Jason Merkoski
Jason Merkoski was a development manager, product manager, and the first technology evangelist at Amazon. He helped to invent technology used in today’s eBooks and was a member of the launch team for each of the first three Kindle devices. Trained in theoretical math at MIT, he worked for almost two decades in telecommunications and e-commerce with America’s biggest online retailers, and he’s worked with publishers large and small to shape the future of eBooks. As a digital pioneer, he wrote and published the first online eBook in the 1990s. As a futurist, he’s equally at home in Seattle or Silicon Valley, although he’s drawn to the high desert of New Mexico, where he can string up his hammock and stare into the clouds and ancient petroglyphs.
“You don't see people getting pulled over by the police for reading ebooks on their smartphones.”
“Digital books are in some ways hastening the lazy, solipsistic narcissism of our culture. We use our gadgets as proxies for other people and genuine human interaction. And yes, I think that's bad.”
“Just as we are what we eat, we are what we read.”
“Unboxing is a new voyeuristic phenomenon that's erotic and technical at the same time.”
“Dedicated ereaders are as sharp as steak knives in doing what they're supposed to do, which is let you read books. The iPad is more like a Swiss Army knife -- it can cut the steak and uncork a wine bottle, and there's even a toothpick to use when you're done eating! It's got it all.”
“For good or for bad, we define ourselves in many ways by the gadgets we use and the clothes we wear. We don't want to surround ourselves with cheap products. Nobody really aspires to that. We also don't want to pay for a diamond-encrusted ereader. We don't need bling; we just need to feel like the design speaks to us.”
“Amazon is winning the ebook revolution, but it may lose the war.”
“Digital books, like television and other media, are best meant for those Pandoras who've already opened their boxes and know what demons to expect inside.”
“Being a digital native may have long-term consequences related to learning how to read.”
“Ours is a culture that dances on the edge of ephemerality. If our servers slept for too long or if we left our iPads unplugged for too long, we'd wake up like Rip Van Winkle to find all of our book culture erased.”
“But ebooks will rule the day, and when people a few years from now talk about 'books', what they'll really be referring to are ebooks, not print books. Eventually the 'e' will be dropped, and books will be assumed to be digital, just as most music is now digital; after all, we don't refer to music as e-music.”
“The Kindle itself is just the tip of the iceberg, and its true workings are invisible.”
“...you are like me, you have more books than you have friends, no matter what Facebook tells you about your social network.”
“You and I both worry about what it means to put our personal libraries onto one gadget and then what would happen if we dropped it in the bathtub...”