The 15 Most Important Technologies of the Last 15 Years – #8: eBooks

The technology for putting text on computer displays has existed for a very long time. In fact, the very first technologies for creating digital books dates back to the early 1970’s. Yet it wasn’t until the early 2000’s that eBooks as we know them today started to gain mainstream popularity. However, even then eBooks were more of a tech curiosity than anything because there was little standardization and many popular books were not available in digital format.

It was the release of the Amazon Kindle in 2007 that really put eBooks on the map for most of us. With Amazon leveraging their power in the publishing industry, the Kindle quickly became an overnight success, tapping into a large pent-up demand for digital books by a increasingly tech-savvy society. Since that time an ever-increasing number of people use an eBook reader such as the Kindle or their smartphone or tablet as their primary means of reading books and almost all mainstream published books offer a digital version. The growth of eBooks led by the Kindle become a significant factor in the decline of retail bookstore operations, as witnessed by the closing down of the one-time dominant Borders Books in 2011. But perhaps more importantly, the eBook has shifted power away from large publishing companies in deciding what books are published. Self-publishing eBooks has become popular for aspiring authors as they can release their work to their fans for much less than it costs for printed books. Success stories of eBook authors that have made it big, such as the Fifty Shades series are becoming more commonplace. While printed books are still popular to this day, there is no doubt that eBooks have changed the landscape of the publishing industry forever.

Do you buy or read more books now that they are in a digital format? Comment below!