What Does Esquires E Ink Cover Mean for Print Publishing?
I’ve been noodling on the implications of Esquire’s E Ink cover (video available here), and for the life of me I can’t see how this is anything more than a small change in a mature technology. It’s on par with terrestrial radio’s embrace of HD Radio and the music industry’s attempts at super-high-fidelity discs (SACD and DVD-A). Esquire deserves credit for experimenting with E Ink, and I certainly think E Ink itself has a variety of uses (Kindle and Sony Reader owners would agree). But the merging of E Ink displays and traditional print formats garners the same level of interest as National Geographic’s hologram covers: neat idea … nice execution … but beyond the publicity and potential newsstand sales, what’s the long-term point? Future E Ink screens are projected to be ultra-light, interactive and updateable via Web connections (the Kindle offers a variation on this), but millions of consumers already own mobile devices with the same functionality. Even if these features come to
