Books: the idea, cont’d: interactive multimedia crowdthingy

For obvious reasons the discussion of the idea of books has focused quite heavily on the e-variety these last few days, as speculation abounds over The Meaning of the iPad For The Printed Word.

The Telegraph reports on a book that will have a sort of instant sequel “assembled from the best comments by readers of” the author’s Website. A publishing type who is involved comments:

With devices like the iPad nearly at our shores and more routes for communication than ever before, I believe that especially in non-fiction, the distance between the author and reader should start to disappear. Authors will become more like curators and take influence from their readers’ suggestions during and after they have written their work.

Meanwhile, Nicholas Carr suggests that what we’re headed for is books becoming multimedia apps, in a sort of post-reader world. He quotes some other publishing-world guy:

“The definition of the book itself seems up for grabs,” he said at a recent media industry powwow. Unlike traditional e-book readers, which had a rather old-fashioned attachment to linear text, the iPad opens the doors to incorporating all sorts of “cool stuff,” Makinson continued. “We will be embedding audio, video and streaming into everything we do.” He foresees sprinkling movie clips among Jane Austen’s paragraphs in future editions of “Pride and Prejudice.”

Hm. What do you think?

Perhaps I’ll “curate” the best of your responses into a follow-up post!

With video?