Developing a Future Version of E-Book App - Essay Example

E-book app of the of the Introduction Books as it has been known and purchased in a format that is long known and loved is being slowly replaced by a new trend and the dawn of books in new format. The format is e-book. The sales of e-book dominated the sale of print books from 2011 to the present year. The sales figure of E-book for the year 2011 was $90.3 million in February which is a 202% increase from the same period in 2010 (Pepitone, 2011). The e book market is seeing latest developments as newer companies and publishing houses are coming up with their own version of E-book reading app. Another trend that is first catching up along with the eBook tradition is the growth of Audio books. What the e-books and audio books have done is to certainly boost the reading habits of people. Even people who did not have time before to read a book are now reading up to 10 or 20 books a year thanks to these new formats. As the growth of e-books is seeing a rapid increase and as the sales of the books in the traditional forms is falling the publishing houses either have to shift their focuses on building e-book versions of their book or have to slowly rap off their businesses. There are newer designs of e-book readers and newer technologies that camouflage the real world are emerging fast. The present article focuses on developing a future version of e-book app which makes the learning experience a joy and attracts more reader to the reading community. Analysis of Elements: Impact Sale of books by medium (source: Milliot, 2012) The e book sales are slowly and steadily eating into the market share of printed books. The e-book sale for the first time topped the sales of pr1nted e-book in 2011. The above figure shows the share of e-book market share as compared to the market share of hard book and paperback. In comparison to that the e-book market has grown steadily from 14% to 22% in the space of 3 quarters. Market share of e book readers (source: Ovide and Trachtenberg, 2012) In the e-book market the share of Amazon is the largest at 60% followed by Barnes and Nobles at 27% and Amazon following at third place at 10%. The e-book revenue is posed to increase art a steady level as shown in the figure. The boost of e-book has meant a tremendous impact on the printed version of the books. Figure 1Share price of Barnes and Noble (source: Ovide and Trachtenberg, 2012) The rise of e-book especially the company such as Amazon has meant that first the small publishers and then the large publishing houses have to slowly wind up their businesses as people turn their attention to e-book and online sources to read a digital version of their favorite book. Even the largest seller and publisher of book Barnes and Nobles had to bring into the market their own version of e-book reader to combat the falling sales of printed versions of book. However Barnes and Noble’s stock on Friday closed at $11.95. Thus the value of Barnes and noble’s was $719 million. Compared to this figure the share of Amazon traded at $195.37. Thus the resultant valuation of Amazon was at $88 billion (Bosman, 2012). Barriers to implementation To bring out a new eBook reading app or bring out an advanced version of an existing version of eBook reading app the company bringing the software or technology has to compete with the already existing players such as Amazon and Barnes and Nobles. The rest of the market is dominated by Apple with a market share of 10% and the remaining 3 % is covered by the rest of the players of the market. In such a market there is little scope of entry for other market players. There may be other barriers to entry such as legal requirements. As the digital format provides an easy platform for the content to be used and portable to carry the books it is being widely used by the customers to pirate a book in the digital format. This is proving as a lot of challenge for the publishers who are facing a lot of problem due to piracy as the sales are falling. The social barriers that may exist are the preference of some members of the reader community for the printed version of the text book or a revival of other forms of books such as audio books which may lead to a decline of the market for e-book. Spending on course material (Source: Mitchell, 2014) A major sufferer of this recent trend on piracy is the publisher of the college books. Under increased pressure of Debt College students are now buying either used books at half the prices or is downloading the entire scanned copy of the books from sites such as Scribd. Com which allows the user to upload entire books if lieu of a registration on the site. Infrastructure The e-book reader that is to be developed may be in the form of an app which may be uploaded into any of the several app platforms to be ultimately downloaded in an android or other Smartphone operating any other operating system such as symbian or ios. The infrastructure requirements for this application are the minimum requirements in terms of hardware of the particular mobile so that it can support the app and does not crash. The better is the app made in terms of improvements on app the more will be system requirements because then for successful running of the app it will require better ram, memory and more amount of internal memory. For other versions of the e book which is supported by the associated technology cost may be a constraint for the mass market to afford it. The eBooks that are being released at this moment and is likely to be released in future will involve technologies where the customer will be able to interact with the characters of the novel. If such interactive models are added to the books along with dramatic sound effects then reading becomes an engrossing and pleasurable experience. However for all these changes to happen there has to be tremendous improvements in the hardwire department of the computers, mobiles and tablets. The improvements in hardware coupled with software improvements are likely to provide the perfect user experience. For that to happen the improvements in the hardware should follow in the lines of software improvements and there should be massive improvements in the computer hardware and infrastructure. Security The availability of books online and deviation from the print media has presented new opportunities for the seller and the customers. However this has also increased the chances of piracy for the seller whose published works can now be readily and far easily pirated by the customers. This may result in lowering the revenue of the publishers. To counter the situation the responsibility of eBook app creators or the eBook readers’ in general is to prevent piracy and increase the security of the books contained in order to prevent piracy. Another problem with e book is that once a reader has read a particular e book he can share the same with a friend of him and thus the company or the publisher producing the book is at a loss as the publisher looses valuable revenue in the process. To counter this situation the eBook company has to build in security measures for the eBook so that the piracy or any other security threat is countered. An example of the security measure adapted is a method by Amazon by which it does not allow two users to simultaneously log into a single kindle account of a registered user at the same time. Recommendation After analyzing the market and other aspects of the app and the general eBook market and the analysis of the elements in terms of impact, barriers to implementation, infrastructure and security measures of the e-book market it is recommended that the e-book is good market to enter into as an entry point. In analyzing the impact of the eBook on the books market in general it can be said that there is a boom in the e Books market. The eBooks sales are increasing and the sales of eBook topped the sale of books in general. Another area where the eBook sale is dominating and sales of other forms of book are diminishing is the area of college books. The sale of general forms of college books and materials is decreasing owing to the large pressure of debt on the shoulders of children. The barrier that exists in implementing the new e book reader is the fact that very less market share is left for other companies to grab as the market is almost entirely captured by players such as Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and Amazon. Another barrier in terms of bringing out new e book reader is the infrastructure requirement in the form of huge development in hardware requirements meant to support the development of latest versions of eBook reader. The other challenge that may exist for the creators of eBook reader is to develop a process for reducing piracy of the eBooks. References Bosman, J. (2012). The Bookstore’s Last Stand. Retrieved from. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/business/barnes-noble-taking-on-amazon-in-the-fight-of-its-life.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all& Milliot, J. (2012). E-books Market Share at 22%, Amazon Has 27%. Retrieved from http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/retailing/article/54609-e-books-market-share-at-22-amazon-has-27.html Mitchell, J. (2014). A Tough Lesson for College Textbook Publishers. Retrieved from. http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-tough-lesson-for-college-textbook-publishers-1409182139 Ovide, S. and Trachtenberg, J. A. (2012). Microsoft Hooks Onto Nook. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303916904577375502392129654 Pepitone, J. (2011). E-book sales top paperbacks for first time. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/15/technology/ebooks_beat_paperbacks/index.htm Read More