Ibis Reader and BookServer
by Liza Daly
I was extremely pleased to participate in the Internet Archive’s BookServer announcement and press event. (The Register has the best coverage, but also see CNET and ReadWriteWeb).
Our part of this open ecosystem is Ibis Reader, an in-development digital reading system for a range of internet devices that provides access to books both online and offline. Like Bookworm, it provides ePub support and a traditional web interface. But I’m really excited about its unique features:
- A total commitment to giving readers what they want.
- For platforms that support it, HTML5 offline storage. This means that when you’re not connected, your library is still available. Other web-enabled devices will also work but must be online (Google Gears also supported).
- A mobile web architecture, allowing new devices running iPhone OS, Android, or Palm webOS to be immediately supported. (And no App Store censorship.)
- All of the cross-device syncing and bookmarking that customers are coming to expect from multi-platform reading systems. Start reading on your iPhone and pick up where you left off on your computer.
- A great shopping experience with no DRM. Ibis Reader uses the BookServer ecosystem to help you find, download, and buy books, and none of the books we sell will have DRM. Guaranteed.
- Ebook portability means that all your DRM-free library can be exported out of the “cloud” and onto any device that supports ePub.
- For publishers, an attractive revenue split, real-time sales reporting, and help with getting into the BookServer ecology.
We’re not launching for several months, but we’ll be posting updates as we get closer. It was exciting to demo an early version of the reading client at the BookServer event, and it’s only going to get better.
Comments
I hope that anything you can do with Android would port easily to Maemo devices (eg, the Nokia N900 & N810).
I’ll volunteer now to work with you to ensure Maemo gets the Ibis Reader too.
Roger S
Roger: we intend to make sure that it will minimally work on any web-capable device, but whether it will support the offline features will depend on whether it handles HTML5 and (less optimally) Google Gears. “Unsupported” devices will get a mobile-optimized but online-required UI like Bookworm’s mobile mode.
To me, BookServer could be the best thing that happens to the publishing industry since the Gutenberg Printing Press. At last there will be a way for small press publishers to have their books easily discovered, to offer ebooks in the essential formats, and to sell digital content at a low price to readers, without the crushing fees of the online booksellers.
Freed from the typical economic restraints of the current publishing model, we may see more diversity, a healthier publishing ecosystem, and better books.
To everyone involved in the BookServer project: thank you!
Michael Pastore, author
50 Benefits of Ebooks
well… very nice and all, and i love the idea, but this is vapourware – why not keep this under wraps until you have something to demonstrate?
[...] This looks very promising: the Ibis Reader works across platforms, doesn’t cripple its books with any DRM, and uses the HTML 5 [...]
I recently had to re-install my iPhone, I have lost several bookmarklets. Once installed a bookmarklet becomes indistinguishable from a real application. In order to restore them one would have had kept a separate list of them.
This is just to say that there are advantages in real applications on the iPhone OS platform.
[...] Original source : http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/02/ibis-reader-…; [...]
[...] Reader & Book Shelf Posted in Mobile, technology by Paul W. on 11/02/2009 The Ibis Reader fantastically uses HTML5 (particularly offline storage), works well with the ePub standard, and [...]
[...] an app unless it goes through Apple’s approval process and reaches the iTunes App Store. A new eBook reader called Ibis, planned for iPhone, Android and Palm’s WebOS, plans to get around Apple’s [...]
[...] Ibis Reader and BookServer : Threepress Consulting blog [...]
[...] Reader + Bookserver http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/02/ibis-reader-and-bookserver/ [...]
[...] Ibis Reader and BookServerLove this! [...]
[...] an app unless it goes through Apple’s approval process and reaches the iTunes App Store. A new eBook reader called Ibis, planned for iPhone, Android and Palm’s WebOS, plans to get around Apple’s [...]
liza, will this be open-source?
-bowerbird
bowerbird: No, though some aspects of it will probably end back in the Bookworm source tree (for example, OPDS catalog browsing).
[...] Ibis Reader and BookServer Ibis Reader, an in-development digital reading system for a range of internet devices that provides access to books both online and offline via blog.threepress.org [...]
[...] 目前的確如此…，畢竟是個全新開展的計畫架構，尚未全然搞懂，不過有跟推的朋友大概看過之前發過的一篇：下一代的電子書系統架構 Ibis Reader and BookServer，幾個月之內就會有實作出來了。 [...]
[...] an app unless it goes through Apple’s approval process and reaches the iTunes App Store. A new eBook reader called Ibis, planned for iPhone, Android and Palm’s WebOS, plans to get around Apple’s [...]
[...] Ibis Reader and BookServer : Threepress Consulting blog. [...]
ok, i understand.
it’s just that i thought threepress and o’reilly
had a strong commitment to open-source…
-bowerbird
[...] Have you seen this HTML5 book reader? http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/02/ibis-reader-and-bookserver/ in reply to mikeash [...]
[...] open architecture could help enable a new digital ecosystem that helps people find, buy, acquire, and read books from any source, on any device, using many [...]
[...] november vorig jaar kwam ik een bericht tegen op Teleread dat een bedrijfje, ThreePress Consulting, bezig was met het ontwikkelen van een volledige online ereader. Vandaag is dat traject kennelijk afgerond en presenteert het bedrijf de Ibis Reader. Ongetwijfeld [...]
[...] 目前的确如此…，毕竟是个全新开展的计划架构，尚未全然搞懂，不过有跟推的朋友大概看过之前发过的一篇：下一代的电子书系统架构 Ibis Reader and BookServer，几个月之内就会有实作出来了。 [...]
[...] Liza, Threepress Consulting Blog, Ibis Reader and BookServer, http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/02/ibis-reader-and-bookserver/ (accessed February 23, [...]
This looks neat, I’ll defiitely add it to my android.
Hmm…might actually be worth checking out. Thank you.