Charlie Brooker on eBooks

“Until recently, I was an ebook sceptic, see; one of those people who harrumphs about the “physical pleasure of turning actual pages” and how ebook will “never replace the real thing”. Then I was given a Kindle as a present. That shut me up. Stock complaints about the inherent pleasure of ye olde format are bandied about whenever some new upstart invention comes along. Each moan is nothing more than a little foetus of nostalgia jerking in your gut. First they said CDs were no match for vinyl. Then they said MP3s were no match for CDs. Now they say streaming music services are no match for MP3s. They’re only happy looking in the rear-view mirror.”

― Charlie Brooker

What are the pleasures of the eBook that will replace the nostalgia for the written and printed book? Some of my eBook pleasures are as follows:

Longer Reading Times - I can read in bed when my wife has put the lights out.

Portability - my eBooks are with me all the time. I would need a 10 ton truck to carry my physical library around with me.

Quick delivery - eBooks ordered from Amazon arrive almost instantaneously.

You don't lose your bookmarks.

You can change the font size and style - very important as you approach your silver tsunami years.

Feel free to add more in the comments section.

Have a great day.

DK

Drive traffic to your Blog

Death of the Book, Long Live the eBook

Well it had to happen. In the last year the tipping point has been reached and now more eBooks are published than physical books. Ten years ago people said that this would never happen, but they were wrong.

The introduction of the Kindle has done much to hasten the decline of the physical book. It is such a convenient device with a long battery life of weeks if not months.

I shed a tear for the death of the book but progress will always win out. Those of you who have been following this blog over the years will remember the various dramas related to my shift to the UK and back from New Zealand related to physical books.

I am now living in Qatar and all my books are on my iPad using the Kindle or iBook readers. Convenient, bulkless and very easy to get new books loaded 24/7.

A great example of a disruptive technology.

Long Live the eBook!

My prediction is that the next casualty will be the higher education sector where so many are blind to the democratization of learning that technology is introducing... A subject for another blog post.

DK

Drive traffic to your Blog

The eBook is dead - a Tale of A.Mazon

It was late in the year 2097 when a dreadful computer virus hit. The virus caused every eBook in existence to dissolve on the owners devices (remember the cloud). Consternation and panic were rife, all knowledge had disappeared. eBook sellers went out of business, the panic was widespread. Since the 2050 Physical Book Destruction Act had been enacted and brutally enforced, all physical books had been burnt as archaic artefacts.

All the great libraries had been digitised and the smelly, old ancient manuscripts had been destroyed to save space. Librarians had been reassigned to other duties.

But a far seeing merchant called Mr A. Mazon had hidden a treasure trove of physical books in a secret location and then got a team of Russian programmers to write an eBook destruction virus that would be deadly to eBooks. He was onto a winner, he sold his p-Books at inflated prices and made a mint.

The moral of the story is that whatever happens A.Mazon will still make a profit.


DK
DK's Top Traffic Exchanges

Free eBooks- light and transportable

I have been a fan of eBooks ever since I purchased a Pocket PC. At that time there was an excellent site called Blackmask that had thousands of legitimate, out of copyright eBooks for free. Eventually under legal threat the site was put off line (shame on you who made the threats). Happily I have found the site where the entire Blackmask collection is available. eBooks don't weigh anything and are very transportable. I have about 30 books on my phone, and this is very convenient for when I am traveling. You can download thousands of free eBooks: Click Munseys Link Here Happy reading.