While talks about cutting-edge smartphones dominated last year’s Digital Book Conference—the International Digital Publishing Forum’s annual e-publishing conference in New York—the focus of the morning session this year was market feedback on the progress of devices like the
Sony Reader
and the introduction of new ones, such as Telecom Italia’s pocket-sized Librofonio, which is expect to be introduced in the U.S. late this year. Panelists and attendees also debated when a breakthrough device or technology will make digital publishing a profitable business.
“The future is here,” said Adobe System’s Bill McCoy, borrowing a phrase from computer book publisher Tim O’Reilly, “but it’s unevenly distributed.” McCoy’s point was that all publishers acknowledge the promise of digital distribution—they’re just waiting for the “digital tipping point,” a device, new software or a new standard to push digital distribution to the next level.
As part of the panel on new mobile devices and e-reading software, McCoy presented evidence that the elusive tipping point is near. McCoy was showing off Adobe’s new “reflowable” PDF authoring software, now compliant with the IDPF’s new e-book standard format. The IDPF standard will eventually allow publishers, converters, distributors and retailers to work with one file format, rather than five or six. “E-publishing is happening right now,” said McCoy, who cautioned publishers against waiting for “the iPod or iTunes store for e-books.” McCoy said that digital content is flowing through multiple retail channels and devices, and he expected that the IDPF’s new open standard will increase consumers’ ability to use content, “on big screens and small screens.”
Extract taken from;
Digital Devices Star at IDPF’s Digital Book 2007
Calvin Reid, PW Daily — Publishers Weekly, 5/10/2007