“Up to 80% off with Kindle Textbook Rental” (Amazon.com)
“Deciding on a Book, and How to Read It” (New York Times)
“The Secondary Cost of Digital” (Inside Higher Ed)
“eBook report: Nook is up, iPad still catching up” (eCampus News)
“Amazon expected to sell 3 to 5 million tablets in Q4 2011” (ZDNet)
“Inkling Launches Version 2.0, Brings the Collective Wisdom of Every Student to the Textbook” (Sys-Con.com)
“Kno’s Textbooks Is Top Back-To-School iPad App With One Download Every 8 Seconds” (TechCrunch.com)
“Amazon Will Be Tablet Product Strategists’ New Frenemy” (Forbes)
“Hood College: Freshman orientation and an iPad” (eCampus News)
“Amazon Cloud Player – A New Way to Enjoy Your Music” (Amazon.com)
“Analysis: With HP tablet dead, who can challenge Apple?” (Reuters)
One thing is certain. There is as much interest and intrigue as there is diversity of opinion and predictions for the future when it comes to digital content and devices that can read that content. The title of this blog is obviously adapted from the phrase made popular by political strategist James Carville during Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 run for President, but this topic has little to do with politics and everything to do with success.
Not too long ago, the focus was almost entirely upon the device. The enTourage eDGe, the iPad, the Kindle, you name it. By one count, literally hundreds of device manufacturers gearing up to serve your digital book needs. Some predictions I read for this fall projected 40% of U.S. college students would return to campus with some type of a tablet.
Some companies, like Kno, didn’t even get to first base with the reader before doing a ‘corporate strategy 180’ and concentrating on software of content delivery instead. Others either never made it to market, or like HP, showed up with a long awaited tablet only to announce that the prices would be slashed and they wouldn’t pursue this market after all. Either corporate ADD is alive and well or the pace of change in the marketplace is increasing so fast that fulfillment can’t keep up with strategic planning.
The growth of the iPad in the context of higher education – in terms of device sales, but also when considering apps, new app development, and specifically educational uses – is irrefutable. I get a kick out of one middle management executive who took pride in the fact just two years ago that he was still not yet tethered to a smart phone. Today he carries an iPad 2 and brags about his business productivity apps.
“…Web queries for 'Kindle textbooks' are up 60 percent from this time last year. Same goes for 'Nook textbooks.' Searches for 'iPad textbooks' are up 40 percent. Whether or not students are buying e-textbooks this year, they seem to be shopping for them.” - Google
Enter the 800 pound gorilla (Amazon). Although Amazon is as tight lipped as my Apple Rep around a rumored new product release, industry analysts are making huge predictions about the potential sales of an Amazon tablet, especially if it is sold as a loss leader at or below cost. (Screech!) That’s the sound of me slamming on the brakes. Say what? How can Amazon be successful if they don’t earn profits on the sale of a new device? Refer back to my title. It’s not all about the device.
If any corporate technology giant has a chance to challenge Apple for the tablet/digital content market, Amazon is the one. Although the companies have very different corporate strategies, both have been successful with these approaches. And yet, the back-to-school results for Kno and their software are astounding. One download every 8 seconds? Are you kidding me? The #1 iPad education app and #2 grossing iPad app overall? That’s impressive. The open question is: “will the content sales follow?”
Although there are only a handful of titles right now, Inkling is a content model to watch carefully. This involves an enriched, enhanced, and interactive digital version of textbook content. In the study “Journey to Textbook Affordability: students use experiences of e-textbooks in five California State University campuses” (February, 2011), just 34% of the students reported overall satisfaction with an e-textbook.
Could that be because the majority of e-textbooks are still dull PDF versions of the printed books that can’t be sold back, probably expire, and may not be value-priced when compared to their printed cousins?
“The Secondary Cost of Digital” is an example of how the marketplace and misperceptions of the average reader is evolving from “all e-books are created equal” to the truer perception that digital (textbook) content still has some growing up to do before it can replace the dead tree technology.
People are catching on to the fact that you are not always “buying” an e-textbook. You are typically paying to temporarily use the content license, or as Amazon.com calls it: a “Kindle Textbook Rental” (Kindle device-agnostic reader software + limited e-textbook license). As Nicole Allen from Student PIRG puts it “add another layer to the publishers’ ability to rip students off”.
The value of renting traditional printed textbooks is being realized on almost every campus today in some fashion, while on a year ago there were only a few hundred schools that rented textbooks. This is partly because of the value proposition is now being recognized by students, but also because the industry has found ways to make this new-ish model work.
So where is this all going to end up and when will the “tipping point” be reached where e-textbooks take over? And will we all end up in the “the cloud” any time soon? The answer depends upon who you talk to and at this point, it may still be too early to tell. One crystal ball I looked into a few years ago told me that both the technology (reader, software, devices) and the content (digital or e-textbook) need to evolve before this happens.
Although some progress has been made in both arenas, more still needs to happen before we will see anything like a perfect storm sweeping across our campuses. All we can do is stay tuned and watch for the next big development. With the pace of change we have seen recently, we may not have to wait long.
Written By Jeff Nelson, ICBA President
Jeff, this a well written article and a very important topic.
ReplyDeleteKen Bankson