The Vook, the Opposite of Kindle

by Aggie Villanueva

see also Pixels or Pages: the Great Kindle Debate

photo by Noah Berger for The New York Times Bradley Inman is starting Vook, a platform for e-books that will combine text, video and social networking.

My good friend Joanna Penn, creator of Author 2.0, today made me aware of another exciting new future for the book reported recently by Brad Stone in the New York Times

If you’ve had a hard time swallowing the concept of the new Kindle Reader, don’t look now but Bradley Inman, Silicon Valley entrepreneur deeply involved with the New York publishing industry, is launching another reading device that takes us in the total opposite direction.

Where Kindle’s reader is text-only, a basic HTML format that recreates the printed page digitally as closely as possible, Inman has created a new company and book concept called Vook. He launched a multimedia experience for readers. But not with hokey forced plot lines and video (including Twitter streams) that are so obvious they interfere with reading experience. The Vook proposes to seamlessly blend these factors so that we hardly notice. But it doesn’t end there. The Vook seeks to create interaction between the reader and author.

With the problems the publishing industry faces, this type of inovation may be their financial salvation, simultaneously taking us further into the reading world than we ever imagined. To “experience books in a whole new way” sign up at the Beta site. You may also follow Vook on Twitter.

see also Pixels or Pages: the Great Kindle Debate

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