As much as I love the ebook revolution, my eyes are looking to the horizon for what the next big thing will be and that brings me to ebook Apps. Ridan is actually in development for our first Appbook (Hope to have it out in a month or so) and we're working with our technology partner to brainstorm new features to add to this technology.
While what I'm doing with the Ridan App is exciting, it pales in comparison to what is possible with non-fiction works. Anyone who has seen The Elements or Al Gore's Our Choice can see the potential of the technology developed by early innovators and just imagine all the possibilities to come.
And so...it's with a Colbert "Wag of my Finger" that I admonish Facebook who bought PushPop (makers of Our Choice), not to develop more Appbooks, or continue pushing the AppBook potential, but to essentially dismantle it and use those talented developers to add more bells and whistles to Facebook.
I concur with this article that Facebook bought the company's employees more than their products. I'm sad to see this development. I guess I should wait to see what Facebook does before I make judgements, but on the surface of things, this looks like a blow to a new technology that was looking very impressive.
2 comments:
I worked on interactive books back in the '90s, for Philips CD-i, and the titles were too expensive to produce, considering the market at the time. We were spending a million or more per title.
If enhanced ebooks are ever to be viable, the cost of production has to be very low, and the technology easy to work with.
If producing enhanced ebooks becomes as easy to do and as inexpensive as, say, blogging, then they might take off, though mostly for nonfiction and children's books.
David
Smashwords and Scrollmotion are supposed to be issuing our books as apps. I'm still not sure how this is going to work or how to promote it.
I'll look forward to hearing what you do with your apps.
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