Mobile Reading: Next Big Area of Innovation

I blogged the other day about how much I enjoy writing on my Blackberry (RIMM).

I may continue to post this way when I get back from Europe because it allows me to sit back and think instead of lean forward and write.

But in the few days that have passed since I wrote that 'quill pen' post, I've had a number of interactions that lead me to believe that reading on the mobile device is a much bigger deal.

Of course mobile reading is a bigger deal because for every writer, there are tens or hundreds or thousands of readers. Writing is still something not everyone is predisposed to do. But reading is something everyone does.

And reading in lean back mode on the couch or in the coffee shop, on the train or in the plane, is more enjoyable and relaxing than the lean forward mode required by the computer.

I find myself reading more and more on my Blackberry and it's not even well designed for that experience. The iPhone (AAPL) is much better for that and the Kindle (AMZN) is another step beyond the iPhone. And we are just getting started with this whole mobile internet connected reading device thing. I expect we'll see a ton of innovation in this area in the next couple years.

A reader named Scott commented the other day that "commenting on mobile devices" is an area that needs some focus. I agree with that and hope our portfolio company disqus can innovate in that area in 2009.

It's becoming more natural for readers to want to interact with the content they are reading. Computers have allowed this to happen and mobile devices need to support it. It's not just commenting, it's tagging, sharing, reblogging, and a host of other interactions that make consuming content online a better experience than offline consumption.

It's gotten to the point that if I can't interact with content, I don't want to consume it. When I read books, I underline certain passages so I can blog about them later. If I were reading on a connected device, I'd simply reblog on tumblr and be done. I don't think I'm unusual in this regard but I do think I'm in the leading edge of behavior and that more and more people will feel this way.

In any case, this is an area that entrepreneurs should focus on. Reading on mobile devices is a big trend and reading is just the start of the content consumption paradigm in a connected world. There's a lot to be done and it's going to be done. So let's get on with it.

Disclosures: Author holds positions in AAPL and AMZN.

Comments

[captainccs:]

I've been reading on mobile devices most of my life: books and magazines. I seldom read on fixed devils like statues, pyramids, and murals.

But I do admit that being able to take a laptop into the john has made books less of a necessity when performing that necessity.

2008 Dec 30 08:39 AM

[Roger Knights:]

Amazingly, there are a lot of vociferous and stubbornly uninformed disbelievers in the positives and potential of gadgets like the Kindle. (Check out the comment threads on the Kindle at Amazon.) I expect that the next, better-designed iteration of the Kindle, including a large-format version that can handle the tables and images used in textbooks (typically as PDFs) will finally end this product's niche status and cow the critics. Additional availability of online texts via Google (after its recent agreement with the publisher's assn.) will help also. Come summer, Amazon's stock should get a boost from this.

2008 Dec 30 12:28 PM

[WebWatcher:]

Mobile reading has been quite a reality, in a different way, in Asia. in Japan, there are several very interesting mobile applications, i-Channel of DoCoMo, SMIL from KDDI, ... in China, mobile books, not as feature rich as those Japanese applications, are a big deal, even on small mobile phones with relatively tiny (168*120, 192*160) screens. Most people with personal experiences do find mobile reading easier to get used to. This trend will assert itself with much better devices, faster connections and also more innovative ways for mobile reading, such as ticker news, book readers, blog readers, etc.

2008 Dec 31 09:59 AM

[mollytjm:]

i bought an ipod so i could download audio books, never thinking i'd READ a book on anything that small. then i got the iphone and there are free classics and i downloaded a Mark Twain book and found that reading it on the iPhone was very easy...as easy as playing games, like scrabble, which i also thought i'd never do on anything that small.
i have some older friends who are buying the Kindle because it's a cheaper way to get 'large print books'. with an aging population that is becoming more tech comfortable, i think the Kindle and the other platforms will do well.

2008 Dec 31 11:24 AM

[petetoth:]

LOL you forgot to mention the inconvenience of the original "crossovers" - stone tablets, let alone the safety issues when reading on said john.


On Dec 30 08:39 AM captainccs wrote:

> I've been reading on mobile devices most of my life: books and magazines.
> I seldom read on fixed devils like statues, pyramids, and murals.
>
>
> But I do admit that being able to take a laptop into the john has
> made books less of a necessity when performing that necessity.

2008 Dec 31 12:17 PM