Berlin-based txtr plans to liberate your documents library. But will anyone be reading?
It sounds like a cool concept. Whoever thought of pairing an e-paper reader with a social network knew they could still catch some leftover Web 2.0 buzz. Package that buzz with a veiled potential to unleash thousands of publicly-owned documents in a Wikipedia-like wave of information and the world’s new favorite four-letter-word comes to mind: Hope.
And we hope the new txtr device finds success in its pursuit of P2P literacy. If this all sounds a bit vague, let’s go over what we know:
What We Know
1) Berlin-based Wizpac says it’s developing a six-inch reader with a MicroSD card slot and connectivity via Blue Tooth, wireless and 3G. It’s designed to read multiple document types, uses an open source operating system and launches in Q3 2009 with a price yet-to-be-determined. The company’s Joscha Bach said his firm resisted adding a light to the device because it would “require to add another, thick layer to the display.”
2) The device is designed to connect to the txtr website, which is a social networking site to share uploaded documents. Documents are read-only and can’t be edited. Perhaps txtr is trying to entice publishers by protecting content from being tweaked in an open source environment.
3) Device launch coincides with the opening for txtr’s online store, which might sell books or downloads, or even copies of the Magna Carte. Nobody knows what it’s going to sell. Bach couldn’t tell ePaperCentral anything about the store because they “are not yet at liberty to disclose agreements with our partners.”
Critical Mass-Upload
For this all to work, txtr is going to need lots of users who are uploading content. Imagine YouTube, but instead of videoblogs it would be filled with personal manifestos and business spreadsheets. There’s plenty of documents out there to fill the txtr site a million times over - you would be amazed how much copy your own city government creates on a daily basis. Sure Google Documents essentially does the same thing as txtr while giving users the power to edit and collaborate documents. But, Google’s own social networking platform Orkut isn’t integrated with the documents application, and they don’t have an e-paper device, but they do have the Android phone.
What kind of content is currently available on txtr? Not much right now. Few users appear to have uploaded any real substantial content to the site, and one has to individually sift through dozens of uncompleted profiles to string together a handful of documents.
Of course, nothing is stopping a user from uploading his entire library to his txtr account. Imagine how much content a journalist has on his computer? That’s a lot of files that can be uploaded and shared. Files that can be traded between users with a local 2.4 GHz communicator, or uploaded via 3G to your device. Every time your cousin finishes a chapter of his vampire novel, you’ll get a notification to head outside and read the piece in sunlight, safe from bloodsuckers. After all, the new high-res display can easily be read in bright light.
Now imagine if they were able to get news feed from media or access an online store with purchasable content. The success of the device will be tied to what their online store looks like and how well it interfaces with the device’s 3G network. If txtr can reach some type of major publishing deal, then it might be able to compete with Amazon’s Kindle. Otherwise it’s going to depend on uploaded content from its users; hopefully they will have something interesting to say.
By Dave Brooks
concept design, e-reader, txtr
Very impressive! I like the look of this one very much.