Is it a problem ?
If you have a small business, NO.
Small opensource and all-in-one platform will be sufficient for basic need.
There is no constraints in term of traffic, concurrency and traffic support.
More, you can grow a little with some technologies like cloud technologies or big cpu solution.
But for sure, these solutions are not scalable at all.

But for sure, SERIOUS businesses, dealing with big data, big traffic, and big money need SERIOUS solution in term in of security, performance isolation and behaviour. These all-one-solution aren’t SERIOUS solution.

There are plenty of serious technologies ; every specialist will have his own panel ; mine are java / tomcat, jetty, jboss / mysql(innodb), oracle / mongo, redis, hadoop / etc).

I will stop writing on the media dematerialisation subject. It’s no more a big technical deal, and it’s always subject of poor discussion and poor investment.
The subject is more about deploying right technologies for the right futur of your business.

I will continue to contribute on big data, big traffic, big and serious technologies You can find these contributions on http://www.techclub.fr

Since the beginning, internet is a (virtual) place where people can write, discuss, buy, etc… without being really identified.

When you subscribe to an internet service your identity is never really validated until you pay. Typically you declare a user name, an email, a firstname/lastname and a password to subscribe to the big majority of website. Nothing prove that you are really the person you say you because there is no way to validate the information you submit.

Following that, payment are never really secure because only based on credit card number with few other recordable informations (sequences of number and name are easily stealable and recordable).

For people who likes anymous being it’s a good news. For people who do marketing, business and security it’s a nightmare.

Really anonymous ?

If you are never totally unidentified, you leave enough information on internet allowing service provider to profile you.

Technically your browser store some information (cookies which are readable by web servers) and server on which you are surfing store logs (containing your ip address and all the things you do on the given website).

The ip address give some informations about the place you are (basic geo-localization with ip database). For sure it’s not sufficient most of time to identify precisely who is doing that, but i gives some informations about where you are, and what you are used to do (thanks your cookies or ip tracking).

Internet at home is less anonymous, because internet provider know who you are are and can do a link between ip address and internet customer.
Internet in companies is more anonymous on internet (outside the local network because companies are usually sharing ip addresses) but less anonymous because companies are usually logging all your internet actions.

Internet identity dematerialization (and creation) 1st step
Big companies like google, microsoft, yahoo (…) are providing all-in-one services (search, email, planning etc).
So you log-in with your emails (for example) and all your internet usage on these portal are logged in with your service identity.

Emails, calendar, your communications on these services can say lots of things about you despite the fact you are not precisely identified.
So thanks to their business intelligence, these services may identify you at 80% most of the time.

Recent services like facebook are more successful in identifying you because they are dealing with faces (you and your identity). But these personnal services are subject to identity theft, because your identity is never really validated.

Some government web services or private firms are asking more informations about you : these informations come from letter exchange, or from official paper in order to create a virtual identity identifyer.
But nothing prove that these informations coming from paper were kept confidential (a paper which can be read by every one).

One of the most successful service in identifying you is maybe paypal. Why ? Because if you want to have a non limited paypal account, you have to submit a credit card, read your credit card report and reply to them with an information in order to validate the fact you are the real person you say you are. But paypal is email and password based, so it’s completely unsecured for this part (they know who you are but they are not protecting your data).

The next step in identity dematerialization

Current government are working on ways to break anonymity on internet. Terrorism fighting was the first public reason for that.
But now public reason are also for economic (payment securization) and legal reason (fight against piracy for example).

It’s vey big debate in european countries and in France for example.
ACTA ‘secret’ international negociation deals with that subject for example.

French government is also preparing a sort of (usb) key that will identify us on internet when plugged on our computer for administrative sevices, bank etc. IDenum (in french)

So for sure you will not be a number (not exactly), but a virtual number in the next future.

Good news ? bad news ? What do you think ?

But, i was thinking it was a good idea to start this blog with eBooks, because it’s one of the most visible changes in the media industry occuring now with Amazon, Apple, Sony…

We will edit new article asap about :

• app store / game store (software distribution dematerialization)
• audio store and devices
• video store
• broadcast media dematerialization

See you soon on this blog…

This device is said to be a good eBooks reader, web browsing, mail, photos and video watching, music listening, notes-taking device.

Concerning the eBook part Apple has signed an agreement with Penguin, HarperCollins, Simin and Schuster, Macmilan and Hachette. An on-device nice application (iBooks) will be dedicated to eBooks shopping and download.

The device will cost between 499 and 829$ depending on the storage (16GB – 64 GB) and the connectivity (wifi only to wifi and 3G).

Nothing official, but for sure it may concern the already famous new tablet (internet codename iSlate). It should be expensive (1.000 $ ?)

On a previous article we were asking question about ebook strategy on this device at apple ; support for ebooks, newspaper, etc ?

Will it be via a dedicated store (application) ? via the current iTunes store (which is already selling audio, video and application contents). Probably via the iTunes store. Will the device be closed ? only opened to bought and signed content (like for iphone applications) ?

Today we were having some kind of confirmation concerning the gloabl ebook strategy on this device. According to the WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004575011092145509872.html), some negociation are currenlty happening between Apple and HarperCollins (belongs to NewsCorp).

Real, not real ? Strange to have this kind of announce few days before the launch. but for sure, we can take this as a confirmation, Apple tablet will be a dematerialization device.

The device is still american-only (english keyboard, english interface, american power plug). Buying it in Europa is subject to importation law…

Being european is hard with amazon .

You can have a look on the previous article of this blog prensenting the globality of the dematerializaiton process of Books.

Books were maybe one of the first plain old media object to be de dematerialized… Startingthe 20th century, new media were appearing (1st half radio, 2nd half tv), and there were the ideal way of broadcasting books… Yes audio-books were created. As mentionned, at the beginning it was as radio broadcast, then as audio-books on tapes, then CD and today podcast and mp3.  Audio-Book were (and are still today) successful, never having a wide audience, but always existing in all area ; leisure (all ages), learning (foreign languages, primary language), education.

But now, today, we are in a new step of dematerialization of books ; now we are speaking about EBOOKS, E-INK, EBOOK-READER… We are in the second step of dematerializing the BOOK.

DIGITAL READER

BOOKS were object. Logically the first step of dematerialization is to have a new object for BOOKS.

So we have these EBOOK READERS, a tablet-design, with a special display (an electronical ink), and a user experience which should like reading a book.

The result is most of the time nice, reading is easy. Only the size of the display may be too smal for now.

Lots of companies are now providing their reader, but we will focus on major models, which everyone can find in France for example.

1. Sony Reader(s)

Sony is proving two generations of Readers (around 6 models). The last generation is having touch screen.

Most of them are nice looking, intuitive, and giving acceptable performance.

2. Amazon Kindle(s)

I was not tested thes models. A very good approach ; most recent models are integration a free to use mobile capabilities (for downloading books). These are nice looking models.

Users on internet seem to be satisfied on the quality and capabilities (except the non-support of EPUB format).

3. Cybooks Opus and Gen3

Nice looking, agressive price, good screen. A real challenger for the other models.

4. other

iRex models are no more findable in France. It’s a shame, old prototype were really interesting.

DIGITAL FORMAT

1. EPUB

As you may know EPUB  is the digital format which is on the way of being adopted by everyone for publishing digital BOOK. This format created in 2007 by the Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) is an open format successing to Open EBOOK format. EPUB is currently being adopted by all the major Publishing Toolchain (including adobe’s one) and Reader (including Sony, iRex, Booken etc).

Usability : EPUB Books are always very clean, fast and nice to read.

2. AMAZON

Amazon is the only platform which doesn’t support directly EPUB. Some ways aroud are however existing . Currenlty it’s only supporting it’s own propreietary format and mobipocket one. Amazon is the only platform which still relies on closed form (for Publishing Toolchain and Reader).

Usability : Seems that Amazon eBooks are smooth, clean and nice to read (usabili

3. PDF

PDF is supported on most of the Readers.

Usabilty : PDF reading is not really possible on most of the reader. Reader cannot scale in good conditions the pdf book, and in normal size text are not readable (tested on Sony Touch Reader).

DIGITAL MARKET

Publishers and authors were getting 7-15% of the price for physical books. With EBOOKS they get arount 25% for digital books.

Prices of EBOOKS range as physical books and prices are quite the same between digital and physical ones.

MARKET PLACE FOR EBOOKS

Most of the READERS are coming with built-in EBOOKS. Except that EBOOKS are ussually distributed on internet.

1- France special case : la Fnac

In france we have a major company is pushing EBOOKS. FNAC is everywhere in France (major cities) and has a well known website. This website is distributing EBOOKS here http://livreelectronique.fnac.com/.

The price are not really cheap but the offer is very interesting and there is no DRM on the EBOOKS sold. Fnac was selling 40.000 EBOOKS in 2009.

2- Amazon

More than 400.000 ebooks available (only english one) available on the Kindle integrated shopping area. EBOOKS are bought on device and downloaded at a low speed rate with 3G or EDGE.

Very innovative way of distributing the EBOOKS.

3- Internet shops

Some website are proposing EPUB books to download.

Major publisher have also an EPUB strategy and online bookshop project.

AND… THE THIRD STEP ?

As we can see, we are on the way of having an EBOOK READER as a new device in our life.

Other devices like personnal computer, tv set or mobile phone are not ok for reading books.

The personnal computer due to his screen size (16/9) is not a good device for reading. The TV set is not transportable. And the mobile phone has a too small resolution and screen size.

But what about the coming internet tablet ? (Apple, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Android…). Personnaly I thing that these kind of devices running on MacOSX, Windows or Android may be very good READER.

But it will depend on the approach of the manufacturer. Not sur for example that Apple will include an EBOOK READER software on its TABLET… Not sure also that PUBLISHER will also authorise the distribution on other devices than the tablets. The response will come very rapidly and hopefully there will be very good surprise.

All the media and all the (media) industries are experiencing this big change.

You buy your music on iTunes, your games on Steam, book your cinema with your phone, organize a meeting with google calendar, call your family or colleague with skype,  contact your friend with facebook, watch your film CanalPlay (france), buy your ebook on amazon… and pay with paypal ?

This is dematerialization : no more hard-ware, all is soft-ware or virtual-ware.

So have a look with me, to monitor these inventions that will change our lives. And feel free to comment, participate etc…

Olivier