Enhancements

I read a WSJ article by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg entitled Testing Enhanced E-Books (here) about publishers trying to encourage e-book sales through enhanced capabilities.

This article reminded me of the post I wrote on Shogun several months ago (here). Right now one aspect of the Kindle I enjoy is the immediate capability to define vocabulary words I don't know through the Kindle's Dictionary function. If I don't know a word I just press the cursor and "Boop" there's the definition. In the Shogun post I discussed how much more enjoyable it would be to have a map of feudal Japan to go along with the book so I could look up towns and cities as they are mentioned. Finally, a music companion would have been nice. Like Panadora an application that picks specific background music to go along with the book you're reading. These are the enhancements I'd like to see.

Then there was this terrific NPR story (here) about travel guides in e form vs paper form. Apparently paper won, but I bet only because the author used a conventional book that was modified for Kindle, not a travel book written specifically for Kindle. I wouldn't bet on the same result in coming years.