Good Idea! Now find a better one.

Ebook readers are coming along now, rollable displays, brighter screens. Such is the march of technology. But what about regular books?

No Moore’s Law for Books

Computer processors accelerate at break neck speeds. Phones become smaller, more powerful and possibly even the next greatest thing in the book business or at least an intresting distribution model.

TV’s are larger, thinner and brighter. Cars are faster, lighter and sleeker.

But books…not so much. Now don’t get me wrong, there are new binding techniques, paper types and weights, covers, presses, printers and the like, but the basic book that you hold in your hand - has how you use it changed?

What I’m asking is, besides all the technologies to replace paper books, where are the technologies to augment, complement or supplement how you and I actually use books?

A Scenario

Suppose you’re a person who likes to take notes in your books. You scribble in them so much that you usually buy two or more copies of every book! One to mark up, and the others for reference. Reasonable, no?

How about you buy 1 copy of the book, read it and mark it to your hearts content, then send it back to the publisher/retailer for your handwritten notes, circles, and arrows to be digitized.

Then you receive your original marked up book back, a fresh unmarked copy, and a digital copy of the book with your comments and scribbles embedded.

You can search your comments, blow them up on a big screen, send them to friends and colleagues, maybe even read them on an ebook reader. Not to bad, eh?

Or perhaps when you order the book, you can request a real paper version with someone else’s comments printed on the page.

Instead of the fluff endorsements on the back cover, read their actual thoughts and insights embedded in the book.

Is so Sexy!

There’s no satellite based, GPS-enabled, web2.0, bluetooth syncing, podcasting action here - but we’re only talking about books, right?