E-paper on the horizon

This interesting article from Fortune goes into the e-paper possibilities for publishers. Tech makers are on the horizon with products that look like a thin sheet of plastic, but are flexible and display images and text on them. The Amazon Kindle is one example, but it's not flexible. Once the technology is ironed out, and the cost to buy an e-ink reading device is palatable to consumers (Fortune says $200 is the magic number), publishers may jump on board and license out their content for distribution. But author Michael Copeland writes:
"No one yet has figured out the perfect business model. Under one scenario publishers would license their content to an e-reader seller, such as Plastic Logic or Amazon, or to a wireless provider like AT&T (T, Fortune 500) or Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500). These companies would sell and manage the wireless e-readers and offer customers bundles of content the way a cable company does. You could buy subscriptions to individual magazines and newspapers or bundles of content on entertainment, sports, or business - or both. "

He continues:
"When the next generation of e-readers first hit the market, they will cost as much as $800. Will a customer be willing to buy a device that could download only the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and other News Corp. properties? Probably not. That means any print publisher that gets into the e-reader distribution game will have to offer an open system in which you can download any magazine or newspaper. A publisher that wants to control distribution will need to sign licenses with competitors that in all likelihood would rather be offering their own e-reader catalogs. Prepare for a battle royal."


If the question is: how do I make money distributing my content to an e-ink reader?
My answer is: you won't, not without creating an alliance between all content providers in existence.

The information you 're offering would have to be so locked into the medium's format that consumers could only get it through you. That's not true with anything online. Text is free. Photos are free. Video is free. Info is free. With rare exceptions like Consumer Reports, no one is charging the end user for receiving content online.

So e-ink won't compete with the paper, it competes with the Internet as a whole, and a content delivery vehicle called the computer. Locking your content so a reader needs to subscribe to your Kindle-like device means nothing if people can also get it on a computer or iPhone.

So the differences between e-ink readers and next-generation computers will shrink too. The next computer may have a touch-sensitive e-ink membrane keyboard, a flexible e-ink screen, built-in Internet connectivity, speakers, a webcam, and USB ports. In short, the computer will kill the e-ink reader.