It took us some time, but here are the results from our Mass-Refinement v.04 on books, hosted by Katachi Magazine! It was a great session and we could have discussed for ages. So we hope you want to join the discussion so it doesn’t have to end. The possibilities are endless and we want to hear what you want from the future book!
Take a look at the presentation on Slideshare: THE FUTURE OF BOOKS
What do you think? What do YOU wish for the future of the book?
We are currently working on the next Mass-Refinement and are pretty psyched about it, so stay tuned for more info about that.
Last Wednesday we arranged our fourth Mass-Refinement, hosted by Katachi Magazine, about the future of books and refining the ebook. The whole event was a blast and all the guests shared tons of interesting thoughts and ideas and together we all came up with some interesting insights, ideas and concepts. We are currently working on structuring and elaborating it all into a presentation worthy of all the stellar thoughts conceived during the Mass-Refinement.
Meanwhile you can read the opening speech based on the Brief for Mass-Refinement - 04 Ebooks.
Somethings to think about:
1. Connecting readers to authors
Last week Amazon launched the interesting Kindle feature @Author which lets you ask authors questions directly from your Kindle. A pretty neat feature. Browsing the questions we stumbled upon this question:
Question @Steven Johnson:
“Steven, you’ve often written about the ways in which a city’s density enables great ideas to flourish. You’ve applied the same metaphor to the web as a engine of creativity and innovation. What about book-reading? Do see our natural inclinations towards socialization spreading to e-books as innovative tech enables us to engage texts more collaboratively?”
2. Reading the question above confirmed something we have been thinking about for a while; how can we connect thoughts and ideas related to individual books and its passages? Make notes in books public and let people share their ideas and thoughts related to their readings.
3. Contextual connections; connecting books and passages with other books and passages (hyperlinks for books?)
4. Rethink notetaking in ebooks.
5. When reading paper based books your constantly getting tangible feedback everytime you turn to the next page, as you feel the one side of the book gets thinner and thinner while the other side gets thicker and thicker. Digital books lacks this feature.
6. The bookshelf. Books are trophies and badges showing off how well read you are.
7. Bookstores provide expertise, social interaction and lucky discoveries. The same thing goes for libraries.
8. Typography in ebooks sucks.
9. There is a confusing amount of different ebook platforms and solutions that are available.
10. Primetime vs. whitespace time - we are constantly consuming content, but are using different devices at different times.
11. Money - how will the authors earn money in the world of tomorrow?
12. Tomorrows books and ereaders will be free, ad supported, connected both contextually and socially, and independently published.
13. A book is worth more than a thousand words.
This kicked of the event and hopefully it sparked of some interesting ideas. Stay tuned to read more about the future of the book.
Head over to our Facebook page to take part in the conversation and look at pictures from the event. Also you can follow us on Twitter to stay up to date.
The Mass-Refinement that we had to postpone is happening on Wednesday, Aug. 31st at 18.00.
It’s still about the future of books and reading, and how digitalization is affecting how we consume the written word. Here are some thoughts we have on the subject to help you get in the mood!
We hope some of this got you thinking and that you will join us at this Mass-Refinement and let your ideas meet and mate.
Mass-Refinement: Ebooks
Time : Wednesday, August 31 · 6:00pm - 9:30pm
Location: Katachi Mag, Schweigaards gate 79, Oslo, Norway
If you’re not on Facebook, send us an email: post@therefinementclub.com
We now have a new date for this Mass-Refinement! Wednesday, August 31st!
We have been invited to arrange a Mass-Refinement (formerly known as Pitch Night) at Katachi Magazine.
The topic is ebooks. Katachi Magazine is in the process of releasing the first issue of their iPad magazine, but they’re already planning to start an ebook platform. We want to invite everyone who is interested, who love to read and/or write, work within publishing or design etc. to join us. We want you to come and think broad, and to think about how we can expand and enrich the reading experience.
How can we bring the best from two worlds together, the analogue and the digital?
How can we keep the art of the book when we leave paper behind?
What is wrong with ebooks today, and how can we fix it?
The issue of ebooks can be closely related to the debate of the future of libraries, which has gotten some attention in Norway lately in regard to the new library that will be built in the Opera area. And of course the recently released ebook platform “Bokskya” which haven’t received all that much praise.
We have talked about ebooks at The Refinement Club several times and we’ve got a couple of posts that we think are relevant:
People talk about the future of the book and there are some nice concepts and ideas floating around. Take a look and think about how it could become better, and how we can utilize some of these thoughts in the pursuit of keeping the art of the book.
So there’s some input.
We would love to meet you all for a new Mass-Refinement with sausages, beer and idea sharing, and talk about how we can enhance the reading experience through ebooks, and about how we can evolve the artform of books and make even more people publish books and read books!
Welcome to The Refinement Club’s Mass-Refinement 04 at Katachi Magazine - sign up here!
Ps. if you’re not on Facebook you can send us a mail to: post@refinementclub.com to sign up!
This week we met up with Åsmund Gravem and talked about lots of stuff including ebooks. We ended up refining the ebook experience and how to add som social features and making it more up to date. We have also tried out a new way to present our ideas. We are pretty satisfied with the slides we have made, but if you have some comments or suggestions on how to present our concepts feel free to write a comment.
Okay, so ebooks are great in many ways, but what we miss about it is our bookshelf. We miss being able to discover new authors and to borrow books from our friends. And to snoop and judge other people by their bookshelves.
So how can we bring the best from the world of paperbooks into the world of ebooks?
Learn more about our concept here at slideshare:
What do you miss with ebooks?
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Have an idea you’d like to share? Submit it to our Feature Friday!
