Le Web3 Live

No sooner LeWeb3 is over that critics point out that each edition of Loïc Le Meur’s conference persists to avoid the “other Web” such as open sources softwares, webartists, hackers and gamers. Well that’s true in a way, if one consider the appearance of Mozilla Europe social entrepreneur* Tristan Nitot or VoW “shogun” Joi Ito as exceptions. That lays also in the fact that LeWeb3 has no pretention of covering the entire Web landscape, but only its business side. Read more

Hans Rosling thinks e-book developers missed the opportunity to create “3D” stories. According to him, the most efficient way to read a literary work like a novel is… in a traditional paper book. On the web, you tend to find more superficial stories than serious works, Rosling feels.

Music 2.0: where do we go from here?

When the moderator Ralph Simon asks “who bought a CD recently?”, very few people raise their hands. Heartbreaking. Discs are about to die. Very soon. Read more

At the turn of the century, e-books popped up, announcing the death of the old paper book that was supposed to join the diligence and the telegraph at the museum.

Fortunately for book publishers, this scenario didn’t happen. Books sells are still growing up, either on the Internet or in traditional bookstores.

But the last e-books launched by Sony, Bookeen, and Amazon are far more efficient than their ancestors, and the online bookstores are now ready to provide bunches of digital books to “e-readers”.

The great change might be close, and this time it’s not science fiction.

On the wooden tables of a Paris university amphitheatre, many books, piles of documents or laptops. In front of Lorenzo Soccavo, blogger of Nouvolivractu (http://nouvolivractu.cluster21.com/), two e-books are set : the I Rex Iliad and the Bookeen Cybook.

The Iliad, device of digital version of the french newspaper les Echos

What makes these new devices different from the first generation e-books that crashed down? “The first e-books had LCD screen. These new devices use e-ink, which allows a real paper-reading feeling” explains Lorenzo Soccavo. When you look at the screen, you wouldn’t say it’s paper. But it’s true it’s not uncomfortable. “E-ink means stable text, no backlighting and a low energy consumption” he adds. And for those who are afraid to miss the feeling of the paper or the charm of pages to turn, Lorenzo Soccavo swears that the device is soon forgotten when you are absorbed by a story.

The Cybook can contain many Da Vinci Code

Right. Now we have a proper reading device, large enough and simple to use (but still quite expensive : between 300 and 400 $), what should we put in it? The last born e-book, the Kindle of Amazon, is linked to a on line library filled with more than 80 000 books, while the Kindle can contain 2000 books. The Sony Reader displays 10 000 opus. But if you still don’t find what you need, there are numerous books with no copyrights on the web.

The Kindle of Amazon, which also displays newspapers and blogs.

Welcome in 3D bookstores
You can also choose to send your avatar in a 3D bookstore. On Second Life, he/she will look for your favourite author on Archebooks’ shelves. In October, Kinset launched its immersive library, linked to Amazon. It is not interactive enough and quite “slow” for some bloggers, but still impressive.

Enter the Kinset online bookstore

This kind of trip may look like a game, but according to Lorenzo Soccavo, it will one day become a common way to buy a book. “On Second Life I can go to the Amsterdam library, talk with the avatar of the librarian or with avatars of english readers. It is quite difficult to do it in real life.” True. But for those who enjoy to have “real” relationships in everyday life? “The purpose is not to stay cloistered in your house and to live through your avatar,” answers Soccavo. “The avatar is to be used as a tool, which can do things you are unable to do at the moment.” Said like that, it becomes less scary, it even may be useful.

For some disabled persons, digital libraries are more than useful - they are the only way for them to read. Denis Zwirm, the creator of the first French online bookstore, Numilog, says disabled and old people with bad eyesight are a large part of his customers, because they can change the font size and then be able to read the text on their computer.

Scientists and researchers, who need to work on long documents, were also among the first users of Numilog services. “But more than 50% of our books are bought by public libraries: thus the reader may borrow a digital book if he is far away or if it is Sunday morning.” Suggesting that digital reading is no longer just for special users or geeks.

Mobipocket (owned by Amazon), Numilog, and Libriszone are the main french online bookshops. (Photo Bookeen)

Does digitalisation frighten the book industry? “The firms linked to paper have reasons to scary, but book publishers still have a role to play, even if the book is digital” says François Laurent, publishing director of Univers Poche.

Even if the books aren’t print anymore, authors still need book publishers for editing work and promotion. (Photo IUFM)

Nevertheless many book publishing firms think the jump to digital books is far away. But the bigger brands, as Editis (which owns Univers Poche) and Hachette, are seriously seeking how to cope with the coming change. “We may soon give things to sell to Numilog” says François Laurent. “But copyrights and prices are big problems: the business of digital books isn’t yet framed by laws, so the “online book” can be 50% or only 5% less expensive than the paper one. It only depends on the choice of the book publisher…”

According to François Laurent, the danger is to repeat errors made by the music industry: books wild downloading is the nightmare of many publishers. “The solution is to create official websites where the readers would pay to download books” he suggests. On this issue, the book publishers were quite disappointed by the Olivennes report on downloading, which didn’t really tackle the question of digital books.