Jeremy Caplan summarized Johnson’s essential points in the WSJ Digits Blog:

“Textual productivity” is the Web’s most important feature.
When text is shared, remixed and recombined in new contexts, fresh value is created. Mr. Johnson calls that “textual productivity.” Thomas Jefferson, for example, famously remixed the Bible, leaving out the supernatural bits. Before the Web, it was more difficult to rejigger texts. The Web reinvented the sharing, spreading and productive adaptation of information in new ways that multiply its value. It’s vital that e-texts preserve that capability, Mr. Johnson says.

The iBook freezes text.
Web links can connect previously isolated ideas in many ways. That gives digital texts the power to add rich layers of meaning that printed texts cannot. But many iPad apps and Apple’s iBook software thus far limit the way words can be linked, Tweeted or shared. That suggests a step backward from the Web’s potential. Mr. Johnson contrasts the locked approach with the stance adopted by investigative nonprofit site ProPublica, which has a generous “steal our stories” policy to encourage the free dissemination of its articles for public benefit.

So will e-readers resemble glass boxes?
If digital devices lock texts under a glass screen, preventing readers from manipulating or sharing words in meaningful ways, we will miss out on some of the benefits of ideas that are mashed up and mixed together, Mr. Johnson says. If, on the other hand, companies such as Apple open up texts for linking, sharing and other Web-like usage, we’ll enjoy fruitful “textual productivity.” People once relied on books to store ideas for future inspiration. Mr. Johnson hopes the serendipitous sharing that enabled will serve as a model for more open sharing of digital texts. Are you listening, Steve Jobs?

Follow @stevenbjohnson on Twitter | Read transcript of talk | See more at CJS New Media blog

According to NPR:

[Google] announced recently that it has an e-book plan in the works that could be ready by the end of this year. The Google model promises a different e-book experience, one that doesn’t require a reading device like Kindle. Instead of downloading books, users will buy online access to them. As long as readers are connected to the Internet, they could conceivably access the book from their local bookstores’ Web sites — maybe even right from the publisher.

Gabriel Stricker, the director of book search communications at Google, says the company’s plan is to create a “digital-book ecosystem,” which he describes as “online space where you have the ability to have your books be discovered and make money off of them.”

Stricker emphasizes that the idea is still in development, but he says that eventually Google’s e-book service should be what he calls “device agnostic.”

“We want to be able to have folks search for books anywhere, and not just when they happen to be at a computer,” he says. “That could be when they are on a PC or a smart phone or a netbook or a dedicated reading device.”

Publishers, who have been concerned that the Kindle would allow Amazon to control not just the e-book market but also the price of e-books, are likely to welcome Google’s device-agnostic concept — especially since Google has the size, money and technical know-how to compete with Amazon.

Mike Shatzkin, a publishing consultant and CEO of the Idea Logical Company, says Google may also solve a problem for publishers that has haunted both the recording and film industries.

“What Google accomplishes here is that they totally sidestep the piracy and digital rights management issue, because there is no possession of the file, [and] therefore there is no way for you to give the file to anyone else,” Shatzkin says.

But the question remains: Are avid readers — who are just starting to accept the idea of electronic reading devices — ready for an even more intangible notion of the book? Google is betting they are.

This story was followed immediately by another NPR report on Google’s deal with publishers:

Antitrust investigators at the Justice Department are looking into a deal between Google and book publishers. Critics say the deal will give Google too much power over what could become a large segment of the online book market.

See, for example, “#Amazonfail, the Google Books Settlement, and the importance of open access for preserving cultural heritage: In honor of National Library Week” posted on April 16:

Over the past two years for National Library Week, I have posted about the importance of openness of publication and accessibility of government information and the limitations of relying on Google. Free Government Information, Public.Resource.org, OpentheGovernment (PDF),  and others, are continuing to do a great job of promoting openness in regards to government (and scholarly) information. Unfortunately, most people are not aware of the great usefulness and importance of government information. But they do know about Amazon, Google, and YouTube, with many among us using them everyday. What would many do to find information if they stopped working?

The #Amazonfail censorship/ glitch / griefing situation last weekend shows the power of publics working together and the organic nature of much of tagging and movementsourcing; people will often be able to create a simple way of communicating information with each other (the first person to use the #Amazonfail tag on twitter used it because it worked as a folksonomy of the situation and it spiralled from there because it was effective). But it also shows the difficulty for all when most rely on one source — Amazon — for information about bestsellers and similar items.

Great work, Learned Fangirls!

On this week’s opinion page, Jacob Weinberg, editor-in-chief of the Slate Group, focuses on the new Kindle device. In a recent opinion piece on Slate.com, he asked: “Why should a civilization that reads electronically be any less literate than one that harvests trees to do so?”

Amazon in Big Push for New Kindle Model NYT 020909

Amazon introduced several new features for the Kindle. A new text-to-speech function allows readers toswitch between reading words on the device and having the words read to them by a computerized voice. That technology was provided by Nuance, a speech-recognition company based in Burlington, Mass.

Amazon is also allowing Kindle owners to transfer texts between their Kindle and other mobile devices. Amazon said it was working on making digital texts available for other gadgets (like mobile phones), though it did not specify which ones.

One competitive threat Amazon is facing in its effort to dominate the world of e-books is Google, which has scanned in some seven million books, many of them out of print. Google has also struck deals with publishers and authors to split the proceeds from the online sales of those texts.

Google recently said it would soon begin selling these books for reading on mobile devices like the Apple iPhone and phone