The first decade of the 21st Century was the childhood of the flat ebook. It was the
printed book in a digital format with some additional features depending on which e-reader you were using. The eBook was still far from taking advantage of digital technology even at that time. The authors of The Horizon Report 2011 Edition at the end of this decade wrote that::
“The most interesting aspect of electronic books, however, is not the devices they are accessed with; it is not even the texts themselves. What makes electronic books a potentially transformative technology are the new kinds of reading experiences that they can make possible. Publishers are beginning to explore richly visual interfaces that include multimedia and collaborative elements.”
An immersive experience
However, the only thing that really happened during the following decade was that the audiobook was introduced in a completely digital format. Either for download or as a subscription-based streaming service. It was an interesting development, but far from the authors of the Horizon Report 2011 vision of richly visual experiences that make use of the technology. Since that is where the digital book becomes a transformative immersive experience. As the technology has continued to develop rapidly this could now include many different interactive features, gamification as well as virtual- and augmented reality. The latter could make the digital book merge with the real world in a borderless and unlimited experience of whichever subject or story you want to explore as an iReader.
Written by
LarsGoran Bostrom©
Storyteller PublishingLab
is a makerspace or development platform for interactive books. Where the main target groups are publishing houses and educational organisations. The features on the platform are characterised by flexibility, versatility and advanced technology that not requires any programming skills and are very easy to use. The user can totally focus on empowering the stories and other content with different forms of interactivity.
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