“Now that the iPad is a reality, the publishing industry has begun to gear up to create publications that integrate images, video, and audio into text, dramatically enhancing the storytelling process,” Bajarin writes. “In this sense, the iPad is a blessing. It gives publishers a new palette to work with, and, if they’re smart, new methods for charging directly for that content. They could, for example, offer new subscription models or position individual publications as standalone apps.”
Bajarin writes, “But here lies the curse of the publishing industry. The iPad could give rise to a new creative self-publishing crowd that could, in turn, become competition for the established publishing industry. Today’s creative writers could bypass the industry altogether. The opportunity is already there to a degree, via a number of self-publishing programs, but Apple’s iBookstore would give them a power partner with a unique technology and powerful distribution.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We see nothing wrong with eliminating redundancy and inefficiency by replacing outmoded business constructs with new ones. We suspect the same sort of thing will happen for more and more musicians over time, too. Obviously, the authors and musicians who can effectively utilize technology to go straight to their audiences will reap the greatest rewards.