<b>TECHNOLOGY:</b> Slow and steady growth of eBooks

ELECTRONIC publishing has not caught on in most Southeast Asian markets, says eBook reader vendor Palm Inc's marketing manager for Australia and New Zealand Lesley McKnight. The reasons cited by both publishers and retailers are that Asian readers overall enjoy going shopping and prefer to touch and feel when it comes to books.

"However, with increasing Internet literacy and proliferation of smart phones, substantial growth rates should be expected especially with the support of industry associations and governments."

McKnight was commenting on the eBook take-off rate in Southeast Asia.

eBook, which is an electronic book, is just like a printed book. It has numbered pages, table of contents and even pictures.

The Singapore National Library, for example, has launched the eLibraryHub (www.eLibraryHub.com) in 2001 to complement its network of physical libraries. Its website provides access to a rich content of some 10,000 eBooks and electronic magazines.

Popular eBook downloads from Palm (http://ebooks.palm.com/) or free third-party websites include classic novels, contemporary fiction, reference tools, scientific literature, business guides and self-improvement manuals.

Palm Inc did not reveal how many Asians have downloaded its software to read eBooks. The company predicts that the volume of consumed electronic literature will go up following increased accessibility to eBook-compatible devices especially smart phones.

"While we saw some competition for a dominating eBook format a few years ago, nowadays more applications with various formats and an increasing number of eBooks in the market provide users with a wider choice," says McKnight.

Bill McCoy, general manager of digital publishing at Adobe Systems Inc -- another eBook reader vendor -- believes some segments in the United States are adopting eBooks faster than others.

In learning institutions such as schools, for example, digital downloads allow students to have access to many textbooks and technical references online.

In general, says McCoy, eBooks are starting to catch on across genres and market segments.

In 2001 when eBooks first arose as a concept, the stereotype was of geeks reading science fiction on their Palm Pilots.

But now Harlequin, the largest publisher of romance novels, whose biggest readership is mature women, is experiencing tremendous growth in eBook and has become the first major publisher to have its whole front list in eBook form.

Public libraries in the United States are rapidly adopting eBook lending and their statistics on eBook loans roughly match those of printed books.

For example, about 50 per cent of the borrowed content is fiction, whether eBook or printed book.

Adobe believes for eBook market to mature, publishers need to be able to produce eBooks at a low cost and consumers need the ability to acquire eBooks from multiple sources and use them on whatever device they choose.

One way is to push for standards, after many years of format fragmentation.

Adobe has collaborated with a group of publishers and vendors in the International Digital Publishing Forum to establish EPUB (Electronic Publishing), which is an open standard for eBooks.

This standard also complements PDF (Portable Document Feeder), a format that enables a document to be distributed on different systems while preserving the text layout (www.tripod.lycos.co.uk/support/glossary/p/).

The other trend that Adobe sees evolving in eBook is the inclusion of social elements for consumers to communicate with their friends. This means consumers do not just want to read an eBook, they also want to communicate.

McCoy says people are authoring digital content on their mobile phones in Japan while students and instructors are sharing annotations on digital texts in universities in the United States.

Furthermore, people are also writing books collaboratively on Wikis, which is often used to create collaborative websites and community websites.

TECHNOLOGY: Slow and steady growth of eBooks