‘EPUB: The next PDF?’
That’s the headline in an InfoWorld item, which tells how "the open standard for reflowable text is driving e-book sales. Why the standard could become as important as PDF.”
Of course, in terms of the IDPF, the main e-book standards group, ePub already could be more important. It isn’t as if the IDPF is setting PDF standards. “Reflowable,” for most books, should be the future.
Among those quoted, besides Michael Smith, IDPF exec director, is open source advocate Evan Leibovitch, who’ll start contributing to TeleRead in the near future.
An interesting stat in the piece: “Stanza, a free eBook reader app for the iPhone and iPod touch, was downloaded by two million users in its first year on the market. Developed by Seattle-based Lexycycle Inc., which was acquired by Amazon in April, the native EPUB reader has supported over 12 million book downloads since it launched in July 2008.”
Great! I’d hope that Amazon wouldn’t be clueless enough to kill Stanza or deprive it of its ePub capabilities. What’s more, if Amazon does do ePub, I hope its actions will belie the rumors that say it may try a stunt like “ePub Plus” or whatever (one reason for the IDPF to do an ePub logo, pronto—just as Evan has written).
Hey, Jeff Bezos, you saw how beloved Microsoft was when it tried to set Web standards through extensions. The rumored Apple tablet ideally will make you guys more aware of the need not to tilt the table; time for Amazon to embrace ePub for real?
July 30th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
I really hope Apple *is* doing a Tablet *and* its own eBook format. Someone has to help push ePub into its grave.
July 30th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
LOL. Keep dreaming, Mike. Me, I’m tired of the format of the month. We need standards so WORDS can count more and tech fads can count less.
Cheers,
David
July 31st, 2009 at 8:16 pm
You’re the one living in a fool’s dream, David, if you think flat ePub is the answer. Standards count for nothing when the standards are crap.
August 3rd, 2009 at 7:21 am
Standards can be improved, Mike. And the XML base underlying ePub is better than anything Apple is likely to invent out of whole cloth. Most likely, they’d only come up with their own proprietary form of an existing format–including ePub–and who needs one more of those?
ePub is arguably the best standard we have going (the best open standard, for sure). I don’t see any reason not to promote its widespread adoption as-is, and not chopped into proprietary bits.