The Kindle Changed the Book Business. Can It Change Books?
It's now been a decade since Amazon unveiled the first Kindle to the world, selling out its initial inventory in less than six hours. Since then, the device has torn through the publishing landscape. "Kindle" has become a platform, not a device. It entered the market and utterly subsumed it.
The Kindle team has always professed two goals: to perfectly mimic a paper book, and to extend and improve the reading experience. That's what readers want, too. In a world filled with distractions and notifications and devices that do everything, the Kindle's lack of features becomes its greatest asset.
But readers also want to read everywhere, in places and ways a paperback can't manage. They want more tools, more features, more options, more stuff to do. Amazon's still working out how to satisfy both sides. Whatever route it takes, the next decade of Kindle is likely to be even more disruptive than the last. First it changed the book business. Next it might help change books themselves.
For a decade, Amazon's relentlessly offered new ways for people to read books. But as platforms change, books haven't, and the incompatibility is beginning to show.
The next phase for the digital book seems likely to not resemble print at all. Instead, the next step is for authors, publishers, and readers to take advantage of all the tools now at their disposal and figure out how to reinvent reading. Amazon and the book world are beginning to figure out what's possible.
Future users might flip between reading and listening with the touch of a button, ask a digital assistant for more information on the plot or the feelings of the characters, texting with characters themselves, going to important real-world locations to start a chapter or find a clue, and even helping write the narrative.
Bring on the disruption.
▍生词好句
tear through: to move through sth. at a very high speed; to move through sth. quickly with some kind of powerful force or even destructive force; to accomplish sth. rapidly or quickly, and maybe quite easily.
profess /prəˈfɛs/: vt. to declare / say / admit sth. openly or freely; to state or say sth. publicly; to express sth. in words publicly.
disruptive /dɪsˈrʌptɪv/: adj. original, sth. that does things in a new way which causes big changes. (often in an industry) (常用搭配: disruptive technologies; disruptive innovations)
the / deep cracks are beginning to show: problems are now appearing and these problems are probably quite serious.
at one's disposal: if you have sth. at your disposal, you are able to use it whenever you want, and for whatever purpose you want.
flip between: to suddenly change from one subject or activity to another; to quickly switch, to quickly change between one thing to another thing. (often used in digital technology.)
with the touch of a button: if a machine, gadget or function works with the touch of a button, it works extremely quickly and easily, and it can be done immediately with very little or even no effort. (等同于: at the touch of a button)