The new economy of book publishing

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Prediction-physical print books will be extinct in 5 years.

Will physical books be gone in five years? - CNN.com

 

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Prediction-physical print books will be extinct in 5 years.

Will physical books be gone in five years? - CNN.com

He's just a teeny, tiny bit biased, I think. I had to chuckle to myself at this part:

"It will be in five years," said Negroponte. "The physical medium cannot be distributed to enough people. When you go to Africa, half a million people want books ... you can't send the physical thing."

And of course, he's the one to do it. 500,000 laptops @ $199 a pop is only $99.5 million.


He also totally missed the boat here:

"That's what cell phones did," Negroponte said. "Cell phones were more popular in Cambodia and Uganda because they didn't have phones. We had phones in this country, and we were very late to the table. They're going to adopt e-books much faster than we do."

Cell phones are more popular in developing nations because it's easier and cheaper to erect a cell tower than to wire up homes individually with copper.

There will always be a market for printed books.

I should totally take that bet against him.