Chuq Von Rospach on eBooks, living room electronics, and DSL:

There are three technologies I hope get to the point where I’m willing to buy into them this year. They’re all things I’ve been watching and wanting to buy, but every time I look, they’re not quite where I want.

I also want all of these technologies, but there’s a common theme behind why I don’t own any of them yet.

The world needs to move into a new age where content is separate from the the medium I use to enjoy it.  A book contains the same information whether it is printed, spoken, or an eBook.

When I purchase an book, in whatever form, I’m actually buying two things.  The most important of these is the content.  I buy a book because I want to be entertained or educated.  The second thing I buy is the media.  For a physical book, I’m paying for paper, ink, printing and shipping.  When I buy an audiobook from Audible.com I’m paying for the studio production, narrator, and the electronic store.  And finally, when I buy an eBook using a Kindle I’m paying for the 3G bandwidth and the electronic store.

The company providing the media has a business that adds value.  They may or may not have exclusive rights to the content in the format they distribute it in.  They are free to set the price however they wish, and if the pricing structure is right I’m likely to invest in having access to my content in as many ways as are useful to me.

The content owners want to get a share of the revenue associated with the media.  Audio rights to a book are licensed separately from the printing rights.  And I suspect the eBook rights might be another thing separately licensed.

As a consumer, I want a license to the content in whatever form I choose to consume it.  Despite how the content owners think, when I buy a physical book, I don’t feel like I’m buying a license to that book in printed form.  I do however feel like I’m paying for the contents between the covers, for the ideas, the insight, the story, the emotion.

A year or so ago I purchased a book from Amazon that was out of stock.  As I wanted to read it sooner, I paid an extra couple of dollars to be able to read the full book online.  I was overjoyed.  I actually read the whole book online before it was even delivered.   When I purchased the physical book I paid for the content and the pages it was printed on.  When I purchased the electronic copy, I was paying purely for the media in a different form.  I paid for the content once, and the media twice.

I want the same thing with eBooks.  I want to get electronic copies of books I already own for a couple of dollars each.  I want to get the audiobook for the cost of producing the audiobook plus a reasonable markup.  But today, in the majority of cases, I have to pay for the content multiple times.

Perhaps someone will set up a publishing company that manages things this way.  Perhaps Amazon will become it, as they’re able to sell me a book in electronic, paper, and audio formats.

I keep waiting for Apple to upgrade the Apple TV to be a real living room dominator. […] The big limiter here is availability of content, still; for Netflix streaming to my Xbox, only about 10% of the items in my queue are avaialble for online delivery. A quick look at iTunes shows that’s not any better.

Absolutely.  It’s all about content.  Apple TV and iTunes is a media, and I think Apple gets that.  The studios do not.  Netflix is about renting content.  Whether I rent it on DVD, or rent it online, I’m still renting.  Apple is pushing the right direction here, and the recent removal of DRM from iTunes music is a big step forward.  The rumors of streaming movies previously purchased from iTunes is a big step too.

For music and video, I see Apple as a force for good here.  They want to profit by providing the best ways to access the content I own.  Amazon can do the same with the Kindle and Audible.com (purchased by Amazon over a year ago).

Finally, to round out Chuq’s trio, it’s hard to buy just a broadband connection, without getting TV or phone bundled with it.

The idea of installing cable just to get a modem and fast cable modem speeds instead of DSL irritates me.

TV is just content.  Phone is arguably user created content.  I may choose to buy my content from my broadband provider, but I may choose to buy it somewhere else.  I can see why they do this, but I think ultimately a company providing the best internet connection without bundling content will do well.

It’s going to be a long ride.