An Idea Whose Time Has Come Back

TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

"NYT on e-books: 'An Idea Whose Time Has Come Back'
An Idea Whose Time Has Come Back is the headline of a New York Times Book Review article on e-books. It's good to see a major newspaper use words such as 'back' even if I'm not sure it fits. Regardless of the growth rates, e-book sales are still less than $40 million a year globally, a fraction of the billions that some analysts were predicting by now.

Missing from Sarah Glazer's article are full explanations of the 'Why?' of the pathetic numbers--such as the Tower of eBabel and DRM-based consumer abuse. At the same time Glazer apparently is unaware of the riches of sites like Project Gutenberg and Blackmask, both of which offer many times the number of public domain texts than the less-than-overwhelming collection of the mentioned University of Virginia (at least the university's public area). She also does not tell people about the $100 eBookwise-1150. Worst of all, Glazer does not mention any of the smaller e-book publishers, which account for so much of the growth and which often lack the anti-reader DRM mania of the big houses."

Must read for someone in the business of/associated with eLearning.