Ebook Reader Category Heats Up But Will It Really Roar with Web 3.0

BY Joyce Schwarz, media futurist, www.joycecom.com. As an author and emerging media consultant, I've been looking at next-gen reading and education projects for the past 15 years or so. Kindle didn't hit me by surprise but I am watching with interest as the Sony Daily Reader takes off with deals with Google Books and also with a partnership with OVERDRIVE which allows Daily Reader owners to borrow ebooks from libraries too.

OVERDRIVE -- by the way, I was actually at the launch of Overdrive at the BEA (Book Expo of America) many many years ago and I was in reality more impressed with them than Amazon.com because I felt that ebooks would move faster into the marketplace --certainly into B2B and into education than they have.

If you haven't seen the stories about Sony's Daily Reader -- check out this one and others on Google News today: Straits Times

Sony eBook Reader Checks Out Library Books

ChannelWeb - Brian Kraemer - ‎10 hours ago‎

Taking on the Kindle is about more than just offering an alternative e-book reader for Sony, with the company offering a new ...

 

And as you scroll down the Google news you'll see who else is entering into the ebook reader fray:

eBook Reader bits: IREX eReader to launch with Barnes & Noble ...

Gadgetell - Robert Nelson - ‎Aug 25, 2009‎

Next up we have the latest Reader from Sony, the PRS-600 and it has been caught on camera, well more specifically it has been caught on video. ...

E-Reader War: Sony vs. B&N vs. Amazon TheStreet.com

 

NOW THE BIG QUESTION I HAVE -- is how all of this ties into content on demand and the next-generation of Web.3.0  and of cours the future of TV too -- I just saw a short tweet on the Qualcomm Portable Personal TV in the works -- and I just know that there is a tie in here also with reading/browsing and discovery which are of course all enhanced by the semantic web. Or maybe I should just call it TIVO-3.0  -- because we're talking about some kind of bots that know what I want to read, watch and listen to (perhaps even simultaneously) any time of the night or day.

 

In a recent TV GUIDE story -- February, 2009 -- I talked about TV which is tied in with your emotions and senses what you want. OF course many TIVO fans feel that TIVO knows them better than their spouses do. So somehow this is all tied together. As we get that big jukebox in the sky --and somehow the financial resources to download all we want at no charge or a flat rate at least -- books, movies, classes, radio, music etc -- will face THE ULTIMATE CONVERGENCE TEST....

 

BUT as we walk around in a world with augmented reality -- do we really just LISTEN or do we sense, feel and immerse ourselves into all of it -- or maybe our clones do?

 

Back in 2003 I did presentations on The future of the book and on what I called then FUTURESCHLOCK -- overload of infomedia...both of these presentations are on slideshare and if you want a pointer to them-- ping me at [email protected]