TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Huh? The Kindle e-reader ISN’T ugly? So says Steve Levy, author of Newsweek puff piece—in response to my Publishers Weekly blog

By David Rothman

So, gang, is Amazon’s Kindle e-reader really a thing of beauty? The overwhelming reaction online is a big fat No. "Same fugly hot mess we’ve been seeing for months," says Jane at Dear Author. My Publishers Weekly blog describes the Kindle as "like a prop from an old sci-fi horror flick."

But wait. Maybe the aesthetics look different to you when Amazon gives you an exclusive interview with CEO Jeff Bezos and allows you leisurely access to a sample unit. Lots of other issues might come up, too. Did Steve Levy, author of the Newsweek puff piece about the Kindle, downplay some matters such as DRM and the Tower of eBabel to pay back Amazon?

Linking in to my PW item, Steve defends Amazon’s creation: "Because Amazon had to file for FCC approval, some details of the book, along with a picture, wound up on Engadget. Because the picture was taken at an angle that make the device look like it was dominated by the keyboard—and the picture generally is not flattering—some people are calling it ugly. In person, the Kindle is, in my opinion, pretty attractive. And since I’ve had the thing for a few weeks, I’ve had the experience of showing it to people who haven’t seen it at all. I watch carefully to see their first, gut reaction. In just about every case it is a positive, visceral response to the product design."

Invokes iPod nano example, natch

The new iPod nano, too, looked ugly in the first leaked shot, Steve says, and then he scolds the rest of us with the following "lesson": "Wait to you see actually see the thing (or at least some pictures make by real product photographers) before you judge it as beastly." Hmm. Real product photographers? Wow! Actually, Steve, it’s real life that counts, and you can bet that I pulled out all stops to try to get Amazon to send me a sample for a review in PW’s print edition. I still think that the damn thing will look ugly from any angle, that we’re in Emperor’s New Clothes territory. But who knows? Can you get your pals at Amazon to send me a review unit? Seriously. I challenge you. An Amazon flack, initials HH, rudely hung up on me when I requested one. Perhaps Amazon has actually avoided some of the pesky people who care the most about e-books and their potential for readers and publishers. Far better to pass the units on to people who do CEO interviews and won’t pick up all the nuances because they’ve simply parachuted in, so to speak.

About the F word, Steve

Speaking of which, Steve, when are you going to write about the pesky issue of e-book formats, the stuff that old e-book hands know will count a lot more than aesthetics? Will Amazon’s Kindle work in the future with .epub files, or will Amazon thumb its nose at the IDPF, publishers and us e-book readers who are sick, sick, sick of eBabel—all those clashing e-book formats. Oh, and don’t forget the DRM issue, too. Remember, if DRM systems aren’t interoperable, the core e-book standards will mean squat in the case of "protected" books. Aren’t you the same guy who wrote Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution? I liked that book, and will be appreciative if you’ll be as socially minded in your Kindle coverage as you were when you wrote Hackers. The Kindle sounds like a marvelous device in many ways, but you’ll actually harm the cause of e-books if, in your enthusiasm for the latest gadget before you, you gloss over the grubby issues such as e-book formats.

Standards linked to ‘the future of the book’

You can’t divorce these standards issues from "the future of the book." Do publishers and readers really want Amazon or Google to be the ultimate controller of interactivity? How about an annotations standard? The IDPF has yet to tackle that one. Steve, will you write a column on this and related matters?

In a related vein, just where should in-book discussions, shared annotations, be stored? I’d feel better if this happened mainly on the servers of libraries and publishers rather than on those of Amazon and the like—or better still, how about a consortium of publishers and libraries, with the involvement of Brewster Kahle at the Internet Archive. We already have the Open Content Alliance; that’s a start. I also like the idea of a well-stocked national digital library system, although it’s important to have profits and nonprofits providing redundancy, since I take it for granted that Washington will try to censor certain books.

And a tip to Amazon: I’m still game for a Kindle for a fair-minded review (I’ve already said how much I appreciate certain features in the specs—-such as word search—and now I’m wondering if there might even be a touch screen). Meanwhile I’ll not feel the slightest guilt if the Kindle surprises me and, in actual looks, is a beautiful swan. Dear Amazon, you had ample opportunity to show Publishers Weekly other pictures. Instead, like the Bush White House or most any other White House, you played favorites in an imperial way to favorite the Steve Levy types over the rest of the cosmos. It’ll be interesting when the actual Kindle appears, so we can judge for ourselves whether your pampering of Steve influenced his perception of the gadget’s aesthetics. If Steve’s right, I’ll happily give him credit since I’d love for the Kindle to be a roaring success and help e-bookdom in general, and meanwhile I hope that both you and he will care more about e-book standards for the Kindle (including DRM-related ones if the publishers keep insisting on "protection").

Related: Techmeme and Google roundups.