A Library In Your Pocket

(And A Movie Rental Store, A Photo Album, A Music Collection, A Shopping List...)

Thanks to Steve Rubel via Twitter for pointing out this fascinating article out to me: 

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Metro—Cell phones taking on many roles, transforming market, generation

The rise of the desktop pc (and later the laptop) shows that given a choice, people prefer "all-in-one" functionality with per-function tradeoffs, over owning multiple "one-thing-well" devices--even when the all-in-one costs more.

This is especially true in portable devices.

Books are portable devices.

So what happens when most reading takes place on a screen?  

• The average wordcount of a novel decreases--not because of smaller screen real estate as compared to the printed page--but due to the competition for attention among a device's various buttons, hyperlinks, and stored media.

• Printed books turn into luxury items: Leather binding, cotton-fiber paper, raised inks… But the true luxury for the reader is enjoying an extended work of fiction without the constant distraction of phone calls, emails, and text messages, or the temptations of the web.

• A new hotel chain will launch in concert with these trends, called: "The Holiday Inn De-Stress," and will promise guests rooms with no TV, phone, or internet access. The commercials will feature middle-aged men wearing sandals and tie-dyed T-shirts, with blood-shot eyes and stupid grins, answering the question: Frank, are you high? with: "No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn De-Stress last night."

• Readers will no longer pay to read electronic books (like they ever have), but someone will eventually figure out a business model that works.

Share your predictions in the comments.