Technology and Books for All - Marie Lebert (reading comprehension books .TXT) 📗

of criteria to evaluate the potential of each product, but among the main criteria was the size of the relative markets. Books, I found out, were an $82 billion market worldwide. The price point was another major criterion: I wanted a low-priced product. I reasoned that since this was the first purchase many people would make online, it had to be non-threatening in size. A third criterion was the range of choice: there were 3 million items in the book category and only a tenth of that in CDs, for example. This was important because the wider the choice, the more the organizing and selection capabilities of the computer could be put in good use." (excerpt from the Amazon.com press kit)

In 1998, Amazon.com was offering 3 million books, CDs, audio books, DVDs, computer games - more than 14 times as many titles as the large chain superstores - to 3 million people in 160 countries. "Businesses can do things on the web that simply cannot be done any other way", wrote Jeff Bezos. "We are changing the way people buy books and music." Amazon.com quickly became the largest online bookstore, with a catalog of these 3 million items that could be ordered online, authoritative reviews, author interviews, excerpts, customer reviews, and book recommendations. As an internet retailer, Amazon.com could offer more services than traditional retailers: lower prices, larger selection, and a wealth of product information.

Any book lover could post his own reviews of books on Amazon's website, and read others. He could read many interviews with authors, and a number of blurbs and excerpts from books. He could search for books by author, subject, title, ISBN or publication date. Prices were discounted, with savings of 20-40% on 400,000 titles (40% on selected feature books, 30% on hardcovers, and 20% on paperbacks). The client usually received the books within a week. If he requested it, he could receive an email announcing a new book by a favorite author or a new book on a favorite topic. He could select some book categories (44 listed), to be sent a monthly review of new books by email. All things that were entirely new at the time.

What we take for granted now, i.e. buy a book in Europe from the US site of Amazon.com, or buy a book in the US from the German site of Amazon.de, was making big waves at the time, first as "unfair competition" with the local online bookstores, then for taxation. A first outline agreement was concluded between the US and the European Union in December 1997, and this agreement was followed by an international convention. The internet was decided a free trade area, i.e. without any custom taxes for software, films and electronic books bought online. Material goods (books, CDs, DVDs, and so on) and services were subject to existing regulations, with collection of the VAT for example, but with no additional custom taxes.

Amazon.com and others had great assets, but there were bad news for small bookstores. Like the small bookstore set up in 1971 by my friend Catherine Domain in central Paris, on the island Ile Saint-Louis, surrounded by the Seine river.

The small Ulysses Bookstore is known as the oldest travel bookstore in the world. It has more than 20,000 books, maps and magazines, out of print and new, in a number of languages, about any country and any kind of travel, all packed up in a tiny space. Catherine has been a traveller since she was a child. She travels every summer - usually sailing - while her boyfriend runs the bookstore. She is also a member of the French National Union of Antiquarian and Modern Bookstores (SLAM), the Explorers' Club and the International Club of Long-Distance Travellers.

Catherine visited 140 countries, where she sometimes had a hard time. But one of her most difficult challenges was to set up a website on her own, from scratch, without knowing anything about computers. Catherine wrote in December 1999: "My site is still pretty basic and under construction. Like my bookstore, it is a place to meet people before being a place of business. The internet is a pain in the neck, takes a lot of my time and I earn hardly any money from it, but that doesn't worry me…" Nevertheless, despite the internet, she was pessimistic about the future. "I am very pessimistic, because the internet is killing off specialist bookstores."

1995: ONLINE PRESS

[Overview]

The first electronic versions of print newspapers were available in the early 1990s through commercial services like America Online and CompuServe. In 1995, newspapers and magazines began creating their own websites to offer a partial or full version of their latest issue - available freely or through subscription (free or paid) - with online archives. In Europe, the Times and the Sunday Times set up a common website called Times Online, with a way to create a personalized edition. The weekly publication The Economist also went online in UK, as well as the weekly Focus and the weekly Der Spiegel in Germany, the daily Le Monde and daily Libération in France, and the daily El País in Spain. The computer press went logically online as well, like the monthly Wired, created in 1992 in California to cover cyberculture as "the magazine of the future at the avant-garde of the 21st century", or ZDNet, another leading computer magazine. More and more "only" electronic magazines were also created.

[In Depth (published in 1999)]

The first electronic versions of newspapers were available in the early 1990s through commercial services like America Online or CompuServe. Then, in 1995, newspapers and magazines began to create websites to offer the full version of their latest issue - available freely or through subscription (free or paid) - which was then archived online. There were also heated debates on copyright issues for articles posted on the web. More and more "only" electronic magazines were created.

In 1996, the New York Times site could be accessed free of charge. It included the contents of the daily newspaper, breaking news updates every ten minutes, and original reporting available only online. The Washington Post site provided the daily news online, with a full database of articles including images, sound and video.

In Europe, the Times and the Sunday Times set up a common website called Times Online, with the possibility to create a personalized edition. The respected Economist was also available online, as were the French daily newspapers Le Monde and Libération, the Spanish daily newspaper El País or the German weekly magazines Focus or Der Spiegel.

The computer press went online as well. First the monthly Wired, created in 1992 in California to focus on cyberculture and be the magazine of the future at the avant-garde of the 21st century. Then ZDNet, a main publisher of computer magazines.

Behind the news, the web was providing a whole encyclopedia to help us understand them. The web was providing instant access to a wealth of information (geographical maps, biographical notes, official texts, political and economic data, audiovisual and video data); speed in information dissemination; access to main photographic archives; links to articles, archives and data on the same topic; and a search engine to browse articles by date, author, title, subject, etc.

From the start, there were also all these zines using the internet as a cheap way to get published. John Labovitz launched The E-Zine-List in Summer 1993 to list electronic zines (e-zines) around the world, the ones that were accessible via the web, FTP, gopher, email, and other services. The list was updated monthly.

What exactly is a zine? John Labovitz explained on his website: "For those of you not acquainted with the zine world, 'zine' is short for either 'fanzine' or 'magazine', depending on your point of view. Zines are generally produced by one person or a small group of people, done often for fun or personal reasons, and tend to be irreverent, bizarre, and/or esoteric. Zines are not 'mainstream' publications - they generally do not contain advertisements (except, sometimes, advertisements for other zines), are not targeted towards a mass audience, and are generally not produced to make a profit. An 'e-zine' is a zine that is distributed partially or solely on electronic networks like the internet."

3,045 zines were listed on November 29, 1998. John wrote on his website: "Now the e-zine world is different. The number of e-zines has increased a hundredfold, crawling out of the FTP and Gopher woodworks to declaring themselves worthy of their own domain name, even asking for financial support through advertising. Even the term 'e-zine' has been co-opted by the commercial world, and has come to mean nearly any type of publication distributed electronically. Yet there is still the original, independent fringe, who continue to publish from their heart, or push the boundaries of what we call a 'zine'." John stopped updating his list a few years later.

1996: INTERNET ARCHIVE

[Overview]

Founded in April 1996 by Brewster Kahle, the Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that built an "internet library" to offer permanent access to historical collections in digital format for researchers, historians and scholars. An archive of the web is stored every two months or so. In October 2001, with 30 billion web pages stored, the Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine, for users to be able to surf the archive of the web by date. In 2004, there were 300 terabytes of data, with a growth of 12 terabytes per month. In 2006, there were 65 billion pages from 50 million websites. In late 1999, the Internet Archive also started to include more collections of archived web pages on specific topics. It also became an online digital library of text, audio, software, image and video content. In October 2005, the Internet Archive launched the Open Content Alliance (OCA) with other contributors as a collective effort to build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text (Text Archive) and multimedia content.

1996: NEW WAYS OF TEACHING

[Overview]

With more and more computers available in schools and at home, and more and more internet connections, teachers began exploring new ways of teaching. Going from print book culture to digital culture was changing their relationship to knowledge, and the way both scholars and students were seeing teaching and learning. Print book culture provided stable information whereas digital culture provided "moving" information. During the September 1996 meeting of IFIP (International Federation of Information Processing), Dale Spender gave a lecture about Creativity and the Computer Education Industry, with insightful comments on forthcoming trends.

[In Depth (published in 1999)]

Going from print book culture to digital culture began changing our relationship to knowledge. Book culture provided stable information whereas digital culture provided "moving" information. During the September 1996 meeting of the IFIP (International Federation of Information Processing), Dale Spender gave an interesting lecture about Creativity and the Computer Education Industry.

Here are some excerpts:

"Throughout print culture, information has been contained in books - and this has helped to shape our notion of information. For the information in books stays the same - it endures.

And this has encouraged us to think of information as stable - as a body of knowledge which can be acquired, taught, passed on, memorized, and tested of course.

The very nature of print itself has fostered a sense of truth; truth too is something which stays the same, which endures. And there is no doubt that this stability, this orderliness, has been a major contributor to the huge successes of the industrial age and the scientific revolution. (…)

But the digital revolution changes all this. Suddenly it is not the oldest information - the longest lasting information that is the most reliable and useful. It is the very latest information that we now put the most faith in - and which we will pay the most for. (…)

Education will be about participating in the production of the latest information. This is why education will have to be ongoing throughout life and work. Every day there will be something new that we will all have to learn. To keep up. To be in the know. To do our jobs. To be members of the digital community. And far from teaching a body of knowledge that will last for life, the new generation of information professionals will be required to search out, add to, critique, 'play with', and daily update information, and to make available the constant changes that are occurring."

1996: PALM PILOT

[Overview]

In the 1990s, Jacques Gauchey was a journalist and writer living in Silicon Valley and specializing in IT (information technology). He was also working as a "facilitator" between the United States and Europe. Jacques was among the first to buy a Palm Pilot in March 1996, and wrote about it in his free online newsletter. As a side remark, he remembered in July 1999: