6 ms·

The future of the book

50 points by e15ctr0n 12y ago

Jgrubb 12y ago
Man I tell ya, I am really coming to appreciate simplicity and predictability in UI design. Efforts to transpose physical patterns like swiping through pages onto the digital surface just feel wrong, and are never as intuitive as just scrolling down a page. I say this as a mobile UI app developer who is coming to grips with the shittiness of some of the interfaces I've written that are out in the wild right now.
- Fuzzwah 12y ago
  I found it strange that the reading method I've selected is displayed as the grayed out icon.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Yes, but look ow much less text fits on screen. I mostly read at my desktop and I am sick to the back teeth of super-pretty scrolling websites that only use 1/3 - 1/2 of of my screen, and don't present a large volume of information at once. There's a reason we abandoned paper scrolls in favor of pages, they're a pain in the ass to navigate. The web in 2014 is arguably a significant improvement on magazines, but I still find it a vastly inferior reading experience compared to a book.
markkat 12y ago
That is not the future of web design. Didn't work on my phone, was awful on my desktop.
gdulli 12y ago
It's just a white screen for me.
- misaelm 12y ago
  If you have Ghostery (or anything similar) you need to enable DoubleClick for it to work.
  - gglitch 12y ago
    I'm both an beginner with html and css, and a subscriber to the Economist. As an exercise, does anyone have any idea whether there's anything in this page's markup that I can edit in Firefox's console to reveal the text? Edit: Nevermind, I found the text in the debugger. If that's not good enough, I should get my physical copy tomorrow.
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      The most straightforward method I've found so far is to do a rendered dump via w3m or lynx.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
steven777400 12y ago
The traditional scrolled presentation seems appropriate. Page-oriented presentations can work on smaller devices, but the skeuomorphic approach shown for the "book" mode just seems dated and silly.
- pimlottc 12y ago
  I don't think the book mode is meant to be a better online approach but just to make you think more consciously about the form of the information, not just the content, and how the experience of reading differs based on the medium.
smacktoward 12y ago
Overall a very good piece, though I would have liked to see more time spent grappling with the implications of this part: > The printed book is an excellent means of channelling information from writer to reader; the e-book can send information back as well. Teachers will be able to learn of a pupil’s progress and questions; publishers will be able to see which books are gulped down, which sipped slowly. Already readers can see what other readers have thought worthy of note, and seek out like-minded people for further discussion of what they have read. The private joys of the book will remain; new public pleasures are there to be added. All of this is true, but it elides an important facet of this shift from books as one-way channels of communication to two-way, namely that a book that can talk back to its maker can do so in ways that work against the interests of its reader as well as those that work with them. In other words -- "teachers will be able to learn of a pupil’s progress and questions; publishers will be able to see which books are gulped down, which sipped slowly" are good examples of reader-positive things these new capabilities could enable. (The teacher can use what she knows of the pupil's reading patters to customize her curriculum for his needs; the publisher can use it to bring to market more books that readers would enjoy.) But a book that can tell your teacher how quickly you're reading it can also tell an advertiser which ads you linger over and which you skip; a book that can tell its publisher what type of literature you devour can also tell your government which subversive ideas you obsessively re-read. The technology itself is morally neutral, but without legal and social controls, we're as likely to see reader-negative uses of these capabilities emerge as we are reader-positive. (If anything, reader-negative approaches may have an advantage, just because the interests that they serve are richer and more powerful than reader-positive ones.) Whenever there's a case of a knife that cuts both ways, it's useful to spend time contemplating the implications of being sliced with each end of the blade. But this article completely skips over that stuff, which is disappointing in an otherwise solid essay.
- mstolpm 12y ago
  I'd agree with the need to address these problems, but aren't they already everywhere right now - not for ebooks but by browsing and interacting with websites or when using apps. The (mis)use of user interaction data is everywhere and we just call it "analytics". As an author I would like to know how far readers read in my books, where they have difficulties with the text or would like additional information. That could help enhancing the reading experience as well as my writing. But here comes the problem: Part of this information IS already available for Adobe (through its DRM mechanisms) and Amazon - intermediates! But these companies don't share that information with authors (self-published or not) and will most likely only sell that information to publishers or advertisers for hard cash. The reader is the product and the author is out of the equation, so that the positive effects can't really happen.
benjah1 12y ago
It is not as useful as we thought. I had it implemented back in 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW4ADTCZc8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW4ADTCZc8E
jvandonsel 12y ago
Anybody have a link to an actual readable text version?
markc 12y ago
Sorry this is kind of off-topic, but what's the deal with the picture of the Davis Square (Somerville, MA, USA) Red Line MBTA stop at the start of chapter 3? Anyone know if it's a photo or painting, and who's the artist/photographer?
- FragenAntworten 12y ago
  The source appears to be Reuters[1], but I couldn't find anything beyond that. [1] http://www.fr-online.de/literatur/selfpublishing-die-demokratisierung-der-kreativitaet,1472266,26553766.html http://www.fr-online.de/literatur/selfpublishing-die-demokra...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rhythmvs 12y ago
Quite peculiar — and on topic — that the name of this excellent piece’s author is nowhere to be found…
- whytaka 12y ago
  In case you may be unaware, the Economist has a tradition of not ascribing authorship to any of its writers.

50 points by e15ctr0n 12y ago

Man I tell ya, I am really coming to appreciate simplicity and predictability in UI design. Efforts to transpose physical patterns like swiping through pages onto the digital surface just feel wrong, and are never as intuitive as just scrolling down a page. I say this as a mobile UI app developer who is coming to grips with the shittiness of some of the interfaces I've written that are out in the wild right now.

Fuzzwah 12y ago
I found it strange that the reading method I've selected is displayed as the grayed out icon.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Yes, but look ow much less text fits on screen. I mostly read at my desktop and I am sick to the back teeth of super-pretty scrolling websites that only use 1/3 - 1/2 of of my screen, and don't present a large volume of information at once. There's a reason we abandoned paper scrolls in favor of pages, they're a pain in the ass to navigate. The web in 2014 is arguably a significant improvement on magazines, but I still find it a vastly inferior reading experience compared to a book.

markkat 12y ago

That is not the future of web design. Didn't work on my phone, was awful on my desktop.

gdulli 12y ago

It's just a white screen for me.

misaelm 12y ago
If you have Ghostery (or anything similar) you need to enable DoubleClick for it to work.
- gglitch 12y ago
  I'm both an beginner with html and css, and a subscriber to the Economist. As an exercise, does anyone have any idea whether there's anything in this page's markup that I can edit in Firefox's console to reveal the text? Edit: Nevermind, I found the text in the debugger. If that's not good enough, I should get my physical copy tomorrow.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    The most straightforward method I've found so far is to do a rendered dump via w3m or lynx.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

steven777400 12y ago

The traditional scrolled presentation seems appropriate. Page-oriented presentations can work on smaller devices, but the skeuomorphic approach shown for the "book" mode just seems dated and silly.

pimlottc 12y ago
I don't think the book mode is meant to be a better online approach but just to make you think more consciously about the form of the information, not just the content, and how the experience of reading differs based on the medium.

smacktoward 12y ago

Overall a very good piece, though I would have liked to see more time spent grappling with the implications of this part: > The printed book is an excellent means of channelling information from writer to reader; the e-book can send information back as well. Teachers will be able to learn of a pupil’s progress and questions; publishers will be able to see which books are gulped down, which sipped slowly. Already readers can see what other readers have thought worthy of note, and seek out like-minded people for further discussion of what they have read. The private joys of the book will remain; new public pleasures are there to be added. All of this is true, but it elides an important facet of this shift from books as one-way channels of communication to two-way, namely that a book that can talk back to its maker can do so in ways that work against the interests of its reader as well as those that work with them. In other words -- "teachers will be able to learn of a pupil’s progress and questions; publishers will be able to see which books are gulped down, which sipped slowly" are good examples of reader-positive things these new capabilities could enable. (The teacher can use what she knows of the pupil's reading patters to customize her curriculum for his needs; the publisher can use it to bring to market more books that readers would enjoy.) But a book that can tell your teacher how quickly you're reading it can also tell an advertiser which ads you linger over and which you skip; a book that can tell its publisher what type of literature you devour can also tell your government which subversive ideas you obsessively re-read. The technology itself is morally neutral, but without legal and social controls, we're as likely to see reader-negative uses of these capabilities emerge as we are reader-positive. (If anything, reader-negative approaches may have an advantage, just because the interests that they serve are richer and more powerful than reader-positive ones.) Whenever there's a case of a knife that cuts both ways, it's useful to spend time contemplating the implications of being sliced with each end of the blade. But this article completely skips over that stuff, which is disappointing in an otherwise solid essay.

mstolpm 12y ago
I'd agree with the need to address these problems, but aren't they already everywhere right now - not for ebooks but by browsing and interacting with websites or when using apps. The (mis)use of user interaction data is everywhere and we just call it "analytics". As an author I would like to know how far readers read in my books, where they have difficulties with the text or would like additional information. That could help enhancing the reading experience as well as my writing. But here comes the problem: Part of this information IS already available for Adobe (through its DRM mechanisms) and Amazon - intermediates! But these companies don't share that information with authors (self-published or not) and will most likely only sell that information to publishers or advertisers for hard cash. The reader is the product and the author is out of the equation, so that the positive effects can't really happen.

benjah1 12y ago

It is not as useful as we thought. I had it implemented back in 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW4ADTCZc8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW4ADTCZc8E

jvandonsel 12y ago

Anybody have a link to an actual readable text version?

markc 12y ago

Sorry this is kind of off-topic, but what's the deal with the picture of the Davis Square (Somerville, MA, USA) Red Line MBTA stop at the start of chapter 3? Anyone know if it's a photo or painting, and who's the artist/photographer?

FragenAntworten 12y ago
The source appears to be Reuters[1], but I couldn't find anything beyond that. [1] http://www.fr-online.de/literatur/selfpublishing-die-demokratisierung-der-kreativitaet,1472266,26553766.html http://www.fr-online.de/literatur/selfpublishing-die-demokra...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rhythmvs 12y ago

Quite peculiar — and on topic — that the name of this excellent piece’s author is nowhere to be found…

whytaka 12y ago
In case you may be unaware, the Economist has a tradition of not ascribing authorship to any of its writers.