The line between books and other media is becoming increasingly fuzzy

""Consumers weren't waking up in the morning going, 'I really need to have Nick Cave reading his book along with a soundtrack.' We were solving a problem that didn't exist," Mr. Collingridge says.

Susan Moldow, publisher of Scribner, which recently released an enhanced version of Stephen King's novel "11/22/63," said her company is proceeding with caution.

"We haven't proven there's a big enough market for the enhanced e-book to justify the effort, time and money," she says.

The enhanced version of Mr. King's novel, which includes a 13-minute film written and narrated by the author, has sold 45,000 copies at $16.99. The hardcover version, by contrast, sold close to a million copies at $35.00, and the unadorned digital version has sold nearly 300,000 copies at $14.99. Most enhanced e-books sell in the low thousands, according to publishers."


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577169001135659954.html

eBook Devices and Education

eBooks/eDocs and/or devices are not ready for the education market yet.  Amazon conducted Kindle DX trials at  Darden B-school (U. of Virginia), Princeton and a number of other U.S. universities.  The general conclusion was that while it is a good device for general reading, it was not ready for education because its not easy to highlight, annotate etc. or go to a particular page (since there are no true page numbers).

Meanwhile Swiss B-school IMD is giving the iPad a try and while its likely to have some of the same shortcomings as the Kindle, it appears to be a better tool for facilitating networking in the classroom and for accessing real time information.  One of the motives for going digital is to reduce paper use and associated printing/shipping costs.

Clearly the education segment is not going to drive eBook adoption … and if the 'specialist segment' is large enough and distinct enough there could be different devices for different segments … but not soon.  Cambridge, U.K. based company Plastic Logic developed a super-sleek device for the business segment called Que … one that would replace not just books but the entire briefcase ... and then changed its mind in August last year.  Now its focussing on next generation foldable plastic displays.