History
Among the earliest general e-books were those in Project Gutenberg, started by Michael S. Hart in 1971. An early e-book implementation were the desktop prototypes for a proposed notebook computer, the Dynabook, in the 1970s at PARC, which would be a general-purpose portable personal computer, including reading books.[3] Similar ideas were expressed at the same time by Paul Drucker.[citation needed]
Early e-books were generally written for specialty areas and a limited audience, meant to be read only by small and devoted interest groups. The scope of the subject matter of these e-books included technical manuals for hardware, manufacturing techniques and other subjects.[citation needed] In the 1990s, the general availability of the Internet made transferring electronic files much easier, including e-books.
Numerous e-book formats emerged and proliferated, some supported by major software companies such as Adobe with its PDF format, and others supported by independent and open-source programmers. Multiple readers followed multiple formats, most of them specializing in only one format, and thereby fragmenting the e-book market even more. Due to exclusiveness and limited readerships of e-books, the fractured market of independents and specialty authors lacked consensus regarding a standard for packaging and selling e-books. E-books continued to gain in their own underground markets. Many e-book publishers began distributing books that were in the public domain. At the same time, authors with books that were not accepted by publishers offered their works online so they could be seen by others. Unofficial (and occasionally unauthorized) catalogs of books became available over the web, and sites devoted to e-books began disseminating information about e-books to the public.
U.S. Libraries began providing free e-books to the public in 1998 through their web sites and associated services[4], although the e-books were primarily scholarly, technical or professional in nature, and could not be downloaded. In 2003, libraries began offering free downloadable popular fiction and non-fiction e-books to the public, launching an e-book lending model that worked much more successfully for public libraries.[5] The number of library e-book distributors and lending models continued to increase over the next few years. In 2010, a Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study found that 66% of public libraries in the U.S. were offering e-books[6], and a large movement in the library industry began seriously examining the issues related to lending e-books, acknowledging a tipping point of broad e-book usage[7].
As of 2009[update], new marketing models for e-books were being developed and dedicated reading hardware was produced. E-books (as opposed to ebook readers) have yet to achieve global distribution. In the United States, as of September 2009, the Amazon Kindle model and Sony's PRS-500 were the dominant ereading devices [8]. By March 2010, some reported that the Barnes & Noble Nook may be selling more units than the Kindle[9]. On January 27, 2010 Apple, Inc. launched a multi-function device called the iPad[10] and announced agreements with five of the six largest publishers that would allow Apple to distribute e-books.[11] However, many publishers and authors have not endorsed the concept of electronic publishing, citing issues with demand, piracy and proprietary devices.[12]
In July 2010, online bookseller Amazon.com reported sales of ebooks for its proprietary Kindle outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010, saying it sold 140 e-books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there was no digital edition.[13] In July this number had increased to 180 Kindle ebooks per 100 hardcovers [14]. Paperback book sales are still much larger than either hardcover or e-book; the American Publishing Association estimated e-books represented 8.5% of sales as of mid-2010
Timeline
1971
* Michael S. Hart launches Project Gutenberg.
1985-1992
* Robert Stein starts Voyager Company Expanded Books and books on CD-ROMs.
1992
* Charles Stack's Book Stacks Unlimited begins selling new physical books online.
1993
* Zahur Klemath Zapata develops the first [1] software to read digital books. Digital book version 1 and the first digital book is published On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts (Thomas de Quincey).
* Digital Book, Inc. offers the first 50 digital books in Floppy disk with Digital Book Format (DBF).
* Hugo Award for Best Novel nominee texts published on CD-ROM by Brad Templeton.
* Bibliobytes, a project of free digital books online in Internet.
1995
* Amazon starts to sell physical books in Internet.
* Online poet Alexis Kirke discusses the need for wireless internet electronic paper readers in his article "The Emuse".
1996
* Project Gutenberg reaches 1,000 titles. The target is 1,000,000
1998
* Kim Blagg obtained the first ISBN issued to an ebook and began marketing multimedia-enhanced ebooks on CDs through retailers including amazon.com, bn.com and borders.com. Shortly thereafter through her company "Books OnScreen" she introduced the ebooks at the Book Expo America in Chicago, IL to an impressed, but unconvinced bookseller audience.
* First ebook Readers: Rocket ebook and SoftBook.
* Cybook / Cybook Gen1 Sold and manufactured at first by Cytale (1998–2003) then by Bookeen
* Websites selling ebooks in English, like eReader.com and eReads.com.
1999
* Baen Books opens up the Baen Free Library.
* Webscriptions starts selling unencrypted eBooks.
2000
* Microsoft Reader with ClearType technology.
* Stephen King offers his book "Riding the Bullet" in digital file; it can only be read on a computer.
2001
* Todoebook.com, the first website selling ebooks in Spanish.
2002
* Random House and HarperCollins start to sell digital versions of their titles in English.
2005
* Amazon buys Mobipocket.
* Bookboon.com is launched, allowing people to download free textbooks and travel guide eBooks
2006
* Sony Reader with e-ink.
* LibreDigital launched BookBrowse as an online reader for publisher content.
* BooksOnBoard, the largest independent ebookstore, opens and sells ebooks and audiobooks in six different formats.
2007
* Zahurk Technologies Corp. launched the first[citation needed] digital book library on Internet BibliotecaKlemath.com [2]', loslibrosditales.com [3]' and 『digitalbook.us'
* Amazon launches Kindle in US.
* Bookeen launched Cybook Gen3 in Europe.
2008
* Adobe and Sony agreed to share their technologies (Reader and DRM).
* Sony sells the Sony Reader PRS-505 in UK and France
* BooksOnBoard is first to sell ebooks for iPhones.
2009
* Bookeen releases the Cybook Opus in the US and in Europe.
* Sony releases the Reader Pocket Edition and Reader Touch Edition
* Amazon releases the Kindle 2.
* Amazon releases the Kindle DX in the US.
* Barnes & Noble releases the Nook in the US.
* Bookboon.com achieves over 10 Million downloads in one year — placing the company as the world's largest publisher of free eBooks
2010
* Amazon releases the Kindle DX International Edition worldwide.
* Bookeen reveals the Cybook Orizon at CES.[16]
* TurboSquid Magazine announces first magazine publication using Apple's iTunes LP format.[17]
* Apple releases the iPad with an e-book app called iBooks. Between its release in April 2010, to October, Apple has sold 7 million iPads.
* Kobo Inc. releases its Kobo eReader to be sold at Indigo/Chapters in Canada and Borders in the United States.
* Amazon.com reported that its e-book sales outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010.[13]
* Amazon releases the third generation kindle, available in 3G+Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi versions
* Kobo Inc. releases an updated Kobo eReader which now includes Wi-Fi
* Barnes & Noble releases the new NOOKcolor
* Sony releases its second generation Daily Edition PRS-950
www.cheapipad-ebook.com
