Wave of the future: going multimedia for mini E-Books or simply staying as executable files and PDFs? As with all things in marketing, products tend to migrate to the medium with the highest perceived value – that is, as soon as the technology becomes affordable.
Initially, most mini E-Books came in executable format. These E-Books quickly became commonplace to such a degree that no one saw them as valuable. In addition to that, they were riddled with bugs. So E-Books moved to the next medium: PDF files. Currently, files in PDF format still have a relatively high perceived value, which means they can still demand higher prices than products in older mediums. This means that our question, “wave of the future: going multimedia for mini E-Books or simply staying as executable files and PDFs?” can be answered in two ways: for the foreseeable future, PDFs will still have value, but audio and multimedia applications have already begun to grow in popularity.
Why is this? For the most part, it is because the average person who creates an info product doesn't have the skills or budget (even though it is relatively cheap now) to create a multimedia or audio application.
When people see multimedia and audio applications, they almost instantly associate it with quality, even if that isn't the case. Additionally, people tend to prefer multimedia and audio applications over reading. This allows them to listen to a mini E-Book while doing something else on their computer, like reading and writing email.
So is the mini E-Book the wave of the future? Absolutely. As the technology becomes less and less expensive, more people will begin to use it, which means it is crucially important that you learn now; otherwise you may find that your products will continually lose value over time.