Part 7

Pocket PC's first OS, Windows CE, was replaced in October 2001 by Pocket PC 2002 to handle the reading of copyrighted books. In 2002, people could read books on three software: Microsoft Reader of course, Mobipocket Reader and Palm Reader, the software of the Palm Pilot, launched in March 1996 as the first PDA of the market.

# PRC from Mobipocket

Mobipocket was founded in March 2000 in Paris, France, by Thierry Brethes and Nathalie Ting, as a company specializing in ebooks for PDAs, with part of the funding coming from Viventures, a branch of the French multinational Vivendi.

The Mobipocket format (PRC, based on the OeB format) and the Mobipocket Reader could be used on any PDA, and also on any computer from April 2002.

In October 2001, the Mobipocket Reader received the eBook Technology Award from the International Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany. Mobipocket partnered with Franklin for the Mobipocket Reader to be available on the eBookMan along with the Franklin Reader, instead of the initially planned Microsoft Reader.

The Mobipocket Web Companion was a software (for a fee) for extracting content from partner news sites. The Mobipocket Publisher was used by individuals (free version for private use, and standard version for a fee) or publishers (professional version for a fee) to create ebooks using the Mobipocket DRM technology for controlling access to copyrighted ebooks. The Mobipocket Publisher could also create ebooks in LIT format for the Microsoft Reader.

In spring 2003, the Mobipocket Reader was available in five languages (French, English, German, Spanish, Italian) and could be used on any PDA, computer and smartphone. 6,000 titles in several languages were available on the website of Mobipocket and in online partner bookstores. Mobipocket was bought by Amazon in April 2005.

# EPUB, a new standard

In April 2005, the Open eBook Forum was replaced with the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), et OeB was replaced with EPUB, an acronym for "electronic publication". EPUB allowed the reflowing of text depending on the size of the screen. Recent PDF files (PDF being another standard for ebooks) have been compatible with EPUB.

2000 > EXPERIMENTS BY BEST-SELLING AUTHORS

[Summary] In July 2000 began the electronic self-publishing of "The Plant", an epistolary novel by Stephen King, who was the first best-selling author to launch such an experiment. The author began publishing "The Plant" in episodes on his own website. The chapters were available at regular intervals and could be downloaded in several formats (PDF, OeB, HTML, TXT). After the publication of the sixth chapter in December 2000, the author decided to stop the experiment, because more and more readers were downloading the chapters without paying for them. Stephen King went on with digital experiments though, but in partnership with his publisher. Digital experiments were also made in Europe in November 2000, by Frederick Forsyth, the British master of thrillers, whose latest short novels were published online by Online Originals, and by Arturo Perez-Reverte, a best-selling Spanish author, whose latest novel was available online during one month before being available in print. In Brazil, Paolo Coehlo began offering free PDF versions of his novels in early 2003.

***

In 2000, Stephen King was the first best-selling author to launch digital experiments, followed by Frederick Forsyth and Arturo Perez- Reverte in Europe and many other then, for example Paolo Coehlo in Brazil.

# Stephen King

As a first step, Stephen King distributed in March 2000 his short story "Riding the Bullet" as an electronic file, with 400,000 downloads during the first 24 hours in the digital bookstores that were selling it.

In the wake of the media attention that followed, Stephen King launched its own website in July 2000 to self-publish his epistolary novel "The Plant" in episodes. The chapters were available at regular intervals and could be downloaded in several formats (PDF, OeB, HTML, TXT). After the publication of the sixth chapter in December 2000, the author decided to stop the experiment, because more and more readers were downloading the chapters without paying for them.

Stephen King went on with digital experiments though, but in partnership with his publisher. In March 2001, his novel "Dreamcatcher" was the first to be launched both in print by Simon & Schuster and as an ebook in Palm Digital Media, Palm's digital bookstore. In March 2002, his collection of short stories "Everything's Eventual" was launched in print by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, and as an ebook in Palm Digital Media, with an excerpt that could be freely downloaded.

# Frederick Forsyth

In November 2000, Frederick Forsyth, known as the British master of thrillers, launched a digital experiment in partnership with Online Originals, an electronic publisher from London. Online Originals published "The Veteran" as the first part of "Quintet", a collection of five short stories announced in the following order: "The Veteran", "The Miracle", "The Citizen", "The Art of the Matter" and "Draco". Available in three formats to be read on Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Reader and Glassbook Reader, the short story was sold for 3.99 pounds (6.60 euros) on the publisher's website, as in several online bookstores in the United Kingdom (Alphabetstreet, BOL.com, WHSmith) and in the United States (Barnes & Noble, Contentville, Glassbook). This experiment didn't last very long, because sales were far below expectations.

# Arturo Perez-Reverte

Arturo Perez-Reverte, a Spanish novelist, became famous with his series of novels about the adventures of Capitan Alatriste in the 17th century. The new title to be released in late 2000 was "El Oro del Rey" (The King's Gold). In November 2000, the author partnered with his publisher Alfaguara to publish the novel in digital form for one month, as a PDF that could be downloaded from a webpage set up for the occasion on the portal Inicia, before the release of the print version in bookstores. The novel was available in PDF for 2.90 euros, a much cheaper price than the 15.10 euros of the forthcoming print book. One month later, there were 332,000 downloads, but only 12,000 readers who paid for it. Most readers shared the password with their family and friends, for them to download the book for free. If the digital experiment was not good financially, it was very good as a novel marketing campaign to launch the print book.

# Paulo Coelho

Online experiments were launched by a number of authors then, for example Paulo Coelho, a best-selling Brazilian novelist who came to be known worldwide as the author of "The Alchimist". In early 2003, his books were translated into 56 languages, with 53 million copies sold in 155 countries. In March 2003, Paulo Coelho decided to distribute PDF versions of several novels for free in various languages, with the consent of his publishers, after his readers wrote him they had a hard time finding his books in some places and countries. He renewed the same experiment with other titles in spring 2011.

2000 > COTRES.NET, WORKS OF DIGITAL LITERATURE

[Summary] A writer and musician, Jean-Paul has offered beautiful hypermedia works on his website cotres.net since October 1998, while searching how hyperlinks could expand his writing towards new directions. He wrote in June 2000: "Surfing the web is like radiating in all directions (I am interested in something and I click on all the links on a home page) or like jumping around (from one click to another, as the links appear). You can do this in the written media, of course. But the difference is striking. So the internet changed how I write. You don't write the same way for a website as you do for a script or a play. (...) Since then I write directly on the screen: I use the print medium only occasionally (...): [in it] the text is developing page after page (most of the time), whereas the technique of links allows another relationship to the time and space of imagination. And, for me, it is above all the opportunity to put into practice this reading/writing 'cycle', whereas leafing through a book gives only an idea -- which is vague because the book is not conceived for that."

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A writer and musician, Jean-Paul has offered beautiful works of digital literature, while searching how hyperlinks could expand his writing towards new directions.

In October 1998, he switched from being a print author to being an hypermedia author, and created cotres.net ("cotres" could be translated by "cutters" in English) as a website "telling stories in 3D", either French-language stories or plurilingual stories.

Jean-Paul also enjoyed the freedom of online self-publishing. He explained in June 2000: "The internet allows me to do without intermediaries, such as record companies, publishers and distributors. Most of all, it allows me to crystallize what I have in my head: the print medium (desktop publishing, in fact) only allows me to partly do that. (...) Surfing the web is like radiating in all directions (I am interested in something and I click on all the links on a home page) or like jumping around (from one click to another, as the links appear). You can do this in the written media, of course. But the difference is striking. So the internet changed how I write. You don't write the same way for a website as you do for a script or a play. (...)

In fact, it is not the internet which changed how I write, it is the first Mac that I discovered through the self-learning of HyperCard. I still remember how astonished I was during the month when I was learning about buttons, links, surfing by analogies, objects or images. The idea that a simple click on one area of the screen allowed me to open a range of piles of cards, and each card could offer new buttons and each button opened on to a new range, etc. In brief, the learning of everything on the web that today seems really banal, for me it was a revelation (it seems Steve Jobs and his team had the same shock when they discovered the ancestor of the Mac in the laboratories of Rank Xerox).

Since then I write directly on the screen: I use the print medium only occasionally, to fix up a text, or to give somebody who is allergic to the screen a kind of photograph, something instantaneous, something approximate. It is only an approximation, because print forces us to have a linear relationship: the text is developing page after page (most of the time), whereas the technique of links allows another relationship to the time and space of imagination. And, for me, it is above all the opportunity to put into practice this reading/writing 'cycle', whereas leafing through a book gives only an idea -- which is vague because the book is not conceived for that."

Jean-Paul insisted on the growing interaction between digital literature and technology: "The future of cyber-literature, techno- literature, digital literature or whatever you want to call it, is set by the technology itself. It is now impossible for an author to handle all by himself the words and their movement and sound. A decade ago, you could know well each of Director, Photoshop or Cubase (to cite just the better known software), using the first version of each. That is not possible any more. Now we have to know how to delegate, find more solid financial partners than Gallimard [a major French publisher], and look in the direction of Hachette-Matra, Warner, and Hollywood. At best, the status of multimedia director (?) will be the one of video director, film director, manager of the product. He is the one who receives the golden palms at Cannes, but who would never have been able to earn them just on his own. As twin sister (not a clone) of the cinematograph, cyber-literature (video + the link) will be an industry, with a few isolated craftsmen on the outer edge (and therefore with below-zero copyright)."

"Canon laser", one of Jean-Paul's literary works, was first published as a print work using the first ODP software allowing artists to easily play with the form of letters (as characters). As a follow-up, a plurilingual hypermedia version was published on cotres.net in 2002.

In July 2011, the home page of cotres.net has given access to three literary works taking inspiration from both Paris and the whole planet.

"Solstice" (2008), a universal greetings card, is round instead of rectangular, to celebrate soft round forms versus hurtful rectangular forms.

"Agression93" (2009) is a short story about a minor attack in the suburbs, that can be read in four minutes when only using hyperlinks on the bottom right of the screen to fifteen minutes when searching hyperlinks with the mouse and clicking on some of them.

"Aux Jardins de Picpus" (2010) is a guided visit of the small gardens of Picpus in Paris.

2000 > THE ORIGINAL GUTENBERG BIBLE ONLINE

[Summary] As a sign of the times, with the ebook being nearly 30 years old, a digitized version of the original Gutenberg Bible was available online in November 2000 on the website of the British Library. Gutenberg printed its Bible in 1454 in Mainz, Germany, perhaps printing 180 copies, with 48 copies still available in 2000, and two full copies at the British Library. As they were a little different, both were digitized in March 2000 by Japanese experts from Keio University of Tokyo and NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Communications). The images were then processed to offer a full digitized version on the web a few months later, for the world to enjoy.

***

As a sign of the times, with the ebook being nearly 30 years old, a digitized version of the original Gutenberg Bible was available online in November 2000 on the website of the British Library.

# The Gutenberg Bible

In 2000, the digital book was nearly 30 years old. It was born in July 1971 with eText #1 of Project Gutenberg.

The print book was five centuries and a half old. Gutenberg printed its Bible in 1454 in Mainz, Germany, perhaps printing 180 copies, with 48 copies still available in 2000, and two full copies at the British Library. As they were a little different, both were digitized in March 2000 by Japanese experts from Keio University of Tokyo and NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Communications). The images were then processed to offer a full digitized version on the web a few months later, for the world to enjoy.

# The ebook in late 2000

In late 2000, thousands of public domain works were freely available on the web in digital libraries.

A number of bookstores and publishers had their own websites. Some of them were born online, with all their transactions made through the internet.

Alongside their traditional tasks of lending books or other documents, and offering a collection of reference works, librarians helped their patrons to navigate the web without being drowned, organized a selection of websites for them, and created their own websites with an online catalog and a digital library.

More and more books and periodicals were "only" digital, skipping the cost of a print version. From "static" in print books, information become "fluid" on the internet, and regularly updated.

Many authors were using the internet to seek information, disseminate their work, exchange with their readers and collaborate with other creators.

Some authors began searching how using hyperlinks could expand their writing towards new directions, creating hypermedia novels and sites of hyperfiction, while mixing text, image and sound.

Academic and scientific publishers began to reorganize their work and favor online publishing, with prints versions only on demand. Some universities made their own textbooks with a selection of chapters and articles from a database, as well as comments from professors.

The internet became mandatory to find information, communicate, access documents, and broaden our knowledge. People no longer needed to run after information. Information was there, by the numbers, available on our screen, often at no cost, including for those who studied in a remote place, lived in the countryside, worked at home or were stuck in a bed.

The web became a gigantic encyclopedia, a extensive library, a huge bookstore and a full medium on its own.

Some people even read a book on the screen of a computer, a PDA or a (still very expensive) ebook reader.

2001 > BROADBAND BECAME THE NORM

[Summary] Henk Slettenhaar has extensive knowledge of communication technology, with a long career in Geneva, Switzerland, and California. In 1992, he founded the Swiss Silicon Valley Association (SVA) and, since then, has been taking study groups to Silicon Valley, San Francisco and other high-tech areas. Henk wrote in July 2001: "I am experiencing a tremendous change with having a 'broadband' connection at home. To be connected at all times is so completelely different from dial-up. I now receive email as soon as it arrives, I can listen to my favorite radio stations wherever they are. I can listen to the news when I want to. Get the music I like all the time. (...) The only thing which is missing is good quality real time video. The bandwidth is too low for that." Ten years later, Henk has watched real time video, and read ebooks in the Kindle and the iPad.

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Henk Slettenhaar has extensive knowledge of communication technology, with a long career in Geneva, Switzerland, and California. Ten years after getting a broadband connection at gome, he reads ebooks on a Kindle or an iPad.

Henk joined CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva in 1958 to work with the first digital computer. He was involved in the development of CERN's first digital networks.

His U.S. experience began in 1966 when he joined a team at SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) for 18 months to build a film digitizer. Returning to SLAC in 1983, he designed a digital monitoring system, which was used for more than ten years.

For 25 years he tought information technology at Webster University, Geneva. He is the former head of the Telecom Management Program created in fall 2000. He also worked as a consultant for a number of international organizations.

# In 1992

In 1992, with an extensive experience in Switzerland and California, Henk founded the Swiss Silicon Valley Association (SVA) and, since then, has been taking study groups to Silicon Valley, San Francisco and other high-tech areas like Los Angeles, Finland and China. These study tours include visits to outstanding companies, start-up, research centers and universities, with the aim of exploring new developments in information technology such as the internet, multimedia and telecommunications. Participants have the opportunity to learn about state-of-the-art research and development, strategies and business ventures through presentations and discussions, product demonstrations and site tours.

# In 1998

Henk wrote in December 1998: "I can't imagine my professional life without the internet. Most of my communication is now via email. I have been using email for the last 20 years, most of that time to keep in touch with colleagues in a very narrow field. Since the explosion of the internet, and especially the invention of the web, I communicate mainly by email. Most of my presentations are now on the web and the courses I teach are all web-extended. All the details of my Silicon Valley tours are on the web. Without the internet we wouldn't be able to function. And I use the internet as a giant database. I can find information today with the click of a mouse."

# In 2000

The year 2000 was marked by "the explosion of mobile technology. The mobile phone has become for many people, including me, the personal communicator which allows you to be anywhere anytime and still be reachable. But the mobile internet is still a dream. The new services on mobile (GSM) phones are extremely primitive and expensive (WAP = Wait and Pay)."

# In 2001

What has happened since one year? Henk wrote in July 2001: "I am experiencing a tremendous change with having a 'broadband' connection at home. To be connected at all times is so completelely different from dial-up. I now receive email as soon as it arrives, I can listen to my favorite radio stations wherever they are. I can listen to the news when I want to. Get the music I like all the time. (...) The only thing which is missing is good quality real time video. The bandwidth is too low for that.

I now have a wired and a wireless LAN [Local Area Network] in my home. I can use my laptop anywhere in the house and outside, even at the neighbors and still being connected. With the same technology I am now able to use my wireless LAN card in my computer when I travel. For instance, during my recent visit to Stockholm, there was connectivity in the hotel, the conference center, the airport and even in the Irish pub!

# In 2011

Ten years later, in June 2011, Henk explained: "I have always followed the development of ebooks with much interest, as a professor in communication systems and an organizer of study tours in Silicon Valley. I didn't use them much during 40 years, because of the lack of progress in reading devices. I never liked reading a book on a computer or PDA. Now, with tablets like the Kindle of the iPad, I am finally reading ebooks. I see a huge expansion of digital reading with tablets that are easy to use and with a very large choice of ebooks thanks to electronic commerce and companies like Amazon."

What has he been working on lately? "I am a serial entrepreneur who is creating a start-up in the field of mobility. I use the internet all the time to find partners and ideas. We also use online books to learn the art of innovation!"

2001 > WIKIPEDIA, A COLLABORATIVE ENCYCLOPEDIA

[Summary] Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger (Larry resigned later on) as a global free collaborative online encyclopedia, financed by donations, with no advertising. Its website is a wiki, which means that anyone can write, edit, correct and improve information throughout the encyclopedia, with people contributing under a pseudonym. The articles stay the property of their authors, and can be freely used according to Creative Commons or GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License). Wikipedia quickly became the largest reference website. It was in the top ten websites in December 2006, and in the top five websites in 2008. In May 2007, Wikipedia had 7 million articles in 192 languages, including 1.8 million articles in English, 589,000 articles in German, 500,000 articles in French, 260,000 articles in Portuguese, and 236,000 articles in Spanish. Wikipedia celebrated its tenth anniversary in January 2011 with 17 million articles in 270 languages et 400 million individual visits per month for all websites.

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Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger (Larry resigned later on) as a global free collaborative online encyclopedia.

Wikipedia was financed by donations, with no advertising. Its website is a wiki, which means that anyone can write, edit, correct and improve information throughout the encyclopedia, with people contributing under a pseudonym. The articles stay the property of their authors, and can be freely used according to Creative Commons or GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License).

Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, founded in June 2003, which has run a number of other projects, beginning with Wiktionary (launched in December 2002) and Wikibooks (launched in June 2003), followed by Wikiquote, Wikisource (texts from public domain), Wikimedia Commons (multimedia), Wikispecies (animals and plants), Wikinews and Wikiversity (textbooks).