Long Bet on Reading Patterns

IN FIVE YEARS' TIME, I think I'll still have a bookshelf as my favourite late evening reading zone. That isn't what some readers think--they believe Apple's newly launched iPad will save print publishers, cause more people to read on their laps, and actually pay to read books and articles that they download. Will an iPad actually change consumer behaviour so much that people will start to read more because of it? Will an iPad actually change consumer psychology so radically so more people will pay for the digital version of a paper that they don't buy from their newsagents? I wonder how many of my readers would pay to hear Adam Curry streaming his hour-long show. Writing in the Financial Times, John Gapper offers a cautionary notes. He knows publishers can "go to town with words and pictures" but that "it is expensive and hard to make it profitable. The iPad is an alluring vision of the digital future for publishers, but a scary one too." I'm keeping my bookshelves polished.

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John Gapper -- "The iPad's Scary Counter-Revolution" in the Financial Times, 9 April 2010.

Alan Rusbridger -- "I was shown the media's future 16 years ago: now with the iPad, it's here" in The Sunday Observer, 11 April 2010.

Previously -- "The Daily Source Code is Back, March 20, 2010.

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