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by troymc
5280 days ago
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Here's an idea: Sell physical placeholders that look like books, along with ebooks. You can put the placeholder "book" on your bookshelf to remind you what you own, decorate your room, and give your kids some reading ideas. The placeholder could come in a variety of smells: musty, smoky, neutral, National Geographic I-think-I'm-gonna-faint inksmell , and my personal favorite: Earl Grey. |
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This thread is making me nostalgic. I was in the doctor's office with my mother the other day and I actually picked up a copy of National Geographics and sniffed it in the middle of the waiting room. I'll occasionally do it in the supermarket checkout line too. Always reminds me of pulling the first copy I got (Feb 1990) from the Christmas subscription I hounded my mom into buying for me out of its brown paper sleeve.
I don't discount how powerful the emotions elicited by the Proustian recall triggered by tactile interactions with the written word, but I just think the gains far outweigh what we'll lose. The conveniences that dominated the OP don't move me nearly as much as the idea of $10 solar-powered e-readers loaded with the equivalent of entire libraries spreading throughout places like sub-Saharan Africa or rural India (cf. mobile telephones). That kind of stuff gives me a warm fuzzy you wouldn't believe.