Hi, Greg. Actually dotReader is ANTI-bubble. E-books won't catch on big until they the technology improves, among other things; and the dotReader/OpenReader combo can offer major interactivity in a big way. I've already mentioned blogs and forums embedded inside e-books (and available even for off-line reading). As for the desirability of interactivity and multimedia for consumers--that's no small factor, according to the esteemed Greg Newby. dotReader/OpenReader will oblige in both areas. Meanwhile see below from USA Today, especially the last paragraph: "To be compelling enough to trigger any kind of mass migration away from paper books, e-books will need to have compelling characteristics regular books don't, such as interactivity and mixed-media capabilities, Newby and others said." Can we really trust this guy? ;-) I'd like to think so. I hope he and others in PG will be open-minded about both the format and the implementations, as opposed to letting the trolls and their buddies set the tone for PG. Cheers, David http://thelifeofbooks.blogspot.com/2006/04/whats-trouble-with-ebooks.html We don't see a lot of resistance to electronic books per se," said Gregory Newby, director of Project Gutenberg, the first electronic library, which offers 20,000 titles for free. "What we see are limiting factors in specialized readers and difficulty in finding good stuff to read." Plus, "publishers are charging the same amount for an electronic book as for a paper book." There are other challenges too. With e-book readers, people may be able to store numerous texts in one small device and do things to make reading easier, such as changing type size, something that's impossible with print. But people also like to share books with others, resell them and hand them down to their children, he said. "When you buy a book, you have it forever," Newby said. "With these electronic books, you often are prevented from doing those things that you can do with regular books. What happens when my device breaks?...Books aren't just words on a page. They are things you can trade, share and store for later." To be compelling enough to trigger any kind of mass migration away from paper books, e-books will need to have compelling characteristics regular books don't, such as interactivity and mixed-media capabilities, Newby and others said. On 5/22/06, Greg Newby <gbnewby@pglaf.org> wrote:

On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 11:37:28PM +0200, Marcello Perathoner wrote:

...

David H. Rothman wrote:

...

See the true details for yourself at http://www.dotreader.org.

It says:

www.dotreader.org

This page is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com

Did the .reader bubble already burst?

That's the funniest thing I've read all month. Thanks!

dotreader.com seems a better source to start. I'm not sure if it has true details or not, though. -- Greg _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d@lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d