when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro

Larger eBook reader from Plastic Logic

For all the hubub about the Kindle eBook reader getting a larger display and how this might save the print industry, none of it will matter if makers of these products do not re-imagine and re-tool the reading experience for the digital age.

As Brad Stone noted in today’s New York Times, “These new gadgets, with screens roughly the size of a standard sheet of paper, could present much of the editorial content and advertising content of traditional periodicals in generally the same format as they appear in print.” (My italics.)

It’s also widely reported that newspaper organizations (like Hearst) are looking for newfangled devices that accurately translate the printed form to digital, allowing newspapers and magazines to shift to a high-tech distribution system — which, by the way, lack-of-visionaries from both industries hope people will pay for. Some believe that a larger Kindle will save the textbook industry.

Typical of technologists and the thirst to solve problems with newer, bigger, better technology, the savior for print won’t be a larger display, or even a color one. It will be coming up with a digital reading experience that allows people to read newspapers, periodicals, books, and textbooks like they do now, only in ways more appropriate for the digital age.

After all, the act of reading is behavioral and ritualistic, and user interfaces for eBook readers like the Kindle pay little attention to how people actually read.

In reading the newspaper, people often separate the sections they want to read from those they don’t care about. Then they take the pile they want to read and subdivide it even more, eventually settling on what they want to read now, what they hope to read soon, and what they are saving for later if they get the time.

While newspapers on the Kindle do allow readers to jump from section to section and to see a list of stories, the “paper” on an electronic device is still jump-from-one-link-to-the-next. Saving an article to read for later, or adding it to a group of stories for ongoing research, is impossible.

The same goes for books and other printed material. I can jump to chapters, sections, and bookmarks while reading on the Kindle, but it’s still not a true browsing experience. I cannot easily “thumb through” an electronic book.

Solving the act of reading a newspaper or book is just one step toward innovating the electronic reading experience. The digital age allows us to share what we read much easier with family, friends, the world. Back in the day (insert old-timer’s voice), to share an article you had to cut it out, hand deliver it, mail it, or copy and fax it.

Today newspapers and magazines have taken strides for sharing information by adding link buttons for Facebook, Digg, Twitter, or email, but these are baby steps. It’s not even possible to share what you read on the Kindle — and I’m not talking the source article or book and digital rights management.

Annotation is in its infancy on the Kindle. I can highlight passages, add text, or bookmark a page, but these are saved in a single text file on the Kindle. I must connect the device to a computer to retrieve my notes, which is a pain because I get highlights from Outliers mixed in with marks from Brain Rules and clippings from the NYT.

At this time no eBook device allows people to read newspapers, periodicals, and books the way they want to read them and to do with the information what they want. Until the reading experience is re-imagined and re-tooled for a digital age, putting a larger display on a Kindle won’t save the newspaper, magazine, or textbook industries.

Or attract the masses to electronic readers.

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