I have a great interest in eBooks. I follow this list to get a feel for what people are wanting to do with theirs. This discussion caught my eye because I have some interesting ideas about interactive eBooks created using Flash. Now, I've seen some lame attempts at this, but its not Flash's fault. Flash has some incredible capabilities, that if implemented correctly, could be used to create the most awesome eBook. Imagine an eBook with:
Video
Animation
Sound
Testing (with results strored on users computer)
Updateable content
Built-in chat
Interactive teaching tools
The ability to display a window of your other products
The ability for the user to store notes
Personalization (the user enters their name, which could be merged with text throughout eBook).
I'm just getting started!!
I'm currently busy wrapping up a (paper)book project, but I look to develop something like this soon afterward. And I'm not talking a small window where the user has to navigate the darn thing with an arrow button (as some other Flash 'eBooks' I've seen). I'm talking an interface similar to Acrobat's, with thumbs of pages, scrollable pages, and more.
Well, got to get back to work, but I'd be interested in feedback. Personally, I feel like eBooks need a greater distinctive advantage over printed books. Just like the days of the Web being a domain of only text information are over, creating eBooks as simply a product of text in PDF format won't cut it much longer, IMHO. People are doing things with the Web these days, interacting with it, and I think they'll expect nothing less from their eBooks.
Enough for now! Write me!
Derek Franklin
Macromedia Press Author
Macromedia Flash MX ActionScripting: Advanced Training from the Source
Macromedia Flash MX Creative Web Animation and Interactivity.
