There is something about Worldreader, a project putting ereaders into classrooms outside Accra, Ghana, that bothers me. Every time I see a Worldreader tweet, I get a little sick feeling inside.
Ereading has the potential to make a huge impact on learning in developing countries. Digital textbooks could solve many of our distribution and price problems, as long as the rollout of computer labs in libraries and schools continues apace, and the cost of computing continues to drop. With that infrastructure in place, there are five key challenges to making meaningful progress, and each challenge presents at least one business opportunity.
I recently finished reading Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon’s great history of the origins of the Internet, Where Wizards Stay Up Late. Early in its story, it describes JCR Licklider‘s vision for computing when he first started working on networking projects in the late 1950s:
The idea on which Lick’s worldview pivoted was that technological progress would save humanity. The political process was a favorite example of his. In a McLuhanesque view of the power of electronic media, Lick saw a future in which, thanks in large part to the reach of computers, most citizens would be “informed about, and interested in, and involved in, the process of government.” He imagined what he called “home computer consoles” and television sets linked together in a massive network. “The political process,” he wrote, “would essentially be a giant teleconference, and a campaign would be a months-long series of communications among candidates, propagandists, commentators, political action groups, and voters. The key is the self-motivating exhilaration that accompanies truly effective interaction with information through a good console and a good network to a good computer.” Continue reading
This morning at Tools of Change, I gave this presentation. In short, I argue that in order to sell content into Africa, publishers can’t rely on print distribution, or even ebook distribution as we know it. They are going to need to let people on the ground repackage and distribute their content in unpredictable ways.
I’ve been working on an argument (when it grows up it’ll be a presentation) about how publishers should set up simple ways to sell licenses to their content. These licences could be bought by a small or large business from the publisher’s site, and that business could then reuse and resell the content. (Publishers could make the licenses valid only for regions their supply chain doesn’t normally reach anyway.)
