Today it is a common for us to access thousands of eBooks over a mobile or a tab or through a specific e-reader; not mention the cross-functional PCs. As we all know some of the common formats of eBooks are PDFs, ePub and of course mobi which is a proprietary format of Amazon Platform. The question we are pondering today is how it all began? From where this idea of reading content on a digital platform originate? The answer was surprising as in the year 1930 a writer named Bob Brown after watching a Talkie (motion picture with sound) envisioned “The Readies” which could be plugged to any old electric socket and could read a plethora of novels.

With onset of digital era changed the world drastically. Organization globally started to move towards paperless office adapting to digital technologies. The idea of eBooks started to shape up in the early 70s with Project Gutenberg (1971) which digitized the “U.S. Declaration of Independence”; which is considered the first eBook although it was actually the first email message sent between to wireframes.

Recognized commercial pioneer of eBooks was “Voyager Company” who founded and published “expanded books” on CD-ROM that included Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park; another notable mention is Digital Book, Inc. who were the first to offer 50 digital books on floppy disk. In the year 1998 digital eBook platform started take shape because of a) dedicated eBook readers like Rocket Ebook and Softbook was launched; b) eBooks was recognized to get ISBN; c) US Libraries launched free eBooks services to the public; and last but not the least d) Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

2000 marked as a year which launched blu-ray disc in the market and also the world-famous author Stephen King published his novel “Riding the Bullet” exclusively on the digital platform. In the year 2002 Publishing giants HarperCollins and Random House were the first to sell digital versions of their publication products. Then Sony stepped in launching its first e-reader “Sony Librie” in the year 2004 and after a couple of years they upgraded to “Sony Reader”.

Amazon and Apple entered the market with their products kindle and iPhone in the year 2007 which turned the tables of the Publishing world. Another notable player Barnes and Noble introduced Nook to the world. From the year 2010 the surge of digital formats became apparent which changed transformed publishing houses to go beyond their print versions expanding their territories via virtual medium globally.

One of most noted antique format in the print publishing is pop-up book which is now effectively replaced by its digital counter part by introducing animations, video & audio embed and of course Audio overlay. With these features in place there is no alternative to them in a print version thereby became new gen digital format.

Leveling with the present we have travelled long path to be able to read an eBook on our mobile phones driven by a mobile app. Technology is still progressing leading us to new dimensions….