Added: 1 year ago
From: kevinrose
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  • Kevin please stick to making Vlogs or a tech show!!! I've been following your ventures for the past few years and don't care for any of them, Investments in Path/NGMOCO and I tried Oink but think it's silly, no offense. It just feels a bit too obsessive to hear my phone "oink" at me everytime you like something.....

  • @TheRealJoshuaDaniel

    Anything to make you comment, Douchie.

  • @TheRealJoshuaDaniel

    Fuck you, asshole!

  • the video seems so clear... i wonder what kind of video camera ur using..hmm...

  • ha! Nice call out to Bezos of Amazon to bring these ideas to market. Seems today he did with the newest Kindles.

  • Quit making videos.

  • Facebook Books

  • this kindle is the best design they can come up with ...touch screen will not be the good decision ...ok let me explain ...every one like or feel comfortable the steering wheel to dive a car ...if a desighner put a joustick to it ..no one is gonna like it ...so ..for me ..i guess this design for the kindle is the best deisn and i dont want any touch screen e book reader ..if i need any touch screen i'll buy an ipad

  • I dig this (lol). You sir, are a wellspring of innovation. These ideas are amazing and now I want them immediately. I think amazon already does the ebook lending thing on the kindle. I'm not sure if that started before your video.

  • You said, "further behind". Nice. Apparently you have a wonderful economy with books and grammar. Yes. I just quasi-quoted the movie "Arthur" and that means I do not steal ideas as though they were mine to begin with. Lending ebooks as your idea, really? Go kill yourself.

  • @Altayo there are many kinds of reading... can you explain what you mean?

  • You should check out Kobo's Reading Life on their iPad app. Through Faces & Places, you can learn more about a character or location in a book and 'check-in' with that character or location. We've also enabled stats and awards. It shows a level of innovation iBooks and Kindle just aren't at.

  • Interesting looking back on this video after a few months of the Kindle 3 being released and what it does in regards to the social aspect of reading (Book lending, passage sharing etc.). Looks like once again Kevin was on this months before !

  • lending the book feature is something that I think they desperately need to have. I think about the exact idea all the time and I couldn't believe more people weren't begging for this. the nooks borrow feature is crap and needs a huge redo.

  • Yea, these features are probably ones the guys at Apple could make happen.

  • Really really nice ideas... :)

  • I have seen this dude in a movie... what was it?

  • There is no way you could see the character's location in a world at a given time at a point in the book, unless someone painstakingly spent hours figuring it out and linking it to some type of database. And knowing their 'armor' and 'health' levels?! Ridiculous - obviously this would be for a niche gamer market only.

    However, what I thought you were getting at the ability to link to character bios and look up info, which would be cool - linking to wikipedia or some such site.

  • @Daeven1 I like fantasy books, and there are often maps in them, I think would be cool to see the path they travel evolve over time, for example lord of the rings, there are a lot of characters on different places on the map. And because it is such a populair book people would like to put these characters on the map! :)

  • @Daeven1 I like fantasy books, and there are often maps in them, I think would be cool to see the path they travel evolve over time, for example lord of the rings, there are a lot of characters on different places on the map. And because it is such a popular book people would like to put these characters on the map! :)

  • I really agree with all your points! New to e-books with the Kindle 3 and I would really love more social functions. The only thing that I guess makes this not a big deal for me at the moment is because i'm the only e-book reading person amongst my friends. The reference functionality suggested would be really great to have right now though, I hope this will be in the future.

  • I love connecting with like-minded people. Connect with me on bit [.] ly/9X23us

  • COOL

  • Damn good idea! Social Network is a must for app nowadays!

  • lend a book = nook <3

  • Good ideas.. would also like to see what I've called 'dynamic footnotes' - in the book, you would have the option to switch on dynamic footnotes for all sorts of things: e.g. art, music or biology. If you check the box for art footnotes, footnotes will become visible whenever a certain character or scene either references a work of art, or has inspired a work of art. Clicking on the link will give you a popup of that work of art, or a slideshow if there is more than one.

  • With dynamic music footnotes, a mention of a piece of music, will play (a fragment of) that piece. This incidentally also offers commercial possibilities: add a link to a store to sell you that cd or a poster of that painting, etc. It's unobtrusive, functional advertising and can generate more income for the author. If I read that my favorite character is listening to a certain classical piece or to rock music, I want to be able to hear it, especially if I am not familiar with it.

  • Dynamic footnotes for biology will link the footnotes to pics of plants, trees etc when they are mentioned. That way, those long, boring (to some) descriptions of landscapes become more than meaningless words.

    I've called these footnotes dynamic for a reason: the footnotes have to come from somewhere, of course, and that could be a wikipedia-like database.

  • It could either be an open source thing, or a paid service: you buy an ebook for price X, and you can unlock different types of dynamic footnotes by paying extra, either for a subscription, or for a single download.

    This would also be awesome to use with academic dynamic footnotes: a footnote at every fragment referenced by an academic text and with a list of articles or studies about that book. Image the usefulness for someone studying literature...

  • Apple will never allow users to lend their books. Lending doesn't make money.

  • I think you're putting too much thought into the device, and not enough thought into just enjoying the story.

  • These ideas are freaking amazing!

  • People seriously have to get out of the house

  • some of these ideas are great. the sharing function is being developed by another company (you can find it by digging deep enough--no pun intended.)

    some of these ideas are inauthentic, though. can we tap on the page of a real book to learn more about a character or concept? no, that takes extra steps. those extra research steps are an integral part of society and human cognition that will be lost if we let others do the work for us.

  • @elazarn2 Thats why we buy an ebook reader though, to have that extra functionality to pull up character information at a touch of a finger. If you think that it is inauthentic then just don't choose that option. But it is a good idea to have that information available if you are confused. I remember when i was reading Oliver Twist there were so many characters and having the ability to bring up character information would have really helped.

  • @MattCarlBMWZ3 agreed; that's one of the primary reasons i don't have one. but i think that someday ebook readers (or something like them) will entirely replace paper books. when that happens, i think all of the extra functionality will interfere with natural exploration of the world, and essentially there won't be a choice.

  • @elazarn2 Yeah definitely, even though all the extra functionality is great there should always be a choice to read the content in its native form without all the enhancements from technology

  • All of the ideas that you mentioned are all thoughts that I've had in the past. It's happened a numerous amounts of times where characters have been lost for an extended period of time during a book, and suddenly reappear.

    The integration of social networking within eBooks would create such dynamic energy, it would surely spark extended amounts of people to read more. I applaud your ideas and creative outlooks. You've collected the anguish and annoyances of many readers, and created solutions.

  • I can't see the character info working for all books, but everything else sounds amazing!

  • Le virtual book club, c'est le cash cow du futur d'un éditeur de franchise comme twilight. Mais çà doit être multi-plateforme (donc web)

    Cool insights !

  • I don't think we need social experiences for EVERYTHING! When I read a book or novel I do it so I can have peace and quiet. Alone time, if you will.

    I think e-books are excellent for people who can't hold bulky books or paperbacks when reading and for those that need large or brighter print.

  • great ideas man!

  • Gold! I love the ideas!

  • DONT LEAVE DIGGNATION!

  • the idea i like the most is the last one

  • i think the first on your wish list is cool but what if you pull up the info on a certain character and get ahead of your current reading location? that would ruin it. like if the character dies later on in the story and you find out due to the info link. but it would be really great if they upgraded the info on characters as you read on. so if you're at the beginning you will only be able to read info from previous pages.

  • Great stuff. A lot of the social reading sites like Protagonize, Fictionaut, Ficly, or Goodreads, or even social document sharing sites like Scribd, etc. already include a number of the features Kevin lists here... having them ingrained in a more passive medium like eBooks would definitely improve the experience a lot.

  • If those features came...I would buy an iPad in a heart beat

  • your lighting in this video is awesome

  • @DSKNguyen hehe random, but entirely important!

  • i might actually read a book? huh

  • Bravo! The "share-ability" of digital books is critical. Protecting intellectual copyright is vital, but sharing ebook content, marginalia, etc across the net is one of the most exciting prospects for ebooks. Kevin mentions audio (and presumably text) annotation, but video/image/etc. are important too. One of the pleasures of print books is that we can scribble notes in the margins, paperclip related content, etc...

  • Nice work, I would love to see a marrying of audiobooks and ebooks also. Cheers

  • Those features would definitely get more people involved, in my opinion anyways. New way to make reading fun again for a lot of people. Thanks for sharing, hopefully we'll see these features soon =)

  • I think there are some cool ideas here, but of course these social features (e.g., being able to track your friends' progress in a book) would ideally be opt-IN and customizable, right? ;-)

  • I really admire the fact he is willing to share not only ideas, but potentially profitable as well. Am pretty sure just the fact of making and posting the video, will give Kevin intellectual property over them (smart way to maybe make some extra money with royalties or licencing if they get developed Kevin). Anyway is always nice to listen to you. All the best buddy

  • Those are some great ideas. Even if iBooks decides they don't want to both with those features, they could make for a great 3rd party app. :) Maybe Amazon's Kindle app?

  • Wow, these are actually really great ideas. I love this.

  • The Barnes and Noble Nook has the ability to lend books to friends.

  • Being able to digg quotable quotes would rule! Good concise presentation!

  • the sharing thing is available on stanza for iphone is free !

  • Kevin is on drugs again!?

  • @thorington fuck You!! 

  • maybe iBook can also select some highlighted paragraph, which may shared to facebook / twitter. For example: This is my favourtie quotes in Hamlet: "To be or not to be"

  • Haha when I saw that armor and health I LOLd

  • Before doing this the Kindle for one could start selling ebooks that work outside of the Kindle.

  • How many pages are left in a chapter actually IS in the iBooks App.

  • I love all of the ideas! Brilliant! My only problem is with the first one: character development is like 25% of a book and, for me, is one of the most interesting parts.

  • Great suggestions, now someone email this over to Steve Jobs lol

  • You made some awesome points Kevin. Hope it happens!

  • Excellent recommendations, Kevin.

  • Pretty good, Kevin! Apple indeed should see this video, as well as Amazon...

  • @daanbrg please someone send that to steve jobs, maybe he will reply that "Great Ideas"

  • epic ideas

  • very good ideas :) apple should def see this video

  • Great ideas Kevin, sounds like Digg needs to get into the ebook game.

  • Cool stuff Kevin. I knew you were a great mind years ago on TechTv. It was awesome to meet you in NYC at Diggnation. All the best man.

  • Great Video Kevin, you should design ebook reader software.

  • The nook does book lending and stuff already.

  • My iPad already shows how many pages are left in each chapter... so not sure why that was mentioned.

    Other than that I like the ideas here!

  • @sonicxracer Because (according to Kevin at least) it depends on the eBook. Not all eBooks show how many pages are left.

  • you're a fing genius.

  • that would be nice with all of those features i might even consider getting an ipad

  • Nice list with some interesting features that I'd love to see in future eBook readers. Personally, I'd love to see a subscription model allowing you can rent all the books you want for a flat rate. Like the Zune store but for books.

  • @therevivedone A netflix for e-books, I would subscribe to that

  • "Does this device have internet?"

  • "These are internet connected devices, we have friends."

    Wait. People have friends?

  • Very good, well thought out ideas!

  • hey, I just realized that at some point in the future when all students have some sort of touch screen device instead of school books, this would be great for studying! the teachers would leave voice annotations in the texts and stuff.. man I wish I was a future student

  • @urfriendthepessimist I am actually planning to write my Final Masters Paper on that subject.... :-)

    But yes Kevin great idear.... I had some of the same for my study!! - looking forward to seeing some more videos from :-)

  • @urfriendthepessimist would be cool, maybe also the ability to ask questions about a certain paragraph, would be interactive studying!:)

  • Who edits your videos? I'm sure as hell its not you Kevin.

  • @TheOurVids he has full staff at digg and revision3 one of them :P

  • @TheOurVids I Think is probably Glenn

  • Some really clever ideas there, I think that some of these features would really enhance the social experience of reading and make it feel more like your on an internet connected device compared to an ordinary book or eBook reader without that connectivity.

  • wow.. if only my friends were book nerds :(

  • I love you dude, but you've got to stop using the word "random" incorrectly!

  • @JorSex From Wikkipedia: Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard. Sounds pretty random to me...

  • @batonrye

    No method or conscious choice?

    Are you fucking high? You can't be serious.

  • eBook publishers really really don't want you to be able to lend your book to a friend in any way. You also can't resell and ebook. they are the ones gumming that up.

    I really like the idea for the stats page. It would be neat if the percentage bar also had little marks for each chapter.

  • Very insightful thoughts! I really like the lend a book idea!

  • great vid

  • Regarding the first suggestion, establishing character information is part of a book. It seems redundant to display that information all over again.

  • Kevin Kevin Kevin....

    You should have started development on a killer e-book app for iPad, you wouldn't have to do it, just farm it out! We know you have the development skills at Digg already, anyone for a side project??? I'm sure you would have gotten takers...

    Pull this video now and hope the 50 or so of us that read don't start on that app now ;).

    Excellent Ideas though!

  • Your ideas aren't bad, but what about downloading the book into your brain.

  • Kev, The Kindle firmware update 2.5 has social networking features so you can post highlights to Twitter and Facebook. Also the new firmware allows you to see the most popular highlights in a book. Also check out the Copia reader which is centered around "Social eReading" so you can connect with friends. I do love your idea for a virtual book club Idea though and the idea of book stats. (From a Diggnation fan and Geek) -Mike

  • good ideas Kevin and if you or hippy glen did the photoshopping nice job. It was definitely easy to understand your thoughts on what needs to improve on ebook ui software!

  • btw, are you really leaving diggnation?

  • insane ideas!!! awsome!!

  • those are some killer ideas - i have yet to dive into the ebook world, but if features like this came about, there may be more people inclined to switch over, myself included.

  • Damn, this guy is creative.

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