The dawn of social e-reading and what it means for the future of publishing

John Naughton, writer for The Guardian, urges 'Publishers to take note' because the iPad is revolutionizing what we think of as a book. He described the ingenuity behind the design of the Economist's new iPad app. He claims that this app will be the first of many to create, "a genuinely 'immersive' reading experience." Naughton aruged that apps like this should serve as a wake-up call for the print business in publishing. He explained, "The success of Amazon's Kindle has, I think, lulled print publishers into a false sense of security... If that's what publishers are thinking, then they're in for some nasty surprises." Sachin Kamdar, CEO and co-founder of Parse.ly, published a guest post for PBS: Media Shift. Kamdar explained, "The publisher side of technology hasn't kept up with the pace. Publishers have been running a marathon in a pair of shoes that are four sizes too small." Kamdar went on to explain that 2012 will the year that publishers grow up and make use of new tools. Erick Schonfeld, blogger for TechCrunch, highlighted one of the interesting new technologies that publishers have benefited from offering through the iPad. Bookmarking apps like Read It Later and Instapaper allow users to time-shift their online reading to better fit their own schedules; It is the same concept used by DVR technicians that allow viewers to shift their TV viewing times to preference (Schonfeld, 2011). If publishers can design effective apps for their content and utilize the technologies of the iPad correctly, Schonfeld explained, it could become the ultimate time-shifting reading device of choice.

Just as the concept of the magazine and newspaper have changed with new technologies, the concept of the 'book' will be transformed under the pressure of iPads-type experiences (Naughton, 2010).
Naughton suggests that this does not mean the end of print as everyone fears, but it does mean that print publishers will have to adapt to the new digital environment. He said, "In particular, they will have to add serious in-house technologies competencies to their publishing skills."

Jason Johnson and Jason Illian are two of those "in-house" masterminds backing the interactive reading experience that Naughton attempted to capture. Johnson and Illiam hope to revolutionize the solitary experience of reading by introducing a new mobile application, Social Books. According to Jenna Wortham’s article in the New York Times, the two entrepreneurs are interested in taking the advent of social media and applying it to the way e-readers use their tablets. This app will allow readers to highlight specific portions of text, like a unique passage or controversial topic, and share them via Twitter, Facebook and other platforms. Wortham said that the main difference for Social Books is that users will be able to post public notes and ideas about the book so that when a specific title is downloaded through the app, all of its social content will come with it. So how social can the individual reading experience become? How social can anyone one person become?

Naughton's article also referenced David Eagleman's Why the Next Matters, which Naughton described as, "an eight chapter manifesto that seeks to explain the significance of the internet for our future. The iPad app of Eagleman's essays is read with a split screen: one side displays the conventional text and the other features corresponding illustrations, 3D models, and photographs that the reader can manipulate to engage in the reading.

Ed Hawco from Montreal commented on Wortham’s article with an enlightening perspective, “I don’t understand this need to always make everything ‘social’… has the idea of personal introspection and “alone time” completely disappeared with the Facebook era?” Our generation thrives in the digital world, whether we e-read, tweet, tumble, stumble, blog, tag, post or pin. We have built webs within webs of social networks online and shared limitless content through social media. There will always be content to distribute and news to spread around. Naughton (2010) concluded his article, "The question now is: will there always be publishers?"

Personal reflection:
If reading is to become social, what is left to do alone? If we can't read a book without commenting about it on Facebook or through some other social app, can we do anything by ourselves? If everything we do on our own expands into a social dimension then we might risk losing an essential notion of self-knowledge. It is important for a portion of our brains to remain self-reliant. Often the most insightful thoughts evolve from challenging ourselves to dig deeper introspectively. If we divert all of our thoughts to our social network then how will we ever get to know our own brains? While our reliance on our social networks constantly connects the individual to the world, it might actually be disconnecting the individual from the self.

So as reading becomes more social, does our experience of reading socially become less personal?

Sources:
Lehrer, Jonah (2010) ‘The Future of Reading’, Wired

Naughton, John (2010) ‘Publishers take note: the iPad is altering the very concept of a ‘book’ The Guardian

Kamdar, Sachin (2012) ‘Why Publishers are about to go Data Crazy’, Mediashift: Your Guide to the Digital Revolution

Schonfeld, Erick (2011) ‘How the Ipad Time Shifts Online Reading’, Techcrunch

Wortham, Jenna (2010) ‘Social Books Hopes to Make E-Reading Communal’, New York Times