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Design

Is This What The Future Of Books Looks Like?

Three visionary scenarios on the future of book publishing.

The publishing industry has collectively been scratching its head raw over how to evolve to stay in stride with the digital present. With e-readers like the Kindle and the iPad growing in popularity daily, and e-book downloads surpassing paper book purchases on Amazon this year, finding the answer to that question is becoming ever more pressing. The folks at IDEO, a legendary and visionary design and innovation firm responsible for creating Apple’s first mouse and the Palm V PDA, think they have the answer. In the above video, they present three different scenarios for the future of digital publishing, such as asynchronous story lines, contextualization with broader online discussions, connecting readers to one another to make reading a participatory experience and more. While many have speculated on what the future of books might look like, this is by far the most revolutionary and yet most practical-sounding group of scenarios we’ve seen to date. Which of these ideas will end up making their way into books in years to come? Only time will tell. But we’re willing to bet that more than a few of them will surface again in the near future.