Book People Archive

RE: speaking e-book?

On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Leslie Evans wrote:

> Men propose but the market disposes: eText vs. eBook for the files we read.

Those who run the marketplace often think they can twist what the rest of us
have been doing for decades in just a few months or years.

If I really thought ANY of the current "eBooks" would still be here in even
a few years, I would take this somewhat more seriously, but they won't be,
and you are welcome to come to my presentation in Maui on November 2nd,
to see and hear the gory details. . .but there won't be any eulogy.

However, since there won't BE any "eBooks" in the near future, I do predict
that the term eBook and eText will intermingle, and it won't make any diff.

Someday, if/when someone comes out with an "eBook" that can compete with
Palms, Visors, Pocket PCs, Casiopeias, Journada and all the rest. . .THEN
this issue may come up again. . .but I predict that both eBook and eText
will be in such common usage by then that they will pick another name.

I stand by my prediction that dedicated hardware is just another dinosaur.

Whatever the size, general purpose machines whose primary considerations
are not DRM will evolve, and the dinosaurs won't be able to nearly as much,
and thus will pass on to join the electronic typewriters and decicated
Word Processors, math chips, and all that stuff.
             
> I have a set of bookmarks on my browser to publishers of books in digital
> formats and websites devoted to discussing them. Out of about 20 sites, six
> incorporate a name for their product in their site name. 5 call them
> "ebooks," and one calls them "electronic books." None call them "etexts."

That just means you have bookmarked the newer more commercial sites,
and never looked over the original ones.

> Those sites that represent a broad spectrum of materials on the subject,
> such as ebookhome.com, also have a section on portable hardware to display
> the texts. This is called alternatively "Reading Devices"; "Handheld ebook
> readers," (various dedicated digital text readers), or "ebook Readers"
> (software readers at Barnes & Noble).

Again, you are specifying commercial endeavors who want their own word.

Question:  didn't someone trademark the term "eBook"???

This could bring about an interesting game of "ping pong"
that could bring on a headache worthy of several "aspirin"
. . .coult it not?
             
>
> Ebook web (http://www.ebookweb.org/basics/ebook.primer.htm) refers to the
> text itself as the ebook and the means of reading it  as follows: "There are
> three main ways to read an eBook: on a dedicated reading device such as
> those manufactured by RCA; on a PDA or other multi-purpose device such as a
> Palm handheld, the Franklin eBookman, or a PocketPC device; or on a desktop
> or laptop PC using software from Microsoft, Adobe, or a variety of smaller
> vendors."

I don't really mind if they use the two terms interchangeably.

It would only make much difference if the "eBook" became popular.
>
> I don't think "eText" has caught on in the larger world of e-publishing, and

Sadly to say, the "larger world of e-publishing" is still a very small pond,
while the listings on the Internet Public Library approach some 20,000 titles.
And that's just one single index.

> while there was some effort to use the term "eBook" to mean the hardware
> reader, I think that failed when the texts migrated to the Pocket PC and the
> Palm, which cannot go by that name as they are not dedicated machines.
> Ebooks today are the ding an sich.
>

I've been promoting eTexts on laptops and palm devices since before either
existed. . .long before the term eBook came about just a short time ago.

As I have mentioned before:

"Pick a point, "P", call it "Q", and label it "R". . . ."

It still doesn't change the point.

eText is going to survive, no matter what it is called. . . .

"eBooks" are quite a different question.

> Best,
>
> Leslie Evans
> Los Angeles
>
             
Thanks!

So nice to hear from you!


Michael S. Hart
<hart@[redacted]>
Project Gutenberg
"*Ask Dr. Internet*"
Executive Coordinator
"*Internet User ~#100*"