Week 6 - Ebook/App Hybrids

Our Choice, Al Gore (produce by Push Pop Press)
http://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/

Our Choice, Al Gore (produce by Push Pop Press)
http://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/

This week's question immediately made me thing of Push Pop Press, a company that set out to re-image what books could be. Five years ago, with the support of Al Gore, they made available an interactive version of his book Our Choice, which was essentially a fusion between an app and an ebook. Formatted as an app, it is designed to be read as a book, albeit with significant changes: each page contains a myriad of interactive graphics, images, audio and video to enhance the reader's experience. Was it successful? Well, I was certainly impressed - I don't normally enjoy ebooks at all, and this one I've read through at least twice, and enjoyed every minute of it. And it's not just me - the New York Time's leading tech columnist called it, "one of the most impressive apps" he's ever seen, and the company itself was recently acquired by Facebook.

The fact that I liked reading this book so much on the screen, despite the fact that I typically don't enjoy that experience, made me wonder why. I think it comes down to the difference between this ebook and other ebooks - Our Choice often 'reads' more like a web page or a video game than a traditional book (despite the fact that you are still reading the text). Maybe, then, it is my attachment to the traditional way of reading books that makes me recoil at ebooks that try to mirror that experience - it seems too fake. But this ebook diverges far enough from 'book' that I am able to fully enjoy the experience. It preserve's Piper's 'pathways,' but allows readers to choose the depth and length of time that they spend on each section of that path. Want more information about that lecture from President Obama? Watch the whole thing, it's integrated into the text! Seen enough pictures of Tar Sands and don't feel like browsing any more? You don't even have to skip through them, just choose not to open them in the first place. The experience really is up to you.

If you have an iPhone/iPod/iPad, I highly recommend downloading Our Choice from the company's website - let me know what you think! I might have to go give it another look over now myself.

Sources

Push Pop Press: http://pushpoppress.com/ourchoice/

Piper, Andrew. "Turning the Page (Roaming, Zooming, Streaming)." In Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times. University of Chicago Press, 2012.