[17341] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Project Gutenberg Project Report
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Hart)
Tue May 30 20:32:00 2006
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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0605300846490.7044@pglaf.org>
Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 08:48:09 -0700
Reply-To: "Michael S. Hart" <hart@pobox.com>
From: Michael Hart <hart@PGLAF.ORG>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Some Landmark Events That Should Accompany The First World eBook Fair
[The World eBook Fair will take place from July 4 through August 4, 2006]
As of May 25, 2006, here is how we are progressing:
The original Project Gutenberg site should reach ~20,000 eBooks.[19,465=97.5%]
The Distributed Proofreaders should pass ~8,500 eBooks. [8,478] [99.74%]
The Project Gutenberg Consortia Center should reach ~75,000 eBooks. [Done!]
Project Gutenberg of Australia should reach ~550 eBooks. [Done!] [582]
Project Gutenberg of Europe should reach ~300 eBooks [Done!] [313]
Project Gutenberg PrePrints should reach ~200 eBooks. [168]
Thus the total number of Project Gutenberg eBooks at all the sites
should reach ~100,000 within a year of the first World eBook Fair.
[This is my own personal estimate, The World eBook Library insists
on a very conservative listing of 75,000, and Project Gutenberg is
also very conservative in it's listings. However, obviously there
will be duplications if you download all the eBooks from both, and
hence the 1/3 million figure subtracts 17,000 for duplication.]
*
In addition, the United States population should reach 300 million,
by official estimates, within a few months of The World eBook Fair,
and the world population should reach 2/3 of 10 billion in 2008.
***
Events Surrounding The First Four World eBook Fairs
Each year, from 2006 through 2009, during the month from
July 4 through August 4, The World eBook Fair will bring
you an unprecedented number of eBooks:
2006 1/3 Million
2007 1/2 Million
2008 3/4 Million
2009 One Million
I personally DARE Google or Yahoo or anyone else to make
eBooks available to the general public at this rate.
I would LOVE to lose, because that would mean this world
would have at least TWO million free eBooks July 4, 2009.
If you have a webvcr, webvacuum, spider, bot, etc. please
feel free to download every one of these eBooks, and keep
them forever, pass them on to friends and family.
This is definitely NOT encouraged by most eBook providers
but should be the norm for those who use public domain as
the source material for their electronic editions; markup
should NOT create a new copyright.
****
Can We Give Away One Quadrillion eBooks Before 2010 ???
During this period, the world population will pass marks
from 6.5 Billion+, to 6.6 Billion, to 6 2/3 Billion, and
to 6 3/4 Billion on July 4, 2009, as per the estimations
of the World Population Clock [Google: "pop clock"]
As the world population passes 6 2/3 billion at half way
through this period, it would require reaching only 1.5%
of the world population to give eBooks to 100 million of
the people of the world.
Giving 1 million eBooks to 100 million people would give
out a total of 100 trillion eBooks, and that is only via
a target audience of 1/5%. . . .
If we can manage to give the average eBook to 15% of the
world population, not unthinkable, that would be a grand
total of 1 quadrillion eBooks given away.
For those who hate it when I use large numbers, it still
can't be helped when the possibilities are this great.
I simply refuse NOT to mention that we could give out an
order of a quadrillion eBooks in the next three years if
it is actually staring us in the face.
****
WARNING: DO NOT MAKE THE SAME "DOT COM" MISTAKE TWICE !
Today the number of people on the Internet is already in
an area past the 15% range, and will probably accelerate
until it reaches 50%, probably some time in the next new
decade coming up, moving from the over 1 billion the Net
now has, to 3 or 4 billion by the time half of the world
has Internet access.
WARNING!!!
Do NOT make the same mistake on a world scale as the Dot
Com idiots made with the United States just a decade ago
as they foolishly ignored the obvious fact that the U.S.
was passing 50% Internet saturation and thus could NEVER
manage another doubling of the Internet population, much
less add twice as many people at socio-economic levels a
previous decade of growth had seen.
The numbers are simple:
Once you have reached half the population, growth rates,
no matter how large, have to drop off.
This is a plain law of simple arithmetic.
Why the Dot Com idiots could not see this is just one of
many examples that human beings, even billionaires, will
never be as smart as they would like to think.
REPEATED WARNING!!!
Once half the world population is on the Internet growth
simply has to stop doubling, not just stop doubling at a
previous rate, it has to stop doubling EVER, presuming a
ceiling of 10 billion people in the world.
Don't get caught up in the next Internet Boom, at least,
don't forget to get out after things pass 50%.
****
The Same Can Be Said Of eBooks, So Be Careful !!!
Google promised you 10 million eBooks back about one and
a half years ago, and said they would do it in six years
or so, and one quarter of that time has elapsed, but the
Google Book Search, nee Google Print Library, has yet to
achieve even 1% of their goal even after 25% of the time
has elapsed. Even if you add in Yahoo's efforts with an
Open Content Alliance, and Amazon's eLibrary, add in the
effort of The Library of Congress, etc., we still do not
have 1% of that initial goal of 10 million, though it is
getting close right now, depending on who you talk with.
The reason I bring this up is that once we do 10 million
eBooks, the same thing is going to happen to the eBooks,
growth rates will slow down, and something new will have
to take its place if the eBook world is to thrive in the
same manner it did on the way to 10 million, because the
sum total of all the books likely to be digitized in the
next few decades isn't going to leave room for doublings
more than once or twice from that 10 million.
My own prediction is that by the time we have 10 million
eBooks, probably sometime between 2010 and 2020, the new
emphasis will be on translating these 10 million into an
ever increasing variety of languages.
Project Gutenberg has contained samples of 100 languages
for some time now, and even if this number of languages,
perhaps half the recognized languages and dialects, will
not be expanded to the possible level of 200, then still
there is a possibility of 1 billion eBook titles, if you
count 10 million books each in 100 languages.
1 Billion eBook Titles. . .WOW !!!
I've been making predictions about eBooks from 1971 on--
and no one has ever believed me--so why start now?
Very likely I won't be here to see it, but I think these
next two decades are going to bring us the first million
eBooks before the end of the first decade of a new Third
Millennium, and the first 10 million in a second decade,
and then to translation of these into many languages via
the new era of Machine Translation that will follow.
If you live to 2025, you will know if I am right or not,
but I'm not planning to be here 19 years from now at the
age of 78, at least unless I finally get paid enough for
my career in getting eBooks off the ground to get a good
health care plan and better living conditions.
I'm still working out of the same basement as in 1980's,
and still using the same software to write and send this
message out to the Internet.
You don't need any specific new programs to do eBooks or
email or most other things on the Net, unless you get on
the multimedia bandwagon.
More Localized Population News
The United States will reach a population of 300 million
sometime in the second half of 2006, thus allowing for a
100 million target audience simply by reaching one third
of the United States population, alone, but the U.S. has
been losing its dominant Internet position and should be
prepared for more people speaking Chinese than English a
year or two from now. I've been talking about China and
India for years now, and finally with Thomas L. Friedman
and his Flat Earth books, people finally believe me.
*
The world is changing, and many people still prefer that
olde waye of ignoring such changes until they bonk their
heads so hard they can't ignore it any longer, usually a
bit too late to do anything preparations.
Prepare now.
Be ready to download eBooks.
1/3 Million from July 4 through August 4, 2006
1/2 Million from July 4 through August 4, 2007
3/4 Million from July 4 through August 4, 2008
One Million from July 4 through August 4, 2009
And it will certainly be great if Google, Yahoo, Amazon,
etc., can add in another million eBooks by then.
By the way, even at today's prices you can buy computers
that can hold a million eBooks for under $1,000.
You can now add terabytes for under $500.
In fact, we just saw an ad for 300G drives for $99,
and 400G drives for $119, $129 and $139. I ordered
but supplies were limited, and I'm may not get one.
The future is closer than you think. . .always. . . .
It's just that it doesn't always make the headlines.
