The Economist has an insightful article about how Google’s book scanning project may set off a wave of ‘unbundling’ in the publishing industry. As a training media company, we here at Praxis are especially interested in how this will affect textbooks in particular.
Sample quote:
People do not read fiction in order to accomplish a specific task in a limited amount of time, as they read reference and schoolbooks. Random-access dictionaries and cookbooks may be useful; random-access novels less so.
Textbooks are arbitrarily constructed in a linear, page by page fashion because of constraints imposed by the physical nature of books. Remove those physical constraints and textbooks can (a) be broken down into their smallest, usable, indivisible chunks of instruction, (b) wrapped in meta-data, (c) distributed intelligently via RSS, and then (d) re-assembled for the end student based on their needs and preferences.
This is how we see the plumbing for the future of education.
Full article @ The Economist
中文 Chinese
Lantian Says:
April 4th, 2007 at 11:44 am
BUNDLED - I would disagree that “Textbooks are arbitrarily constructed in a linear, page by page fashion”. In a sense of course they are, but over time there has been tremendous energy put in and reasons for why books exist as they exist.
The order of the presentation of the content has been painstakingly thought-over by the author. All these various qualities make a person want to pick it up and enjoy the experience of a sorted, pre-packaged, and inflexible book.
That said, I’ve been waiting ages for the true e-book, or even just accompanying digital versions of the paper books I buy. I know it exists, all the books these days are digital going into pre-press.
It would be nice to have the information unencumbered. But then…how do you pay the authors…it always comes back to that. Cpod has yet to unencumber it’s Flash snippets, and you guys ‘get it’.
Hank Horkoff Says:
April 4th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Without doubt there is tremendous effort put into crafting books, but historical inertia is not a good enough reason to accept an imposed order of presentation.
In a digital era, the unbundling of all media into its smallest consumable units is inevitable (e.g. albums into songs, tv shows into YouTube clips, textbooks into lesson podcasts). Author’s need to change their mindsets from imposing a presentation structure to suggesting one because at the end of the day, the end user is going to consume the media in the way they prefer anyway.
As for how author’s make money, one just has to look at the value chain economics of the publishing industry. Scarcity increasingly does not exist in content and distribution channels, but instead in end user attention. This moves market power to the user and puts them in control. Granted the dust has yet to settle on how things will get re-organized, but even in the new environment content creation will have value. My guess is that publishers will be the big losers, with new companies that can help users make sense of seemingly infinite amounts of information becoming new players.
admin Says:
April 4th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Books have to be linear. They have to follow the reasoning of the author. The way we think about writing, reading, and content is defined by this reality. With any exposition, the author has to present the ideas in a logical flow, clarifying issues as they arise, and gradually working towards a conclusion. The metaphor is that of a LINE of argument. (One corollary is that, if I meet parts of the argument that I don’t understand I have a problem - I’ve lost his ‘line of thought’.)
Hypertext offers a fundamentally different approach. The author can link at all stages to items, allowing the reader may resolve them as he requires. (The author doesn’t make the decision.) In this approach the fundamental metaphor is the NETWORK of information.
Unbundling will affect books, including language textbooks, and other printed content. Individuals now have the power to create and distribute content. The same type of process will radically alter the multi-billion dollar training industry, too. Who needs massive, monolithic training programs, delivered top-down from on-high, when individuals can create and share real-time learning experiences as they need them?
The training industry is shifting away from training, towards learning. Individuals can now create smaller, up-to-the-minute learning objects (multi-media)that are probably far more relevant and authentic. This is causing a profound re-think of the role of the trainer as well as the program itself.
Ken Carroll
Hank Horkoff Says:
April 5th, 2007 at 6:09 am
The Economist article makes a good point about how some types of books are easier to unbundle then others. For example, a novel with an overarching narrative is much harder to unbundle and then re-mix than a non-fiction book, textbook, magazine, etc. which all could be re-ordered much easier. The argument that books have to linear seems similar to the argument that albums have to be linear in order to appreciate the work of the recording artist. The last 10 years of digital music have clearly shredded that argument as the reality is most artists surround a handful of creative gems with ‘filler’ in order to suit the demands of the medium. This is against the interests of the consumer, who have increasingly demanded access to individual tracks and who will likely demand access to individual chapters, clips and lessons as these forms of media become unbundled as well.
Discussing this point with John Ralston Saul last week, the question was raised that if these unbundling forces are changing the media landscape, should authors change how they write. One on hand, producing unbundled content in a blog format would make the work much more accessible to be linked to, to be commented on and to be built upon. In essence, the writing becomes one building block in a much larger social discussion. On the other hand, a book format allows for a much broader perspective exploring more of the larger superstructure issues of a problem, rather than just narrow details. It will be interesting to see how this argument develops.