From Wired’s Gadgets Lab column, Priya Ganapati has an interesting piece on Why E-Books Look So Ugly. Despite the advances in screen reader technology that make text resolution nearly as good as what appears in regular hard-copy, various industry reps believe that ebook sales would increase if they ramped up their efforts on aesthetic details such as typography.
But it’s not just a matter of design. Apparently, a big part of the problem stems from competing standards; Amazon uses a proprietary format (.mobi) whereas Apple uses ePub. This sounds a lot like the battles over web (browser) standards. Considering the possible connection, I checked to see if the W3C had weighed in on this yet, but after a quick search, I didn’t find any sort of definitive statement. However, TeleRead, which covers ebook developments, wrote a post last month on a Barnes & Noble subsidiary, Fictionwise, going with the ePub format. I don’t know if the ebook industry is looking to the W3C for guidance, but it would be nice to see it, or a similar sort of organization step in soon so we can see ebooks achieve aesthetic elegance.
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