why what matters now just won't

I love Seth Godin as much as the next guy, but I'll just come out and say it -- there's a 99% chance that I won't read What Matters Now. It has nothing to do with the content -- there are people in there that I enjoy and respect. Instead, it has everything to do with the form.

What Matters Now is distributed as an "ebook," which is a fancy way of saying "a PDF." This particular PDF is 82 pages long (one page per contributor), where some pages are designed as slides with illustrations, and some pages contain a micro-essay laid out in a two-column format. The only convenient PDF reading device happens to be a PC, and the likelihood of me shutting out the world and spending a couple of sessions with my laptop to read this ebook are slim to none (especially when there's so much compelling YouTube content out there). And offline consumption isn't really an option: I'm not really sure I want to chew up 82 pages worth of paper and printer ink on it, and I've learned that Amazon's PDF conversion service for the Kindle will puke all over the two-column layout.

This should have been a website. Each essay with its own permalink. With interlinking between pieces. With hyperlinking out to the rest of the web. With search. And a table of contents. And commenting, favoriting and simple social sharing tools. And it could have been a beautiful thing to experience -- on the web. Instead, it's a file that I won't experience, sitting in my Downloads folder.

Comments

[twitter.com/BillSeitz]

Don't forget that Seth was key in creating ChangeThis, the ultimate PDFs-that-should-be-web-pages service.

I dunno how well it will handle the 2-column mess, but you might want to try Calibre, open-source software for converting document formats. I've generated epub files from book-length PDFs with a fair amount of success... (it might turn multi-column stuff which is really done like a table into an image)
http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/faq.html#what-formats-does-app-support-conversion-to-from

[twitter.com/BillSeitz]

Blech, Calibre doesn't seem to be handling those 2-column pages well, either. Maybe it could, but I don't have the patience for it either!

(Note that Calibre will output epub and other ebook formats, but not HTML. But if you take an epub file and change its extension to .gzip, you can unzip as usual and find a directory of XHTML files, etc.)

[Martin Edic]

I had the same thought- Seth is obsessed with usability but this thing is ungainly to say the least- a big awkward file that is a pain to navigate (like ChangeThis). They could have done it with a blog and a tag cloud made from the names of the authors. Make it dynamic so we could see in real time which writers were attracting the most readers.
I have to say that much of the content I read was pretty lightweight- but it is a holiday card, isn't it?

[Seamus]

You ain't missing much. It's just one page after another of platitudes and generic advice about being more compassionate, collaborative, open-minded, focused, energetic, reflective, fun, serious, analytical, spiritual.

I'm finding it insufferable and frankly unreadable. Who wants an 82-page holiday card?

[Michael Sippey]

What, your family doesn't send 82 page holiday cards designed to make you feel inadequately collaborative, open-minded, focused, energetic, reflective, fun, serious, analytical and/or spiritual? Wow, where'd you grow up?