Here are a few different concepts for ebook readers, mine on the lower left, essentially a larger iPhone, Classicapp, available now for the iPhone, Greg Raiz’s concept for a resdesign of Kindle (via daringfireball.net) with less clutter, and Plastic logic, currently vapourwear but who knows.
It is interesting to read the comments on Greg’s redesign and what is argued over, colour vs. not colour, keyboard vs. not keyboard. etc. We are all very concerned with how the object is the make or break aspect of reading books and magazines on an electronic device. My last post also focused on the importance of the feel of the object, how Apple gets form factor right. (sometimes)
The more I look in to this however, (being a blog I have spent, oh, probably 10 minutes but who is counting?) the more I see a glaring issue that is probably the single biggest obstacle-format wars. Consider how many different formats and ways we have of representing text and images on screen, html, pdf, text, Word, ePub, eReader format, whatever form of DRM Amazon is using, etc. We haven’t even begun to develop the marketplace for electronic reading and already it is balkanized.
You thought it was hard for Apple to get some sort of consensus from the music labels for the iTunes music store, this is more of the same. Amazon perhaps has the headstart now with two versions of the Kindle and their massive catalogue behind them. But don’t be fooled by the device. The device is critical, but the format is where the real money is.
You will probably see the entire magazine and newspaper publishing industry go down in flames before you will see a consensus on how to deliver the product to a handheld device. A magazine publisher would do well to throw in with someone soon, although there is no real competition (Apple, where are you?-SJ famously said he was not interested in the market because no one reads anymore. I hope he was being disingenuous).
You could envision a bundle where the reader is subsidized by the publisher, buy a Kindle and get to select from a few magazine subscriptions to get you started. Here is Popular Mechanics and oh, by the way, the entire archive going back to 1945 is there too. Vogue back to 1935. I think the obstacles are probably not what we think they are. All of this eInk technology hubbub is a tempest in a teapot. We already read more from LCD’s than paper. I believe the eInk thing is a canard. “Market Research” said that people don’t like reading online but the question is more about typography, presentation, and screen resolution. We now have small hi resolution devices that are more than adequate for reading. It will get better. This is not the issue. Bandwidth, there is a real issue, 3G is the bare minimum and laughable that North America is still stumbling along with this. Blame your phone, cable and internet provider. Detect a pattern here from my last post?
There is a great opportunity here that is going a begging and we are not arguing over the right issues. Format, DRM, Service.
Publishers, get on board while you still have staff left to publish…
I am calling what we do online when we read as SCREENING. agree or disagree? chat with me, comment pro or con.\
DANNY BLOOM
Tufts 1971
Online v. print reading: which one makes us smarter?
Online v. print reading: which one makes us smarter?
By Coco Ballantyne , edited by DANNY BLOOM without her permission
It’s no mystery that publications have been taking a beating as more and more people SCREEN their news on the Net. But there’s a catch. The online info may be instant and abundant — and in many cases free — but it may come at a cost, says a new study published in the Journal of Research in Reading/Screening.
Study author Anne Mangen, an associate prof of literacy studies at Norway’s University of Stavanger, says she discovered that SCREENING online may not be as rewarding – or effective – as the printed word. The reasons: The process involves so much physical manipulation of the computer that it interferes with our ability to focus on and appreciate what we’re SCREENING; online text moves up and down the screen and lacks physical dimension, robbing us of a feeling of completeness; and multimedia features, such as links to videos and animations, leave little room for imagination, limiting our ability to form our own mental pictures to illustrate what we’re SCREENING.
“The visual happenings on the screen… and your physical interaction with the device is distracting,” Mangen says. “All of these things are taxing on cognition and concentration in a way that a book is not.”
Given her findings, Mangen says that the implications of digital technology should be considered when deciding whether to incorporate computer teaching tools into classroom instruction. She notes that online teaching tools, such as electronic books, are being used from kindergarten up even though there is little research on their effect on learning and development.
“I know from studying kids’ use of the Internet in schools that [there is] the issue of whether kids [stick to] reading,” says Janet Schofield, a psychology prof at the University of Pittsburg, noting that “it’s very easy [for them] to become distracted, because it takes so little effort to go somewhere else” online. She does not discount, however, that online SCREENING has its pluses, most notably that it provides instant access to more info on topics of interest.
Richard Long of the International SCREENING Association, a nonprofit organization of literacy professionals in Newark, Del., says more research needs to be done to study the effects of online SCREENING on different users. For instance, he says, many older people may absorb more or learn faster by flipping through pages, because their brains have been trained to read hard copy, whereas younger readers may learn faster digitally, because they’re accustomed to SCREENING online. “Previous experience has a tremendous impact on rate and thoroughness of learning,” he says. “The actual learning phenomenon is the same at the end of the day.”
Are you ‘reading’ this article or ’screening’ it online?
By Dan Bloom
If you are reading this comentary in the printed version of this
newspaper, you are “reading” it
in print. But if you are reading it online, on this newspaper’s
website, would you be “reading” it or “screening” it?
There’s a message here for those readers reading this online. Print
readers might also find this idea worth discussing as well.
To readers online I want to say: What you are doing now is not
reading, but “screening.” Yes, you are at this very moment screening
the textprinted digitally on this computer screen. You are not reading
text on a paper surface; you are “screening” this article through the
lens of the computer screen in front of you. Perhaps a new word is
born — screening!
When a top computer industry writer at the New York Times, John
Markoff, was told
about this new term, he told me in a one-word email note:”Hmmmmmmm.” I
think he didn’t quite cotton to the new terminology I am proposing.
But at least he was listening. He didn’t tell me to get lost, although
maybe that is what he meant.
Screening? Can anyone just coin a new word and make it stick? No, but
new words are coined everyday, and some stick and some don’t. Time
will tell whether or not “screening” (to mean “reading information on
a computer screen, as distinct from reading a print newspaper or
magazine or book”) will stay with us or not. For now, the word has
been accepted and listed by the editors at urbandictionary.com.
LINK:
Screening has defined there as: “To read text on a computer screen,
cellphonescreen, Kindle screen or PDA screen or BlackBerry screen;
replaces the term “reading” which now only refers to reading print
text on paper.”
Example: “I hate reading print newspapers now. I do all my screening online.”
The word is so new that most have never heard of it. And many readers,
I am sure, online and reading this newspaper’s print edition, will not
agree with the coinage.
James Fallows, an editor for the Atlantic Monthly now living in
Beijing, told me the word was interesting but that he was “not likely
to be an early
adopter of “screening” for two reasons.
“There is already and established and different meaning of “screening” that
could easily be confused here,” Fallows said in an email. “The
meaning I have in mind is similar to
“skimming,” “reviewing,” “categorizing” etc — going through material
quickly to assess its importance, as opposed to fully concentrating on and
absorbing it.”
Fallows added: “The existing meaning of “reading” has been independent
of the medium on
which the words are displayed. We’ve used the term to apply to words printed
on paper; subtitles on a movie screen; words flashed on neon signs; etc. In
all the cases, regardless of medium, we use “read” to refer to the act of
taking in written symbols by eye and converting them mentally to
words. So, good luck with this idea. I am not opposed to it, but this
is why I’ll
stick with “reading” myself.”
Amit Gilboa, an Israeli writer living in Singapore and a frequent
visitor to Taipei, told me: “No, it’s still reading. Whether in a
book, a print newspaper, chalkboard, whiteboard, it’s still reading
words made up of letters. Screening is still reading.”
However, Hidetoshi Abe in Japan, said in an email that he likes the new term
and agrees it fits our new Internet age. “I think ’screening’ makes
perfect sense to represent the way we now take in information via
computer screens. It’s a whole new ballgame,” he said in a recent
email.
Reading, of course, is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols
printed on a paper surface for the purpose of deriving meaning
(reading comprehension) and/or constructing meaning, according to
scholars. Written information on a printed page is received by the
retina, processed by the primary visual cortex, and interpreted in
Wernicke’s area.
But when we “read” online (or “screen”, in the new coinage), the
digitalized information is processed in a different way. Reading
online is not the same thing as reading on a paper surface in a book
or magazine or newspaper.
If you reading this article on the Taipei Times website, you have just
“screened” your very first article online using this new term. You are
now an Internet ‘’screener”. Congratulations, and welcome to this
brave new world.
When I asked some members of an online reading discussion group what
they thought about the idea of calling online reading “screening”
instead of reading, I received a variety of answers, most of them
negative, but some of them positive as well. Some people liked the
new word that has been proposed, and others said they didn’t like it
at all and that
a new word was not necessary.
Said Liz Hill, a reading consultant in North America: “This is very
interesting. Words do
come and go in our language all the
time, and usage is what makes them stick. However, I don’t think
“screening” is the right context for replacing the word “read.” I
didn’t “paper” or “book”, before did I? I do agree that we do
something a little differently when reading online,
but for me it involves the ability to connect or forward that
information so easily, rather than the way it appears on the (yes… I
have to say it) screen.A word involving links or chains makes more sense to me.”
Annette Goldsmith of the College of Information at Florida State
University opined: “It’s an interesting idea, but I think this
particular term is confusing. Screening text could have the same
meaning as screening calls, that is, doing a quick initial check to
see if it’s something you choose to hear or read, as opposed to simply
reading it online.”
Sharon Schneeberger said: “My definition of reading includes making
meaning of text. That definition if reading remains the same
regardless of the genre or format you are using to access the text.”
Schneeberger added: “I think retention has to do with my purpose for
reading. Sometimes online I start to read something and by following
the various links end up finding out something far more interesting.
What I read online is usually shorter and is different than reading a
whole book. Sometimes I read a journal article online, but still that
is not like reading a book.
I do not have a Kindle and wonder what reading a book on it is like. I
agree that how we read is changing.”
Jeff Hsieh, a Taiwanese-American college student in California, noted:
“Personally, I
prefer reading from a real, solid, hard copy, whether it is books,
news, or anything. The comoputer screen gets my eyes tired.”
Kit Stoltz, a reporter based in Los Angeles, noted: “Maybe be the word
will stick, maybe not, but I’ll remember it.”
Jalel Sager, an expat editor in Vietnam, said: “The writer in me bridles at
the new word. Frankly, I think ’screening’ has too many other closely
related meanings, especially. the one that means “to filter” — which
is kind of interesting, because that’s really that you do when you
read online — filter information from the online sea.”
Jenny Schickley opined: “I don’t think the term “screening” to refer
to any print read online is appropriate. I think if you are reading
words it is reading. However, I have noticed the propensity
in myself and my students to skim images and headlines to gather hot
topics or to
attempt to find something more interesting to bother to read in
detail. I would accept the term “screening” to apply to such quick
scanning — but not to actual
moments when I take the time to read properly.”
Anne Moten from Australia said: “I don’t know that we can define
reading as something related only to
books, for example, we read maps, and music scores. I think it is more
related to the act than the format.”
Allen Bean in London said: “I am wary to qualify or re-name the term
reading — merely because people are “reading” in different formats.”
Waller Hastings of Rutgers University in New Jersey noted: “Before we
get all involved in trying to figure out the “best”
alternative word for ”reading” on line, maybe we should pause a moment to
determine what it is that we think is so different? “Reading” is, at
minimum, the decoding of text from symbolic representation (the words)
to cognitive concept (the ideas). I read the credits to a movie on the
movie screen, I read the words on traffic signs when I drive the
Interstate, I read text from books, periodicals, and newspapers, I read
things on the Internet. We have used “reading” to refer to the first
three kinds of actions for quite some time – so why do we suddenly need
a new word for the same action applied now to a different interface?”
“As to the idea that we don’t fully read text online, well, we don’t
always read text in detail in any other situations. I only read movie
credits to identify actors, music, or other details about which I am
curious; I stop reading a road sign when I realize it is not the exit I
am searching for; I skip quickly through a book or a periodical article
if I have only a minimal interest in it, or to quickly pick up the gist.
This latter activity we have traditionally called “skimming.” How is
skipping the details in an e-mail any different?”
“I’m all for changing the language to meet new demands, but I frankly
don’t see why this is such a demand.”
So Dear Reader, what’s your take on this new coinage “screening”? Does
it make sense, does it add up, or is it the wrong term for what is
going on online these days? If you have any other words or terms,
you’d like to nominate, please send them to this newspaper in care of
the letters editor.
We already read more from LCD’s than paper.
THIS IS KEY, SIR……….we already do more SCREENING than READING. Yes.
RE:
“Market Research” said that people don’t like reading online but the question is more about typography, presentation, and screen resolution.
HERE IS MY POV: we read on paper for meaning and memory and analysis and depth. We SCREEN (aka “read”) online for quick info and map directions and gossip and email and “reading” chores, but our brains process the info different than when we read on paper. See Anne Magnen’s paper on this on my blog. So we need a new term: What shall it be?
I coined screening just to get a discussion going.
Please suggest other words or terms too.
DANNY
Screening
February 17, 2009 by richardthecrusader
Guess what? Right now you are screening. This new term has been coined to describe the kind of reading that is done on a computer screen, as opposed to in hard copy. It’s already in the Urban Dictionary, but so are a lot of other words like screensavered (inebriated) and screenplan (plans for your leisure time) that aren’t exactly in our everyday vocabulary.
I think that we certainly do treat screen texts differently, we skim more, our eye moves around the page more and we take off on link paths. But is the actual act of reading changed? If someone reads a story in a newspaper and someone else reads a story on stuff.co.nz – are they significantly different? What do you think?
I think the term “reading” is sufficiently subtle in different uses to encompass all of these issues. And we have other words like parse, scan, sift, etc.”Multimedia” was supposed to be what were getting online, the combination of text and sound and moving images and links. It sounds dated even now.
The phenomenon I think you are pointing to has something to do with the medium, in the same way that television was different from film because of “flow”.
I think the main implication of this phenomenon, whatever you want to call it, has more to do with the quality of the information and the quality of mental processing behind it. We all know that multi-tasking isn’t. The trouble with blogs is that my content stands shoulder to shoulder with more highly vetted content. The reader really has to supply the context.
This was always the complaint between newspaper journalists and TV journalists. Quality and depth. It is the same phenomenon.
As for what our brains actually do, I’ll leave that to the scientists:)
ALEX BEAM, Boston Globe
I screen, you screen, we all screen
Boston Globe – Boston,MA,USA
When writing about digital reading – blogger is pushing the
neologism “screening,” for reading on the screen – Mangen, Nielsen, …
http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2009/06/19/paper_vs_computer_screen
http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2009/06/19/paper_vs_computer_screen
ALEX BEAM, Boston Globe
so if I am looking at photographs online am and not looking or watching or viewing? how is that experience different. and how is the experience different of watching films vs. television. We say “watch” for both even tho they are different experiences.
I would not like to denote online reading as somehow incapable of delivering the depth of traditional reading. I don’t get that the distinction needs to be made when “reading” as a term can mean multiple things, like scan, parse, look over, etc,
go ahead and define a meme, but remember McLuhan has already been there.
go ahead and define a meme, but remember McLuhan has already been there.
true
As for what our brains actually do, I’ll leave that to the scientists:)
YES, this is what we are all waiting for, the MRI brain scan research, which will show, i think, that reading on paper lights up diff parts of our brains than when we “screen” online….might take 10 more years……be patient.