Ten predictions of electronic publishing technology

1. When will the sales of E-book exceed printed publications?
Although the fresh e-book market has many uncertainties, experts concerned are generally optimistic about the long-term prospects of e-books. Regarding whether e-books can eventually dominate the publishing market, Tim Bray (founder of Textuality and a freelance consulting firm and concurrently co-editor of the W3C XML standard) has the most concern in the four-person advisor group: "The development of book technology has been rapid. Thousands of technological innovations have been experienced." Tim Bray said "I think the earliest possible time is 2010, because we have to go through several generations of display technology before we can really compete with paper."
2. When will the broadband Internet in the United States be as popular as the current telephone?
Although there is no consensus, our expert group believes that broadband Internet will be popular sooner or later. Tim Bray predicts that this milestone will be reached by 2008, which Jakob Nielsen believes to be 2009. And Jesse Berst and Ric k Smolan are more conservative. They think that the ideal of broadband penetration will be achieved by 2012 and 2015 respectively. Note: Jakon Nielsen is the head of the Nielsen Norman Group and has many books. Jesse Berst is the world’s leading technical reviewer and founder and editor of ZDNet AnchorDesK, the most popular Internet technology news site. Rich Smolan is the CEO of "Against All Odds Production."
3. When will the online publication income exceed the income of printing and publishing?
Obviously, this is a significant issue. Online publishers who charge access fees are still seen as driven by curiosity rather than a viable business model. However, our panel of experts unanimously predicted that publications based on online subscriptions will mature between 2008 and 2015. Some types of readings will quickly become electronic. As Bray put it, “The Web has provided most people with most of the technical information they need, so the time for this part to implement e-subscription is ripe. For other types of books, like general magazines, readers No money will be spent on these online content because they can easily get prints of these books."
4. When will English lose its status as the Web language leader?
If our team of experts predicts correctly, the position of English Web publishers on the high ground may not be long. Three experts predict that non-English websites will be more common than English websites in seven years. Jakob Nielsen’s predictions among the three were the most daunting “this will happen next year”, while Bray and Jesse Berst are relatively conservative. Berst believes that Chinese is the main driving force for this trend, and Bray said that Internet users in other regions will increase significantly, including Latin America, India, and Serbian-speaking Eastern Europe. In any case, "any Internet publication for the world market must have at least the English version," Bray said.
5. When did publishers finally retire the Atex J11?
Atex's proprietary system, J11, has a solid position in the news publishing industry. It used to be, and is still the most practical choice for the news industry. When to phase out the final Atex J11 system will create an epoch-making milestone for newspapers and publishing technology.
6. When will the microelectronics settlement system win the mass market?
For the prospect of using microelectronics settlement systems to purchase online content and services, our team of experts is quite optimistic. The three predict that the microelectronics settlement system will become an important payment system in 2008. Bray believes that the highly efficient microelectronics payment system has a huge market, but he is more pessimistic: "It is very difficult to develop an anonymous, reliable and efficient payment system, which does not consider structural and political factors. There are many developers Tried, but no one can win much market."
7. When will the first of the top 20 newspapers in the United States be fully digital?
Can “paperless newspapers” make the traditional kiosk business bankrupt? The three experts agreed that the important newspapers in the United States will eventually eliminate paper publications and accept full-electronic publishing. But this is a long-term process: the first fully digital newspaper first appeared in 2015. Tim Bray's point of view differs. He believes that the press will not eliminate printed materials, but he believes that e-newspapers will be among the top 20 in the nationwide newspaper industry in 2004. Another related question is how newspapers send their digital publications? Jesse Berst gave the answer: Technology products such as "electronic paper," which are cheap and flexible, can have the advantages of many traditional papers, enabling the development of powerful digital display systems.
8. When can online retail sales exceed traditional retail sales?
Our experts believe that the traditional retail approach will not disappear: Three people doubt whether online retailing can exceed retail sales. Rich Smolan thinks this will not happen before 2020 at least. Some experts even wonder whether it makes sense to distinguish between online sales and traditional sales because the combination of two ways of selling is becoming more and more popular. "We have no way to distinguish between the two," said Jesse Berst. "We personally went to the kiosk to select items. We could also choose to order online and then go to the kiosk to pick up the goods, or order online and return them to the sales office. Are these methods better or worse?"
9. When did the first e-book hit the best-selling list in the New York Times?
Our experts all believe that e-books will eventually have a place on the best-selling list of books, assuming that e-books can compete with print books on the same platform. When there is still some controversy, Jaob Nielsen predicts that the first electronic bestseller will appear in 2003, while other people's estimates are more conservative.
10. When can the flat display overcome the CRT display?
Flat-panel display devices have been available for several years, but expensive prices and complex production processes have made it rejected from the mass market. However, our three experts believe that the days of CRT scenery are just around the corner: In the next five years, thin and light flat display devices will increasingly become popular consumer products.