HS Dent | Update to “The Blockbuster Video model for college textbooks,” Part II

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Update to “The Blockbuster Video model for college textbooks,” Part II

By Charles Sizemore⋅ August 10, 2009 ⋅ ⋅ Post a comment

Continuing our ongoing commentary on the revolutionary transformation of the school text book industry (see prior post, and August 2009 issue of the HS Dent Forecast), we saw a headline in today’s Wall Street Journal that is worth mentioning: “Textbooks Offered for iPod, iPhones“

The Journal writes, “A provider of subscription e-textbooks for college students is making its 7,000-plus titles accessible on Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPod Touch as interest heats up in the digital-textbook arena…. The move comes as Amazon.com Inc. is shipping its $489 large-screen Kindle DX e-reader, which is aimed in part at college students. Amazon is overseeing a DX pilot program at seven colleges this fall involving hundreds of students who will experiment with reading textbooks digitally.”

We are still in the early stages of the “S-Curve” for consumer adoption of digital textbooks, but we firmly believe that most college students will be doing the majority of their studying with this kind of technology within just a few short years. A Kindle or iPhone is a lot easier to lug around campus than 4-5 phonebook-sized texts. It’s also a LOT cheaper — generally half the price.

Bottom line: expect a lot more headlines like the one above in the months ahead. The college bookstore will likely have to be reinvented. Perhaps the shelves that once held books can be used to display football t-shirts? We shall see.

Charles Sizemore, CFA

Co-author of the recently-published Boom or Bust: Understanding and Profiting from a Changing Consumer Economy

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Discussion

2 comments for “Update to “The Blockbuster Video model for college textbooks,” Part II”

With on line learning there will be no need for a book store.
I teach, and there is a huge disconnect between older instructors and students regarding the digital age. The only real reason for a college campus is for social dynamics. When they figure out how to get drunk on line the school campus will be but a memory.

Posted by mgullish | August 11, 2009, 1:45 pm
This too shall pass.
It is interesting that as mankind was able to write, calligraphy becaame important.
When we learned to use the printing press then we copied calligraphy in the printed form.
Now there are calligraphers who copy type faces as a form of hand work art.
There are those youths who will eventully come to apprecite the printed form in books. But not before the Kindle people figure out how to underline and make margin notes.
We are still humans and like human touches.
The creative spirit lives and will satisfy our wants and possibly our needs.
There will always be a disconnect. Thank goodness, for then I can invest in new companies and make money.

Posted by rankin.douglas | August 11, 2009, 4:09 pm