In one of his marketing posts, Pedram Mohseni questioned the practicality of the traditional use of books in today’s new modern age. With technology rapidly moving forward without an end in sight, Pedram argued that the recent releases of Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s Ipad and other portable digital media screens have begun the eventual extinction of real books. He also mentions that Universities, high schools and other institutes have started to move in that direction in the past few years. Assignments, exams and even lectures can be delivered through media.
Personally I agree that the recent advancements in classroom technology suggests that books and papers will eventually become obsolete. Not long ago CDs were the only way of getting music albums to consumers. After the development and public embrace of itunes, many consumers now download their desired music of the apple application. This is proof that mankind will always favour the most convenient way to access what they want. Furthermore, this new direction that the academic industry is taking will encourage economic and environmental sustainability. I predict that publishers will eventually realize that they can capture more of the market’s demand by distributing books through the internet channel instead. Consumers will never have to go to the bookstore to pick up the new copy of Dan Brown’s new mainstream novel again as they can easily pick it off he digital shelves of itunes and other websites. This completely bypasses the need to use natural resources to print millions of copies of hardcopy books for sale.
