OK, the headline is a bit over the top but still worth a mention.
From the LA Times:
Will this symbolize the death knell of the paper book?
Furniture giant IKEA will debut a new version of its classic BILLY bookcase that is intended to store everything except well-thumbed reading material, a report says.
Coming out next month, the tweaked bookcase will feature deeper shelves meant to display “ornaments, tchotchkes and the odd coffee-table tome — anything, this is, except books,” the Economist reported.
Here’s the Full Text of The Economist Story: “Great Digital Expectations”
It Includes:
Publishers are increasingly trying to push books through online social networks. But Mr Murray says he hasn’t seen anything that replicates the experience of browsing a bookstore.
Efforts are under way. This week a British outfit called aNobii released a trial version of a website that it hopes will become a Wikipedia-style community of book lovers, with an option to buy. The idea has potential. Amazon’s recommendation engine, although helpful, is rather impersonal—perhaps the retailer’s second-biggest weakness, after the resentment publishers feel for it.
