Ebooks. (Books on a diet)

Well,

My mum hates technology.

She makes snarky remarks about the television, computers, how everything in the world is so much more complicated now. How machine made coffee never beats the one you brew yourself. How face-to-face meetings beats Skype. How High Definition, no matter how high, doesn’t beat witnessing an event with your own eyes.

Yet, with the invention of the kindle….

She stopped complaining. Simply because she loves it.

“Amazon.com introduced the Kindle in 2007, a portable eBook reading tablet similar to Barnes & Noble’s Nook (2009) and Apple’s iPad (2010). Barnes & Noble is selling three times as many eBooks as print books and since introducing the Apple, iPads have captured 22% of the eBook market.”

-Rex M.Rogers (2010)

So what exactly is an E-book?

“John Pulizzi and Johnathan Kranz over at Junta42 have a great definition of what an ebook can (and should) be for businesses:

Think of it as a white paper on steroids (the sexy white paper): a report, generally 12–40 or more pages in length, that presents complex information in a visually attractive, reader-friendly format. The content is both informative and entertaining; the tone, collegial; the format, “chunky” rather than linear, to facilitate skimming and scanning.”

E-Books

1. Never go ‘out of print’. Books’ biggest problem!

2. Eco friendly. With the world going from health conscious to earth conscious, everyone does realize how important it is to save this DYING WORLD.  ‘save the trees‘

*Just to make your jaw-drop, 256 Trees are saved everyday, all thanks to ebooks.*

3. In the space that a comparably sized print book takes up, an e-reader can potentially contain thousands of e-books, limited only by its memory capacity.

4. The biggest contributor to E-books purchasing rise would be the money factor. Consumers now can purchase more books with less amount of money. It was said that the older generation that was the early adopters of ebooks. *CLICK HERE IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME.

5. “Less buyer’s remorse. Ebooks can capitalize on our immediate gratification impulse (not that it’s a good impulse, but if you followed it, might as well make the best of it). How many of us have purchased a physical book on impulse from Amazon and waited several days for it to be shipped, only for it to sit on the shelf because the excitement wore off while we waited for it to arrive? Immediate delivery means – hopefully – less unread books that you purchased on a whim.” LINK HERE.

I found this one to be really interesting. There were times when I had the urge to read a book immediately, but because I couldnt find the hard copy version of it, I eventually lost my interest. The above link gave me new perspective of the different things we actually gain from the ‘traditional books’. The last one addressed how some people derive some sort of an ego boost from inviting visitors to visit their bookshelves. Where stacks and stacks of books brought on stacks and stacks of ‘confidence’. The article argued that ebooks introduces somewhat humility, a serving of ‘humble-pie’.

Oh wells.

 

CONS.

The biggest problem would be DATA SECURITY AND COPYRIGHT.

Just like the music, the idea of illegal file sharing.

“The problem with all security measures is that if they impose a reasonable hurdle for illegal activity they also impose a sever user discomfort. Take for example the solution to encrypt all ebooks with a reading device specific serial number. You can then
read a particular copy of an ebook on only one specific computer.”

-Chris Wasshuber, Pros and Cons of Ebooks.

 

There honestly aren’t many cons of the ebooks. All the current problems can be seemingly dealt with in the future.

 

E-books are definitely taking over. Even debates of school children carrying bags that are way too heavy for them. Having the bags being as big and as heavy as them. It posed even fair threats to their physical health. Well, with the introduction of ebooks, children are now using electronics to carry the books they used to drag along. Instead of 10kilos worth of books, all packed into 150g (I think that’s how heavy an ipad or kindle is).

Ebooks are definitely here to stay.

and eventually conquer.

RSS feed. again.

1. INSTAGRAM. oh instagram.

As we speak…

I am on instagram. Having found a blog post on my rss feed relating to instagram here.

Studying media now, we learn about histories and technologies. The evolvement of technology has definitely evolved into the boom of mainstream social media. From friendster, to myspace, to facebook, twitter, linkedIn, blogs… and the latest craze INSTAGRAM.

SOCIAL MEDIA. Blows your mind!

Now. How did anyone come up with the idea that taking photos and sharing it with the general public would be…… A HIT! 

At the end of the day, it is like what the original post addressed ‘EGO STROKING’. 

We want to belong, we want to be part of this ever changing and constantly-decresing-in-size-because-of-technology-world. Instagram just seems so much more personal, since ‘pictures say a thousand words’. 

 

With that picture that you just shared, you give insight of bits and pieces of your life to everyone. 

Makes things really personal. SO WHY DON’T YOU SIGN UP.

I might just follow you.

 

 

 

2. GROUNDING. 

This post was rather different. Scrolling through my rss feeds, I’m packed with technological ‘adjkmnlbjdsufbisyergbfhzvchjaakhdsbvk’ words. It drives you insane.

Then i stumbled across this post.

HOW TO RAISE YOUR CHILDREN.

I barely am an adult myself, having just turned 18 last year. Yet, I guess I can realte to what the post tackled. There are times I wonder how my children will end up. Not just discipline wise. But with media being everywhere now, children are so much more prone to external influences. Good and Bad.

 

Makes discipline so much more important. So everyone out there. You don’t have to be 25 and getting engage to think about your future. ANYTIME.

MAYBE THIS WILL HELP.

Remember, giving birth to a child doesn’t mean you magically receive parenting skills.

 

3. Welcome to the world of IMAGINATION.

This post was a review for what happened to Liu Xia, a chinese artist.

If you’re giving me the weird look because you have no clue who she is. SHAME ON YOU. *click here*

 

I, on the other hand, had just done a 1000 word essay on Liu and the ’empty chair’ in 2010. He had fought for human rights in China and had got himself detained. Some people are so willing to sacrifice themselves for art. With China’s government using their control over their media to suppress these fellow people.

 

No matter how you tie a person down, with imagination, there is freedom.

 

Flipped Lecture 3: 6 degrees of separation

 

HEY YOU!

 

I know someone, that knows someone, that knows someone, that knows someone, that knows someone, that knows someone, that knows you.

 

 

How did a relationship struggle grow into a math equation? How do things make order in the midst of chaos.  Now. even facebook, twitter and linkedIn have evolved from this theory.

 

READ HERE.

“By studying billions of electronic messages, they worked out that any two strangers are, on average, distanced by precisely 6.6 degrees of separation. In other words, putting fractions to one side, you are linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances to Madonna, the Dalai Lama and the Queen. The news will come as no surprise to film buffs who for years have been playing the parlour game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which they link other actors to Bacon in six films or fewer.”

 

 

I found this to be very amazing and honestly quite unbelievable. However, with technology bringing everyone so much closer, it is a ‘shrinking world’. 

 

 

Moral of the story.

don’t bad mouth anybody. Chances is they know someone that knows someone….

 

 

THAT KNOWS YOU.