The Future of the Book from IDEO

Imagining potential digital e-read book interactions from IDEO.

Before I really kick off - let's just point out that - for me - IDEO unfortunately come across as bunch of digital tech-heads with less interest in the value of the book as an object (or as a digital object) and less sensitivity to the art of the paginal narrative and the immersive nature of the analogue book form than Savonarola on a bad monday. A digital book is not just a website with a lot of text in it. OK?

So, in turn, the three suggestions:
Nelson - which makes some extraordinary assumptions about the level and effort required (presumably by the cash-strapped publisher) to create data landscapes around every book from which you can extract rather ephemeral conclusions about whether you should bother reading and which bits you should skip to - so not exactly in-tune with the integrity of the book as a narrative device.

Coupland is basically a facebook app for books. Like, oh, all of the facebook apps for books, only presented in a rather unscalable way.

and then there's Alice - which apparently thinks books, with that boring linear narrative device - are a bit rubbish and would be way better with a mass of disruptions and digressions - preferably something that makes you go to a physical location (bad news for the book as a transformative magical reality transmogrifier then...) and do something (probably involving a foursquare check-in) which then does something else. wow.

So. Thanks for the video. Yes it's important and probably a good thing to try and work out - but - let's understand the value of books and put the user first please.
The book is the most extraordinary immersive device. It literally transports you. Digital augmentation has to deepen, extend and enhance that immersion - not - as all of these suggest - reduce and fracture it.

Strange stuff...