Client question analysis section

As the materials that are now published in books are learned through computer screens, what about the form will stay the same and what will change? authorship, editing, presentation style, stored locally?
Through the selection of a few scenarios, we shall be able to answer the given questions in much better detail. However, a shortlist of major expectancies/thoughts can be given:

• Most books shall be published in the same manner as ebooks will. The discussion here is not whether which has preference, but how publishers and the readers will go and act: many articles mention the chicken and egg problem. There is no need, so why create e-books and on the other hand: there are no e-books, so why bother?
• Authorship is one of the major issues with regard to the future of e-books - many fear the dilution of the protection possibilities, others fear the trouble of DRM arising.
• Most naturally, the style of the books shall change - major distinction being the book and the e-book (physiology), however, typesetting may be different etcetera. Nothing really surprising here.
• The issue of DRM has been touched lightly already - there is a worldwide discussion in which not only books are discussed, but also other types of media: e-books are easily copied and shared amongst others than a physical book itself (a xerox machine consumes a lot of time!). Here, the battle is not against sharing, but about trying to find out what is the best solution against copying and public trust, or more specifically, trust in the public.
• The future shall have to decide on e-book standardisation: currently there is a major list of different types of readers and an even longer list of different e-book file types.
• All readers shall have to decide which they prefer, physical or electronical, the electronic book has no big attraction in the short term. Still many people prefer printed books as the reading experience is much more comfortable.

closely related question:

• will there be parallel publishing of a book on screen and print, and if so, will they be mostly similar or will it be a largely different production (such as a novel and movie).

• what will be the role, if any, of scanned books in the future ecology? sales tool? reference work for searching? only old books will be used this way? old books wont be used even on screens by the general public?

different question:

• certain types of books are large part gone already: books of court opinions, phonebooks, readers guide to periodical literature... Given the types of books that are out there, what will they morph or disappear into a computer service?

-brewster kahle