Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

CNET has an article entitled “iPod at 5: The little gadget that could,” which talks about the rise of the iPod and how it almost single-handedly saved Apple. In view of the “Print is Dead” debate, I think the iPod was critical because it showed how much people could—and were willing to—change their entertainment purchasing, delivery and consumption habits (in this case, towards music, although the iPod now is changing the way people are watching TV shows and movies), and that the change could be spurred because of either a device or a business model that made sense. If you would have told someone in the recording industry, twenty years ago, that this would have happened, they would have scoffed at the notion. Kind of like how people in the publishing industry are now scoffing at the idea of digital reading ever being successful…

Excerpt: “It’s hard to overstate the impact of the iPod on the computer, consumer electronics and music industries since it was introduced in 2001. The iPod, arguably, is the first “crossover” product from a computer company that genuinely caught on with music and video buffs.”

iPod at 5: The little gadget that could