so why are you hyping it like it's such a big deal?
But here we're talking about these capabilities skillfully integrated in a reader about to hit the market--and especially a standards-based one.
but since you've brought it up, will these "blogs and forums" that are "contained" within openreader e-books from osoft be addressable by the general public using web-browsers?
Yes. You can still have blogs and forums accessible through general Web browsers. Jon would be a better one to discuss this, but obviously it's a server issue. You unwittingly made the point in linking via e-mail to a browser-readable blog. Same blog could appear in dotReader or another OpenReader implementation.
or, like the current osoft thoutreader, will people need to use that particular piece of software in order to view the comments?
Thanks for helping me make the case for meaningful e-book standards ;-))))))))) This is exactly why OSoft is so keen on the OpenReader format. I msyelf don't want OSoft-format editions of PG books. I want OpenReader-format books, and OSoft agrees--hence, dotReader's use of OpenReader as the featured format. Beyond that, I'll be disgusted if dotReader and OSoft are the only ones able to do justice to the format. Jon's itching to work with FBReader (a planned implementer) and others.
a clear answer will tell us a lot about your attitude on "lock-in".
Well, I don't see how clearer the answer could be that than. If PG wants to free its books from lock-in and add new capabilities, especially interactivity, then a dotReader/OpenReader approach would be the way to go. At the same time PG could still offer other formats, including, yes, ZML, which would be trivial for dotReader to read. Let the marketplace decide. Elsewhere you write:
i'm of the opinion that most books probably will not be able to find a sufficiently large number of commenters to warrant the work that an author will have to do to open up the process of writing to such interaction. but it's an interesting experiment
It'll happen if e-books are easier for schools and libraries to use. Tearing down the Tower of eBabel would be a start. Plus, major publishers are talking to us about commercial uses of the interactivity, such as for book clubs. Popularity of a book, by the way, is only one determinant of whether there'll be commenters. The fervor of the particpants matters, and that could happen with Long Tail books, not just best-sellers. As for if:book's cool work, the example you gave is Web based. dotReader and hopefully Sophie will go beyond that. A toast to both! David On 5/22/06, Bowerbird@aol.com <Bowerbird@aol.com> wrote:
david said:
BIRD: In the snippet below, you simply LINKED to a blog.
and in most cases, that will be quite good enough, thanks, because people can then read the blog there, and comment.
but since you've brought it up, will these "blogs and forums" that are "contained" within openreader e-books from osoft be addressable by the general public using web-browsers?
or, like the current osoft thoutreader, will people need to use that particular piece of software in order to view the comments?
a clear answer will tell us a lot about your attitude on "lock-in".
dotReader, OpenReader's first implementation, will CONTAIN blogs and forums and make them readable to users even when they're offlline.
it's not hard to implement that...
the app just downloads the content, and saves it for offline presentation, then uploading what is to be posted, capabilities already included in many r.s.s. readers and blogging software...
depending on if people actually use it, it could end up being a neat technology, much like all the other instantiations of it i discussed in my earlier post in this thread.
my point was that it's not difficult to implement.
it's not.
so why are you hyping it like it's such a big deal?
-bowerbird
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