Book ’em Danno!

The BEA event held my interest on many levels since this niche industry seems to be in full boom with the growth of a digital market place and embracing the coming change with wide and warming arms. The TCD crowd, on the other hand, accepts the digital world with open, robot-like claws and siphon hoses.

The most interesting parts of BEA were a blogging event and the many webinars that related to Media Convergence. The blogging event was a side show, not in the negative sense since I felt that blogging may have a bright future for independent publishers’ profits. I also found a high level of interest in and seemly active acceptance of using Media Convergence to add to or expand the customer experience.

Both groups are looking to make the customer experience a pleasant event with a 🙂 on everyone’s face. I can see the need for both industries to add to the pleasant experience of the customer. TCD offered what is known as indirect benefits, while BEA offered more of a direct, tangible benefit.

Media Convergence will touch many lives and at many levels, some directly and others indirectly. Book publishers and those startups at TCD are beginning to realize that making a customer’s life more orderly, fun, enjoyable and results directed should provide an avenue of revenue that has eluded many verticals.

Would you, as an e-Book reader, pay more if the book on the paper like screen offered dimensional support, links to related and supportive information, perhaps notes from the author or even updates that the author has made after the book has been published? And what about the concept offered by Thomas Pettitt in The Gutenberg Parenthesis, which has been defined in this blog and is being covered in some detail in a previous column.