Publishing

The Printed Word: Why Books Will Survive the Digital Age

I’ve always been a book person. No, I mean a BOOK person. Collector, curator, lover of the dust jacket, size, shape and smell of the printed word on paper. I know how books are paginated, printed, bound, packed, shipped, and how to write a publishing contract. My first career was the general manager of an 18 bookstore chain in the midwest. It was a great experience. I learned retail merchandising, finance and inventory management as well as the fine art of book buying. Publishing and book selling were a gentlemen’s sport at that time and full of mutual respect.

Of course the best part was I got lots and lots of books.

My collection grew out of hand in the late 1990’s. When I was about to move again I realized I’d need to buy 120 packing boxes for my books alone. You see, they don’t compress very well. Enough was enough, so I donated about half to the local library. They couldn’t believe it when I pulled up in my friend’s minivan. That was a nice day.

Fast forward to the digital era. I didn’t have an allergic reaction to reading on a screen, but it took me a while to buy my first book in the digital format. Much like my transition to digital music, time passed before it become a ritual activity. But there are so many benefits to digital books that I’m happy to say they have earned the right to coexist alongside my analog collection. Not replace it, mind you. Oh no, let’s not get crazy.

The biggest benefit of digital is I’m now reading about twice as many books as I did before I got my iPad, and here’s why.

It’s backlit, so you can sit in any chair in your home and read comfortably
Since you don’t need ambient light you won’t intrude on your wife’s desire to sleep while you read
You can carry hundreds of books with you without the weight and bulk
In the mood for something, or want to pick up on where you left off, no problem; just a few taps and you’re there
Virtual bookmarks never get misplaced which means you can find your favorite passages in a snap
No more driving to Barnes and Noble or waiting for Amazon to deliver
Trial is easy, as samples are free from the iTunes bookstore
iCloud allows you to push the content to all your Apple devices instantly, which means my wife can read the same book at the same time I’m reading it
The technology is great, allowing for a choice of font styles, sizes and backlight controls
If you come across an unfamiliar word, simply tap it and get the definition instantly
Packing for travel is a cinch; all your books come with you, automatically

The reading doesn’t stop there. Magazines, periodicals, professional journals, are all accessible digitally. I believe that magazines on the iPad far exceed the book experience. Just look at Wired or The New Yorker to see why.

Digital is great for traditional fiction and nonfiction works, but I don’t think it holds up for art books or other publications that are graphic rich. You no longer have the burden of carrying the book, but digital homogenizes all volumes. The physical shape of a book, trim size, thickness, paper stock, makes a book a book. Large books need to be large so you can rest them on your lap and enter a new world. Digital books are forced to fit onto either portrait or landscape. The fact that books come in countless physical forms makes them even more interesting.

There’s another drawback to digital. You can’t have a library in your home if you are all digital. There’s something very satisfying about entering a room that has wall lined bookshelves and stroll past the spines to see what’s there. When I visit someone’s home for the first time I immediately look for the books. You learn a lot about a person by what they read. It also becomes a catalyst for discussion. Can you imagine me grabbing their e-reader and asking for the passcode?

I think it’s critical for young children to see lots of books and be able to explore them in a tactile fashion. This is how they learn to read and how stories get told. From bath books and board books all the way up to chapter books, the book experience grows alongside the child. Try giving a 2 year old a digital book to keep them occupied in the tub.

I have some shelves filled with classics, Moby Dick, etc. I show them to my seven year old from time to time and give him a brief demonstration of why they are great works by reading a few sentences. He has something to look forward to and gets excited about it. “Dad, can we read that whale book again?”

Then there are bookstores. In the stores I ran, square footage was scarce, so we didn’t have comfy chairs and coffee bars. We wanted people to come in, browse, buy and leave. Then come back of course. The giant bookstores didn’t come along until a decade later, adopting a location platform modeled after the local library, but without all the shushing. That was a master stroke and I believe added years to the vitality of books and bookstores.

Of course the local library still stands as a hearth of knowledge in a community. My village recently passed a referendum to invest $12 million in a complete renovation and updating of our library to begin this spring. Some argue that we should abandon libraries, but for many people this is how they get their first exposure to the world of books. I’m happy to see libraries and hope we continue to invest in them for many years. I’ve thought it would be a nice concept to combine a library and a bookstore in the same space. The lending side would be much larger than the selling side, because most of the purchasing would be digital and no physical space is required. Creating commerce would provide additional financial support for the library.

It would be interesting to have the option to buy the analog book and the digital book at the same time, packaged together at a great price. I could add what I wanted to own as books while affording me the convenience of reading it on my iPad. Digital books are fantastic and I’m so glad they’re here. But book books will survive the digital age.

Passion and the Digital Space: A Moment in Time

There are over 133,000,000 blogs actively indexed by Technorati. Each day 900,000 posts are published to those blogs and they are read by 346,000,000 people worldwide. Well, maybe not all of those 900 million posts are read. Those numbers stagger the mind (see source here). But serious blogging is about words, not numbers. Content, not concept. Substance, not flash. Authors, not note takers. If one closely examines the blur of daily posts one begins to realize that most of what is written is not inspired, but contrived, perhaps even forced so the owner can stay on a posting schedule driven by an obsession to increase readership. There’s no harm in that, as most of us, including me, post to keep visitor momentum.

As the December sun sets on the newspaper we find ourselves in a rare moment in time. How we handle that moment is important. Will we continue to obsess over the numbers, or will we step back and step-up to the task of replacing a storied source of information? But it’s probably not about replacing traditional writing form factors. That would be very difficult, perhaps even impossible as I discuss in an earlier post here.

In my opinion, the element that produces the most emotional work is without question; passion. Arguably it can be manufactured, but only in small doses and it’s not sustainable. Even the great newspaper machines struggled to maintain quality and keep ethics on the radar. But inside that editorial meeting there was most definitely passion. Real passion is discovered, revealed, teased out after having been drawn in by some intangible force. It emerges from one’s inner core. All of us have it. Most of us don’t recognize it as easily as others. Some lucky souls see it very clearly. They tame it then shape it. One of those people is Liz Goldner.

I’ve known Liz almost 15 years. She has led a life that runs predominately on emotion and passion which has transported her from one end of the country to the other. Today she makes her home in Orange County, safely tucked inside the Golden State. She roams the art world and reports her observations on her site, Contemporary Art Dialogue. Technically it’s not a blog, but that’s not important, for good content can inhabit almost any form factor. (Full disclosure: Liz writes about me on her site, but there is no financial arrangement)

She likes to poke around in the artist’s mind and has conducted hundreds of interviews to help her understand why someone creates, which leads her to scribe about something deeper, maybe not so obvious in the finished work. This pairing of conversation with the artist and study of the work has shaped her brand of observation into something special. She writes mostly about contemporary art, and cuts across photography, painting, assemblage, even graffiti. She likes to think deeply about theory as well as style, and delve below the water line. Postmodernism is a speciality.

Of course getting a site like this off the ground takes time and care. One of the techniques she now has in the works is to offer a free eBook to her newsletter subscribers. It’s a smart idea to move beyond the inbox and onto the desktop. When I hear eBook it usually means someone has thrown together odds and ends and called it an eBook. But when I opened BC Space: Defining Artivism, it was clear that this was what an eBook should be. It’s digest in size with a wide range of topics and compelling images sprinkled throughout. Fifty-two pages of history and cause, punctuated with that special behind the curtain conversation with the artists. It’s a generous gift. I wonder if it’s too generous.

I asked her to reflect on how she came to develop this eBook, how long it took to create and in particular, why she chose BC Space as the tentpole. Here is her reply.

Steve Furman asked me to write a page for his blog describing how long it took to write my eBook, BC Space: Defining Artivism. The short answer is three weeks. But the real answer is more than seven years.

I originally wrote my eBook, offered free, as an incentive for people to subscribe to my newsletter. Yet completed, it took on a life of its own. I realized that the story of BC Space Gallery is so compelling that it could be the genesis of a larger eBook that I will sell through the Internet in the future.

Here is my story!

On March 30, 2003 (shortly after the Iraq War began), I walked down Forest Avenue in Laguna Beach, opened a heavy steel door and climbed the stairs to BC Space Gallery. I was there to interview gallery owner Mark Chamberlain about his exhibition, “Pretty Lies, Dirty Truths,” addressing the horrors of war.

I reflect back to that day in Defining Artivism: “Open that 85-year-old door, climb a steep, narrow stairway to a large, bright entryway lined with artworks. Walk into two well-lit galleries, the second with a skylight and black ceiling. Continue into a large open area, the combined studio/entertainment/performance area. Accoutrements include a small stage from the original Masonic Hall, a first-rate sound system, a projection screen, and large glass doors facing a quiet lane.”

As Mark and I talked, I realized that the thoughtful, artistic person facing me was leading the adventurous life I had always yearned to live. I was attracted to the artworks on display, to the spare magnificence of the 30-year-old art space and to the philosophical perspectives and bohemian lifestyle of the gallery owner.

Mark and I began a friendship that included dialogues about the relationship of art to social issues, and about the intersection of art and politics. Our conversations, in person, by phone and email, were punctuated by forays to art events, films and sometimes meals.

Tales of His Life

Perhaps because Mark sees no separation between his work, art making and his life, he often weaves together tales of his childhood and adult life with those of his career as an environmental artist and of the ongoing development of BC Space Gallery.

From my eBook: “Located in a commercial area on Forest Avenue, Mark Chamberlain continues to support the [BC Space] gallery through his Photographic Art Services. Within that space, he explores his personal artwork, while mentoring (and curating) other artists in their quest for creative expression – all free of the need for commercial conformity…Today, BC remains firmly ensconced in the building in which it was launched. It has kept pace with the dramatic changes from film to digital image making, while also presenting exhibitions of painting, sculpture, installations, and video, as well as film, music, theatre, and dance events.”

As Mark and I talked over the months and the years, I listened carefully to his words about the gallery and exhibitions and about the concurrent artworks he produced. As I questioned and absorbed his many stories, his focus, passion, courage and insights inspired me to be more focused, passionate and courageous in my own work. Mark was mentoring me to become a more confident and insightful art writer.

A year after we met, Mark invited me to a slide presentation/talk that he and former BC Space partner, Jerry Burchfield, were giving at Laguna Beach City Hall. While the hour-long talk about their ongoing Laguna Canyon Project (photographing historic Laguna Canyon Road) was fascinating and expertly delivered, I was impressed by their passion for the work and by their camaraderie. In time, I learned that their deep, symbiotic friendship was often the catalyst for individual and joint artworks.

Careful Documentation

Being a scribe, I kept many emails that Mark and I wrote to each other, turning them into documents. I also kept essays, press releases and letters that Mark sent and received. Mark and I joked about me being his personal biographer. What began as a joke became a more serious matter.

No one else was keeping track of the ongoing multifarious activities of BC Space and its proprietor – a combination Mississippi River rat (he grew up on that river), campus radical, sensitive aesthete and unbridled mustang.

Jerry Burchfield had been an excellent gallery chronicler, but he left BC in 1987 to teach full time. While Jerry continued to support the gallery’s activities, he no longer kept assiduous track of the evolving art space.

After Jerry was diagnosed with cancer in 2007, I requested an interview to discuss his love for photography and involvement with BC Space for 14 years. He and I talked for several hours, then refined our discussion via emails.

“We were a pioneering entity, showing work regardless of its salability, ignoring the tourist art tradition of Laguna art galleries.” Jerry said. “We even called ourselves ‘obscurists.’ Artist friends told us we were crazy to start a business like this in Laguna – that we needed to be where the action was in L.A. But Laguna was so nice and we had cheap rents and could walk to work on the beach. In time, we exhibited work by artists from all over the country.”

“Shortly before his passing in September 2009, Jerry said, “There wasn’t any separation between art and life. We did our work out of love, and attracted extraordinary people to share in our mission. Anyone could approach us about exhibiting here. BC Space was like living a dream. We created a playland that allowed us to explore art and life.”

BC Space History

Last year, Cal State Fullerton’s Santa Ana exhibition space was preparing to mount “BC Space: Mything in Action,” chronicling the gallery’s 37 years of exhibitions. I was asked to write BC’s history for a catalog accompanying the show. I spent four months writing, researching and refining my words, often with the help (and provocation) of Mark Chamberlain.

This year, I expanded the 3,500-word history into my 9,000-word eBook, Defining Artivism. From late June to mid July, I worked nearly 200 hours – often in the middle of the night – on this eBook. I revised my original history and added in many comments about Jerry and Mark from artists and supporters. I also added a chronology.

For three weeks, I wrote day and night, drawing from a bottomless well of creativity. During that period, I mused that art often draws from and follows life experiences. In particular, the artistry I was building in Defining Artivism was inspired by the subject matter I was writing about, including my many experiences at BC Space Gallery over the years.

Thank you,

Liz Goldner – Laguna Beach, California

You were forewarned about the passion thing weren’t you. This kind of commitment and care is more common than you might think among people who write vs. post. Certainly there are serious blogs out there that explore with great prose and structure. And a blog was not originally developed to be a replacement for a finely crafted magazine or newspaper article. However, a blog is a technology tool, and with all tools the final product that comes out of using a tool varies greatly. There’s room for all of it certainly. Take a moment and subscribe to the Contemporary Art Dialogue newsletter to get a free copy of the eBook and see for yourself. By the way, in case you were thinking of using the eBook technique to promote your own blog or site efforts. The bar is now officially set to high.

As the newspaper fades away and the torch of journalism (term used loosely) passes to the masses, we will need to raise our game to meet that awesome responsibility. Many people fear this moment because of the drastic change and loss of something tangible. Yet another thing we were so comfortable with has been taken away. Not so. This moment should be embraced and cherished. Celebrated even. Keep your passion burning brightly. If you don’t have it yet, find it. It’s right there in front of you. And most importantly, keep writing.

Who, What, When, Where, Why

As someone who reads newspapers, printed on paper thank you, I’ve been intently following the downward spiral of this industry over the last several years. I acquired the habit of reading the paper from my father and there was a point in my lifetime when nearly every adult read the daily newspaper. It wasn’t a question of whether or not you subscribed, but instead we debated about getting the morning or evening delivery. Yes newspapers used to be printed and delivered twice a day. If you didn’t get it in the morning you couldn’t enjoy it with your coffee. But if you got it early in the day you would miss the latest breaking news. We couldn’t afford both so we took the morning delivery. There has always been a desire for fresh news.

This year many storied papers have either closed their doors or moved distribution entirely online. Falling readership is closely followed by evaporating advertising revenues, so the math problem is difficult to solve. Popular thinking says newspapers are old media and are being slowly killed by the online household penetration of PC’s and broadband connections. Consumers can get their news instantly for free online, so why pay to wait for old news? It’s also said that this death rattle has been hastened by the explosion of blogs and microblog services. But newspaper readership was declining well before the Internet became a mass media as we can see from the this graph depicting average daily newspaper audience readership from 1990 to 2008.

But there is something else at play here. From 2000 to 2003, right in heart of online growth, readership remained steady. It has tailed off significantly since then but it took a while. Why? Perhaps because old habits are hard to break, perhaps it’s just a lagging indicator of the dawning of the digital age. Maybe Gen X and Y prefer bite-sized and instantaneous updates vs. more thoughtful, in-depth coverage that takes longer to produce.

Newspapers are handicapped in that you can’t really do anything else, except sip coffee, while you read them. If you commute by train, it’s fine, but you can’t read while driving. Once you are at the office we immediately log-in and assume our digital identity, probably eating at our desk over lunch while surfing… I mean working. No time for the paper there. That leaves home as the place where you read the paper where there can be even more things vying for your attention. Dinner, family, chores, even more work. I know in my home there is always a week’s worth of New York Times waiting to be read.

In contrast, National Public Radio has experienced steady growth in their audience. NPR reports that in 2008 they had 20.9 million listeners during their fall quarter, up from 14.1 million in 2000. Most of this growth came in their flagship assets, Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. NPR is in depth news and they tackle the tough stories. Not just sound bites or tabloid bait. Their quality is second to none, but I believe some of t his growth is due to their strong interactive efforts and the fact that when you drive you can listen to NPR. Is it the paper medium that is losing favor or is it the effort and cost that is killing it? Listening is easier and when done well, more entertaining than reading. So people still like to go deep with their news.

Current Situation.

PC penetration and high speed Internet access is accelerating, newspaper readership is declining and NPR audiences growing. Online newspaper views are not tanking, but they are not soaring, and the experience is overrun by ads and annoying interruptions.

What is driving this fundamental change?

I believe it is the convergence of news, information, multimedia and portability that we have been experiencing over the last few years. On NPR broadcasts they often say, visit our web site to see… Not hear, but see. Online newspapers have interactive graphics and video to supplement their reporting. They even drive readers online for more information or to see a richer display of photos or charts. And of course it’s the ability to carry this around on your smartphone or see it from any web browser that is beginning to make online the spontaneous channel choice.

Older consumers are still holding on to their TV and newspapers for news (80%+ and 60%+ respectively). But the Internet is only at 40% as this slide from Forrester Research shows.

But clearly Web 2.0 is not for 65+ no matter how point and click it becomes. This is where Google comes in. They have been accused of hastening the death of the paper with their black box search algorithms and zeal to digitize all the books on the planet. But they have said that it’s not their fault that papers are failing, or that their online efforts are not catching on. Google contends that online papers are slow to load and difficult to scan on their native sites. To prove their point Google Labs has launched Fast Flip. Their stated objective in about Google Fast Flip is to combine print and web news in an online application that is easy to scan. They have also added community features like voting and the ability to follow topics and interests of friends.

It is a very interesting experiment but users can’t really customize the content. Google has a pre-set list of publishers and your content changes based on, guess what, web searches you perform when you a logged into Google. The idea of making traditional news as easy to browse as the simple magazine wrist flip. Or, fingering through CD’s in the virtually extinct music store is a good one. But this execution needs more refinement.

Where is it gong?

The digital march can’t be stopped. It can’t even be slowed. Paper newspapers are fading away and will be gone soon. But journalism and good reporting will remain. This country was built on Free Press and many countries throughout the world still don’t have that benefit, even well into the 21st century. It is one of our hallmarks and will continue to be. The form may change but the function will not. Consumers need to exercise good judgement on what they listen to, click, read and most importantly believe. The medium has evolved, but the who, what, when, where and why of ethical and responsible journalism has not. Let’s keep that beacon shining bright. More from me about newspapers in a past post here.

Sources:

Medimark Research and Intelligence, LLC., via Nielson Online
National Public Radio
Forrester Research

Participation, Power and Social Influence Marketing

So much talk about social media. It can’t be ignored by firms who want to find more effective ways to market. Everywhere pundits are saying that advertising, as we know it, is dead. That social is the next thing. If we create an environment or community where customers can help each other and in the end your product, you will save money and get great ideas. Win, win. But how?

Senior executives of companies are understandably shy about going all in on this social thing. They see it as a potential loss of control. As a strategy that could easily backfire. Customers may say bad things about their products or company that just aren’t true. In some cases the customers may have an irrational grievance, or just didn’t understand something. Happens all the time. It’s happening right now in social networks everywhere. That’s the point. It happens and we don’t pay attention.

It’s dead simple. Firms that don’t participate will fall behind the ones that do.

I came across Ross Mayfield’s Weblog the other day. It’s really good. He posits a concept called the Power Law of Participation, and illustrates it nicely in this graphic.

Graphic Credit: Ross Mayfield

The tail defines the low threshold activities and represents the network’s Collective Intelligence. The community identifies their likes and interests. Some of this is tracked by web analytics tools inside companies, or on broader site-spanning networks, while others manifest themselves in the communities at large in the form of links, videos, posts and subscriptions. Once an individual or ideally individuals (and lots of them) reaches collaboration, moderation, and leadership, they are in the high engagement category of Collaborative Intelligence. They process what the low engagement citizens are doing, sharing, and subscribing to, then take it up several levels. Potentially all the way to the point of producing content, even product ideas. This principle maps nicely to Forrester Research’s Ladder of Participation concept of Internet users.

We know that Google allows their engineers to spend 20% of their company time on pet projects to help foster innovation. Now that is a scary thing for mainstream company executives. And it has been said that Google is the best beta company ever, but they need to finish some things in order to grow up. There is certainly proof they have done both. Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO has said.

Virtually everything new seems to come from the 20 percent of their time engineers here are expected to spend on side projects. They certainly don’t come out of the management team.

This gives us a different way to think about social networks. As an equivalent to the 20% Google grants it’s employees, except much better. Firms should start off by working the tail of Mr. Mayfield’s Law of Participation, by leveraging content they already have, or can aggregate without much effort. This will pull consumers to their site. Further up the curve it will be necessary to create influencer marketing programs that will push vs. pull. No one can say for sure where it will go, so trying to have a 5 year strategy doesn’t make any sense. Most companies don’t have the skills in house right now anyway.

By developing strategies and campaigns for each phase of this curve, companies can begin to shape and measure the practice of Social Influence Marketing.

It’s a convergence of publishing, product development and service in a social network of prospects and customers. More to come.

Kindle Makes Electronic Books A Reality, Without the Web

A colleague of mine who is an avid reader of books (the analog paper kind) is very excited about her new Kindle from Amazon. She was kind enough to bring it in for me to play with over lunch last week; here are my observations.

The Kindle is Amazon’s first foray into launching a big time consumer electronics product. They describe it as a “Wireless Reading Device” as it gets its content from a satellite vs. over the Internet. It means there is no need to configure it with your router, or commit to a contract like you must with a cell phone package. This feature is extremely important in appealing to hardcores who love to read and aren’t necessarily technical optimists. The Kindle is only one step removed from the book vs. living at the other end of the spectrum in the computer world. Amazon has really nailed the description and positioning of this product.

You are always connected to Amazon’s server where you can purchase books, newspapers and magazines effortlessly. The Kindle will hold about 200 books before running out of memory. No need to seek out a hot spot. But the real reason the long predicted electronic book growth may have finally arrived, is the advancements in E Ink technology. The problem has always been how to make a screen as crisp and satisfying to the eye as printed type on paper. The visceral experience books provide holds tremendous appeal, particularly as publishers have evolved their materials and technology over the years. Paper books have had roughly a 500 year head start over electronic books. That momentum will make it hard for the E Book to gain a foothold.

As I clicked through, the device was quite a nice experience. The screen is of course the main event, and reading was satisfying. The font was clean and appropriately spaced. Navigating back and forth sets off a fade out/in transition that is a little jarring at first, but something I’m sure you would get used to quickly. The user interface was intuitive and relied mainly on a small roller located at the bottom right. It is equivalent to an iPod or Blackberry track wheel. Several times I accidentally hit the large click bars found on the right and left sides of the Kindle that caused the page to change before I was ready. The letter buttons at the bottom (not quite worthy of calling them a keyboard) were arched, making thumb access easier.

This device delivers on the Wireless Reading promise. Certainly more work on the design will be necessary, but this is the first generation. There are some pretty big missed opportunities; the cover is one. The Kindle nestles nicely into a black leather book binding cover. But it is plain. No opportunity to engrave your initials into the leather, no fancy stitching, and no branding whatsoever. Also, if you have the Kindle in a briefcase (and you will) the cover presses against the interface and causes unintentional clicks.

All in all, it’s a great first generation; congratulations Amazon. But will it succeed as a consumer electronics product? It’s $399, which buys a lot of analog books. Right now it is out of stock, so if you really, really want one you can’t get one. And since Amazon has no bricks and mortar locations, consumers can’t try it out before deciding to fork over the cash. Sure the iPhone was $400 to $600, but if you wanted one it was available. and you could try it in the Apple stores. This points to an overall weakness in Amazon. Their marketing and advertising needs some shoring up. I view them as a research and development stock and they have proven innovation with their web platform and recommendation engine that is best-in-class. This launch is in natural keeping to that core.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s visionary was quoted at the Macworld Expo as saying, “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is; the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.” I think Mr. Jobs has missed the point. Book sales definitely fluctuate, but the publishing business is in no danger of collapse. It did not stumble the way the music industry has done, and their physical destinations get better and better. Readers read. Gen X and Y will likely welcome a digital reading device.

The big question is can Amazon do it alone? Partnerships with publishers and/or bookstores may be necessary for Amazon to succeed. But why would publishing houses or the big book chains want to partner? Isn’t this cutting into their business? The answer is, not now, and not for a long time. I see the Kindle and other copycat devices that will surely be launched, as complimenting the book for many, many years. The Kindle is great for travelers, commuters, vacations and those that are heavy newspaper readers, but only occasionally read a book.

I used to run a small, regional bookstore chain in the ’80s, and as a result have a love of the book. Every time I move it takes weeks to pack up my collection. But I am also keen on technology. As such, both electronic and analog books could easily occupy a space in my life. Another example of convergence in action.

There are probably a lot of people in my category. So as the design improvements are made and the price becomes reasonable, I predict this type of device, will find a place in the market. Amazon got their first.