Will All Print Media Become Electronic in the Future?
The wave of e-book readers popularity which happened 2 years ago was just an appetizer for the boom of new media devices - tablets- which is happening right now. The experts from IDC predicts that tablets will overcome PC by the end of this year and it is just a beginning of their expansion.
Such technological progress can’t be ignored by book, newspaper and magazine publishers. Their industry is changing, and these changes are fast and irreversible. Publishing started to become digital several years ago when users started to read books on their old mobile phones. And this process goes forward at a steady gait.
Publishers who want to make their editions electronic have the following formats to choose from: epub, html5, pdf. But with the development of mobile technologies e-editions in form of dedicated apps for iOS, Android, WinPhone started to become more and more popular. Such ebook apps are designed to give users unique experience and to meet all possible requirements to multimedia and customizable features.
Michel from Ocean House mentioned, “We have been publishing digital children’s books as apps for the last three and a half years. We have seen fast, widespread growth and we expect the trend to continue as tablets and smartphones become more ubiquitous not only in the U.S. but also around the world.”
Currently publishers have a number of digital publishing companies to choose from. However, due to a variety of mobile platforms which readers use there are two approaches to the development of mobile versions of printed editions.
The first one is to develop native apps for every platform.
For example, Babur from Kno explained, "We believe it is necessary to build native apps for each platform for the optimal consumer experience. Each platform has specific navigation and user experience paradigms that need to be followed. "
Another approach is supported by such epublishing companies as Nasty Creatures, which develop the unique platform for making digital media solutions. Such platforms allow to develop an app which can be identically good on iOS, Android or WinPhone devices without loss of functionality or usability. Such solution allows not only to save time on development, but also to save money on the application distribution in app stores.
Rita from Read an eBook Week says “The future of digital publishing is ‘onward and upward.’ Nothing will stop it from growing exponentially."
So, what do you think? Will all print media become electronic in the future?