The e-book phenomenon: a disruptive technology

A disruptive technology is one that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry or a ground-breaking product that creates a completely new industry. In 2009, Milan Zeleny described high technology as disruptive technology and raised the question of what is being disrupted. The answer, according to Zeleny, is the support network of high technology.
For example, the e-book and its associated technology have emerged as a disruptive technology over the past ten years. The pre-e-book publishing world can be seen as a system in which authors delivered texts to publishers, who evaluated, edited, printed and distributed the published text to bookshops and thence to libraries and individual readers. The e-book has the potential to disrupt the processes for the production, distribution and use of authorial texts, and is already in the process of doing so, rather more rapidly than did the printing press.
The emergence of the e-book as a major phenomenon in the publishing industry is of interest, world-wide. The English language market, with Amazon.com as the major player in the market may have dominated attention, but the e-book has implications for many other languages and book markets. The statistics are compelling, but the scale of things should not be exaggerated: for example, in May this year, the BookStats report noted that the sale of e-books had increased by 45% since 2011 – 457 million e-books were sold in 2012, but that is 100 million fewer than the number of hardback, print books sold (Book Industry Study Group, 2013).
From the point of view of the children’s book market, the situation is rather confused, with contradictory research findings. A study in the USA of children’s reading shows a 25% increase in e-book reading in 2012 compared with 2010. However, 80% continue to read printed books and the context of e-book reading appears to differ from that of printed book reading. Further evidence is found in a global study by Bowker, which revealed that France and Japan have the lowest take-up of e-books, with 66% of French people saying that they had never read an e-book and did not intend to do so (Greenfield, 2012).

Only someone blessed with absolute certainty in forecasting the future can know exactly how things will change, but there is little doubt that the development of the e-book will bring about substantial changes in the processes of book production, distribution and use – and many of these changes will surprise us. Many questions will be resolved in coming years, such as: Will self-publishing of e-books continue to grow? Will universities enter the open access textbook market? How will publishers integrate their systems for the simultaneous publication of printed books and e-books?

http://www.informationr.net/ir/19-2/paper612.html#.Vg9CU_RffIc

7 thoughts on “The e-book phenomenon: a disruptive technology

  1. I think it is great that e-book market is growing. In the long run it will help save the environment. It will stop books form being over produced and create digital copies floating over the web. Although the market is growing so rapidly, I do not think that hard copies will die off. Hard copies will always be need but in most places, e-books could take over.

    One place in where e-books could be a benefit is in College. I personally think that e-books are the way to go because they are portable, less expensive and very versatile. It is everything a college student can ask for. We can replace tons of books with and tablet. Tablets could be as cheap as $50 and replaces the 100s of dollars worth of textbooks. E-books can help you find terms, highlight text and white down notes directly on the text. There would be no need for highlighters, pens, and no more flip flopping though books.

    Although e-books could help many people, there will always be people who like the hard copies better. Where will book cases go , what will fill them and who will keep the hard covered books alive?

  2. Although I’m not a big fan of e-book, I have to admit that e-book indeed will continue to grow, http://www.statista.com/statistics/190800/ebook-sales-revenue-forecast-for-the-us-market/. This link shows the revenue of e-book sales from 2008 to 2018, the trend shows that it still keep rising. It is probably because it’s easier to carry and with less weights. Since e-book is actually in the mainstream that universities would completely go in to the e-book market and it allows to take notes easier. Moreover, e-book is actually more environmentally friendly that it kills less trees. On the other hand, I don’t think the paper book copies will be dying, the emergence of e-book market probably will better balance the market because there are still people like me who love using hardcopy while some people are more comfortable when using e-book.

  3. The e-book is a disruptive technology, and I expect it to follow the same trajectory as so many other disruptive technologies we’ve seen, such as the iPhone (It’s hard to think of the iPhone as a disruptive technology with it being the established standard, but it was once disruptive to the cell phone market which was dominated by blackberry).

    As other people have mentioned, e-books will soon take over universities, perhaps becoming the only option. I would much rather spend my textbook money on an iPad with electronic textbooks on it, than spend the money on physical copies that I have to lug around.

    It will be important for any existing book companies to fully embrace the e-book movement, even though it can be hard to transition. We’ve seen many companies, such as Barnes and Noble, get on board with the movement. E-books are the way of the future, and hard copies will soon become obsolete.

  4. The e-book is definitely a disruptive innovation. I was one of the first of my friends to buy a kindle. I thought it was a great innovation because I didn’t have to lug around a ton of books. I could have hundreds of books on one small device. I have now changed my use to an iPad instead of a kindle. They basically do the same thing when it comes to electronically reading a book.

    Having an e-book is also great as a college student. I can have all of my textbooks on my iPad without having to carrying every textbook around incase I were to need it. It is a lot more useful than having a ton of books collecting dust on a book shelf.

    Contrary to this, I believe that children’s books are a lot less effective on an e-reader. The whole idea of children reading books is for them to see the colors and be able to touch the book. The e-book may not have everything that is needed from a paper back book. The New York Times published an article that agreed with this opinion. It stated that Times Magazine “found that parents interact differently with children over an e-reader than over a physical book. That difference may make children slower to read and comprehend a story.”

    This is something to think about when changing from paper back books to e-books. I think that is definitely a personal opinion. I still often finding myself picking up a paper back book and reading it instead of reading it on my iPad. It is definitely a personal opinion and I look forward to seeing where the trend falls in the future.

    Article:
    http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/why-books-are-better-than-e-books-for-children/

  5. When E-books first launched, I was a little skeptical. I always liked holding a hard, paper copy in my hands where I was free to highlight and annotate for English classes. However, upon entering college I have found myself gravitating toward purchasing E-books. They are cheaper many apps allow you to highlight the text in different colors and place sticky notes. Not only are these cheaper for college students, but they are also more portable. Currently, I have 2 E-books on my laptop. I can easily catch up on reading in-between classes without having to lug a textbook around campus. Although E-books are more economical, they present a problem with intellectual property. In-class we discussed the problem of computer hacking. It would be easy for someone to make a copy of the book and sell it for cheaper on the internet. Even though it is not their work, they are still making a profit. The “Business Insider” discusses this issue http://www.businessinsider.com/book-pirate-interview-2013-3.

  6. I think that the E-Book is absolutely a disruptive technology, and a technology that is continuing to grow. Another way that the E-Book disrupts/disrupted the former market is that the E-Book opens up the market to almost any author. It allows for anyone, without the need for a publishing company, to be able to share their creations with the rest of us for profit. Before the E-Book, if an author wanted to get his/her book out there they needed to get backed by a publishing company who had the money to print and distribute their work in mass. This whole process takes a lot of time, money, any dedication for a first time author. The E-Book allows anyone, regardless of career or net worth, the ability to share their creations with the rest of us.

    I also find that this trend, facilitated by technology, is not restricted to the book industry. The video and movie world, such as Hollywood, has seen a huge distribution due websites, namely YouTube. YouTube has eliminated the barrier between media creation an media sharing. No longer do artists around the world need an agent, producer, and a lot of money to create a film. All they need is a YouTube.com account. The disruptive technology that is YouTube has created a more open, more direct line between the media creators and the media consumers.

    Check out this article that talks about other ways YouTube has changed the face of the video industry: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/youtube-changed-the-world/27206

  7. I think that the e-book market will continue to grow. In fact I believe that the book industry will go the same way as the music industry. There will always be people who do not adapt and will continue to purchase books. You see this with the music industry now too. People still buy CDs and are slow to adapting to new technology. We already see the effects of the e-book market. Borders no longer exists and Barnes and Noble offers the Nook. Amazon is also a big reason book stores are suffering.

    I also think this is a great opportunity for universities. I have purchased a couple e-textbooks and they are always cheaper and easier to use. I think universities should offer e-textbooks as a cheaper alternative to hard copies of textbooks. Chegg is taking advantage of the e-textbook market and making money as indicated in this Rueters article. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/03/chegg-results-idUSL3N10E5CM20150803)

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