What is an ebook? The panel offered various opinions, I liked Larry Schwartz's perspective, noting that he is distributing blogs in the same format as ebooks in some instance. Larry noted that 47 percent of ebook readers had viewed them on computers, with only a small percentage of these on ebook readers, and the ebook market overall still being a small percentage of the book market overall. The big issue for ebooks today, though, is not so much it total audience as it is how to get the market as a whole to grow across platforms. Nick Bogaty of Adobe still sees Amazon's Kindle as the leading platform, even as others enter the fray (it will be interesting to see what happens on the 27th with Apple's expected tablet announcement, rumors of a tie-up between Barnes & Noble and Apple are flying about). Chris Brown of Pearson noted that they are trying to balance focusing on users as authors along with working with traditional publishers.

Larry noted that this period of ebooks as one that is still very early days with non-color displays, he sees Apple's iPhone and soon Apple's tablet may help markets for ebooks to grow rapidly. He notes that everyone want the "holy grail" device, they don't want to travel with just another device. If you're on your couch, that's one thing, but for a business person it's different. Nick noted that customers have demonstrated that much demand for ebooks in trade, but in higher education and education in general there is much stronger demand. Christopher underscored this point, though he points out that the ebook reading devices are quite limited today for educational purposes. Asked later in the session if he thought that Apple's tablet would be an effective platform, he said simply, "I don't know."

Multimedia offers new opportunities for book publishers in this environment, he notes. However, when you are trying to distribute syndicated content through the day onto an ebook reader, though, Larry noted that the limited bandwidth available on Kindle's wireless network for downloads makes multimedia and blog distribution on Kindle and other devices that package in "free" wireless access impractical. However, there is a gadget "blip" in the short term for ebooks, Larry said, where new ebook reader releases tend to be followed by bursts of downloads of paid content onto the devices. However, this isn't really going to lead to long-term success if people aren't engaged with the content once it's downloaded. Christoper observed, rightly, I believe, that the people who said "content is king" and failed to adapt their products to mobile platforms effectively are now having to think differently.

Nick Bogaty noted that this is likely to be the year of the iSlate, but then interestingly noted that there would be many tablets will be coming out this year, emphasizing the importance of content portability. This means Adobe as a solution to Nick, but Jan Palmen noted that perhaps the issue is not so much portability but what a book really is at this time. Perhaps content aggregation is no longer going to be defined by publishers but consumer-based, at some point. Eleanor Haas noted in a comment that she advises customers to refer to their books as "titles" for their books, so that they can find them as products, but to lose the term "book" as a marketing tool. I think that this is a good approach. The "title" may be user-defined, but my sense is that the book publishing industry as we know it today will split into those who will enable user-defined collections of content from any number of sources, including self-published ebooks that have gained an online publishing, and on the other hand those who will look at the "best of the best" opportunities arising from online content packaging that can be given packaging for more permanent and broad distribution, be it through print or online models. The latter business will have great revenues, but the online model will be the one with better margins.

Color content is a promised new frontier from Apple's iSlate for ebook and emagazine content, but I think that this is another false hope for traditional publishers. We have had a color ebook reader for years; it's called a personal computer. What about an iSlate that is going to persuade publishers to commit to packaging on this new platform other than the obvious one: an online store with proprietary rights. As Larry Schwartz notes, Apple's announcement may be important as a catalyst to move publishers into ebook-style models, but unfortunately for these publishers their customers have been spending most of their time with other forms of online content for decades. Kudos to Apple for devising a seductive way to allow media companies to feel that they have surrendered to online markets with dignity, but ultimately that battle was lost long ago when HTML started forming readable content on millions of PCs around the world. It's great to see the market for ebooks developing rapidly, I hope that it grows based on Web standards that allow traditional editorial staffs to do what they do best while enabling premium packaging specialists to do what they do best as well.