My bookshelves are full. What to do next: buy more shelf space or throw away some books? I recently got my first ebook reader ever, a Kindle. I must say I like it, even though it is surely not the last word in e-publishing. I'm now convinced that I will buy new business books and novels as e-books in the future.
An iPad would offer a great user experience but they are still unavailable here in Finland. I've heard from some iPad users that they still prefer to read books on their Kindles. E-paper is more comfortable to the eyes, they say. I'm sure that the development of display technologies will fill the gap soon.
Not all books are available in digital format. Still, the sales of ebooks will eclipse the sale of paperbacks in 9 to 12 months, Jeff Bezos of Amazon predicts. Amazon sells 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover book.
It doesn't require too much effort to transform a business book or a novel into a digitally delivered product. Magazines are another thing. For them the delivery medium is a part of their product experience: the look and feel of different paper stocks, glossy photos, the smells, the size and weight of the publication. A magazine is a visual-tactile experience.
The way to deliver a magazine digitally has to be more than just a pdf version of the original. It seems that magazines will become digital apps, as the following video demonstrates. Will the printed magazine survive when these become mainstream? I'd switch to digital for sure.
