2 Jan 2010 by Chris     No Comments    Posted under: Entertainment

People don’t read any more

I was disappointed enough that I couldn’t think of a single new album which excited me in 2009. But it was even more alarming to look at the pile of unread books by my bedside and realise that I’d probably read fewer books in 2009 than in any year since I learned to read.

But hang on a minute. I’m giving myself more relaxation time at home nowadays than I have for many years, and I’m not a telly addict. So what’s going on? The answer is that I’m reading far more current affairs material than ever before. A lot more. This might be newspapers and magazines (print on paper is certainly not dead in this household), but equally it might be blogs. I spend hours curled up on the sofa with a laptop, reading people as diverse as Stephen Fry, Philip Bloom, Richard Taylor, Robert Cringely and probably a hundred more, reflecting my hobbies and interests, both leisure and professional. Then there are the many articles and blog posts which I get directed to thanks to recommendations on Twitter.

In fact, I’d hazard a guess that I’ve probably done more reading in 2009 than in any year since I learned to read.

The thing about most of this stuff is that it’s best consumed now, either because it’s topical, or simply because it’s such a specific interest of mine that I’m anxious to read it as soon as I’m aware of its existence. The result is that the less pressing reading material, including all those books which I continue to buy, never gets high enough up the to-do list to actually get read.

The hub of my on-screen reading is my RSS Reader. This doesn’t discriminate between the sources of information, presenting them simply in the chronological order that the articles were published. And I like that. What I’d really like is for other media, such as newspapers and magazines, to be inserted into that information stream. And why not books – albeit in chinks such as chapters – while we’re at it? It’s the reading version of shuffle play, which has taken over the world in the past decade. That would be really cool.

The problem with the RSS reader is that it’s never taken off as a mainstream product. What it needs is its own iTunes. An application which is as intuitive to use, and more importantly, as desirable to use. If it could bring together blogs, books, magazines and newspapers in one uniformly presented stream, I think it would completely fit in with the way people tend to think nowadays. Of course, it could run on a laptop, but it could be a lot cooler on a dedicated device, not dissimilar to a Kindle or any of the alternatives which might still succeed if only their manufacturers can think up good enough names and get those into everyday usage.

A couple of years ago, Steve Jobs dismissed the ebook reader, saying: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore”. But he was referring to books (particularly fiction, I suspect). He knows as well as anyone, that – like me – people do read, just not in the same way.

An Apple device which was a pleasure to use (like the iPhone) and which made reading material of any sort accessible in a uniform way (like iTunes) will be massive. Of course it’s on the way. Every publisher will be forced to provide their output in a compatible format just to survive, but Apple’s demonstration that you can extract far more money out of consumers by making payments easy (like iPhone Apps) will allow these publishers to survive – and prosper.

It’ll also revolutionise marketing, because if you’re publishing for your own benefit, your output can be the equivalent of the free apps on the Apple Apps Store. How this all develops is going to be fascinating. I can’t wait.

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