Comments on: Essay Question: Thinking About Mobile Media

By: Julius Adams

Julius Adams — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 14:18:00 +0000

I used to read EBooks like crazy, but it was on a larger screen like a PALM phone, or Nokia Symbian phone. Using MOBIPOCKET it was a GREAT experience..nice fonts, easy to turn pages, picture and photos were crisp, and cover art was nicely rendered…even could zoom in on these things! BUT I also found it tedious after a while, and impersonal. Certain books worked very well, but many novels (for some reason) read very poorly on the phone. I did like having a book alwyas handy, so now I use READMANIA on my RAZR V3i, which alsopplays iTunes music. The overall experience was not bad at all once you gave it a chance. There is STILL nothing like a paper book, though. It is a personal feeling you just can’t get from an EBook. The phones are better as substitute MP3 players, but as book readers? NAH!

By: Bill Smith

Bill Smith — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 13:57:50 +0000

From a publishing perspective I think we’re mixing apples and oranges when thinking of the cell phone as a delivery vehicle for fiction and long-form works.

Reference material is the natural fit for the cell phone and other portable electronic devices. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, guides, books of lists… anything that can be accessed in searchable small bites.

What works is having a bullet-point Lonely Planet travel guide on your phone when you’re vacationing in Quito and searching for a place to stay for the night; or an encyclopedia of hardware on your weekend trip to Home Depot; or a list of the year’s best rated wines while at the liquor store.

By: Kassia Krozser

Kassia Krozser — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 02:10:41 +0000

Okay, setting aside the notion of reading on cell phones (except, I think we agree, short text type stuff), what other bookish features would be cool on cell phones? I admit it, the thought of getting texted when a new release is available doesn’t move me much. I like it when I can immediately zoom over to Amazon and buy something when I learn it’s ready for purchase (email lists are key for me).

I’ve also thought that publishers could do great things with classic old book covers — can you imagine some of the great “Good Girl Art” or noir covers as your wallpaper? Penguin could do great stuff here as well (Jeremy???). Modern covers might find a market as well, but I’m seeing those targeted more toward the author and his or her parents more than the mass audience. I could be wrong (it happened once a long time ago).

And what about the issues of your basic publisher contracting with Verizon and you being a Cingular customer? The one thing that drives me crazy is exclusive deals with single providers, but that’s another rant for another essay question.

By: Julia

Julia — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 14:14:32 +0000

Despite being in the electronics generation and having fully embraced it otherwise, I’m just not into reading long fiction anywhere outside a book. I like to be able to turn everything else off and just get into the book, without any distractions. Unless we somehow get cell phones that have better screens, I’d have to say no. (Not into books on tape, either.) I do listen to music on my cell phone. It’s cheaper than buying an mp3 player.

Poetry, on the other hand, might be okay, or short fiction. Or experimental new forms of text that are so out-there I can’t even think of them yet (I like reading them, am not out-there enough to create them), created specifically for cell phones. I think sometimes we limit ourselves too much to rely on traditional media for new formats.

By: D.R. Ferron

D.R. Ferron — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 03:22:05 +0000

I always thought that people who constantly walk around with the Bluetooth earphone hanging off their ear were just trying to be noticed and seem important…until I discovered that I can download and listen to audio books on my smartphone and that my Bluetooth is much more comfortable than jamming earbuds into my ears. Still, as much as I would love to listen to a good book while I’m doing my grocery shopping, I can’t get over being seen as pretentious.

By: Joan Kelly

Joan Kelly — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:18:38 +0000

I don’t own a lot of gadgets yet, but I do find technology delightful, and am easily dazzled by new toys that can do new things. I also love reading like nobody’s business. The main reason I feel no enthusiasm about mixing the two is that when I’m out in the world, I like to be out in the world, and when I’m watching TV or reading a book, the only interaction I want with others is the constant fight to keep my fattest cat off my lap.

By: Christine Whitlock

Christine Whitlock — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:27:27 +0000

Hi Kasia,

While I’m a bit younger (I am firmly in the MySpace/Facebook generation at a ripe age of 23), I can’t say that many of my friends use cell phones for anything other than calls and texts–we still think it’s amazingly cool that you can text google.

I do agree that the tiny screen of a cell phone is not conducive to reading long blocks of text, or even watching video. I do know several people who watch movies and TV shows on their iPods, however. If they can handle the intensity of a zombie horror movie on a 2 or 3 inch screen, then they can likely handle text on a platform like the iPhone. Even on something like the iPhone, though, where the screen is noticably larger, the barrier for text length will still exist.

Of course, that opens the way for serialization, and books that are distributed on a subscription basis.