Documenting the Media Revolution - Research Paper Example

However, the advent of the computer era and the development of various electronic based gadgets have allowed man to finally come up with an alternative to print media. I speak of the eBook readers that come bundled with most of our smartphones and tablet PC's. This paper will take a look into the history of the eBook, what gadgets existed prior to the advent of the modern day eBook reader, and how the technology has made reading a more interactive activity these days. eBooks first appeared on the market back in 1998.

The precursor of today's readers were the Softbook and Gemstar Rocket eBook Reader. These particular readers did not easily catch on at the time since most people were still adapting to the internet and paperless era so very little attention if any were actually paid to the launch of these readers. However, the year 2000 launch of Stephen King's horror novel Ride the bullet in pure eBook format called attention to the up and coming technology. By 2003, eBooks and readers were still trying to break into the market as paper books still remain the traditional favorite.

by July, Gemstar is merely a footnote in the history of the readers while Barnes and Noble pulls out eBooks from their stores. Critics then begin to predict the beginning of the end for the digital reader format. But the technology gains a new life with the advent of the Sony Librie which is a marked improvement upon its predecessors since it now uses electronic ink and has managed to reduce the backlight glare thus allowing the reader to show the same type of actual ink quality for the reader.

By 2007, the Kindle is released and everyone now knows that the eBook reader is here to stay. From that point on other ebook reader devices such as the Nook come into market play. (Kozlowski, Michael “A Brief History of eBooks”). Even print book manufacturers cannot help but acknowledge that the eBook is fast edging out its physical format competitor in terms of book sales. According to research done by the Pew Research Center: The population of e-book readers is growing. In the past year, the number of those who read e-books increased from 16% of all Americans ages 16 and older to 23%.

At the same time, the number of those who read printed books in the previous 12 months fell from 72% of the population ages 16 and older to 67%. (Rainie, Lee & Duggan Maeve “E-Book Reading Jumps; Print Book Reading Declines”) If one were to think about it, the rise of the eBook reader was actually something that was going to happen eventually. Our society is fast becoming a very tech savvy, gadget obsessed group that is constantly on the look out for the next big gadget that can make their lives easier.

In this case, the eBook reader came across at just the right time. People were already conditioned to reading newspapers and other material via the internet and through their computer screens that using the eBook reader was not something that people feared anymore. The technology also found itself vastly improved thanks to the constantly evolving structure of the laptops as well. Newspapers and book publishers acknowledged the fact that there was more money for them to make through the electronic publication of their newspapers and books, so it is easy to surmise that the publishing sector also had a direct hand in the decision of their subscribers to switch to the eBook version of their reading material.

(Fowler, Geoffrey & Baca, Marie “The ABC's of E-Reading). One reason that people are