothman writes for Publishers Weekly, “and no format has performed strongly enough to crush the others.” As a result, even high-priced e-book-reading devices often cannot display certain formats of digital text. Until the e-book industry develops products that can be more widely used, Mr. Rothman writes, consumers are likely to be frustrated. —Brock Read
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As one of an apparent minority of ebook lovers, I can still relate to some of the issues. I currently have ebooks in palm’s reader format, adobe ereader, and mobipocket. I used to have secure adobe ebooks, but the DRM system they use is horrible. I updated my adobe and lost all the rights to books I had already downloaded and read. I agree that some uniform standard has to be achieved and the publishers need to find a way to secure the copyright in a way that does not infringe on the purchaser’s ability to use an ebook in much the same way he or she would use a paper book. It should be portable – not tied to one device. The huge up side of ebooks for me is that I can take 40 books with me and the device that holds them weighs less than one pound.
— Matt Short Aug 30, 10:59 AM #