Dumb Name, Cool Idea: “Vook” Video-Enhanced Books For iPod Touch, iPhone

Nicole Martinelli ()

A sample page from thriller vook "Embassy"

A sample page from thriller vook "Embassy"

Publishing house Simon & Schuster  just launched a new product dubbed “vook,”  a dumb name for what sounds like a smart video book.

The idea? Vooks blend text and video into a reading and viewing experience, so the next time you’re not really getting a sense of place from a novel, or want to see how exercises are done you can watch a video. It’s also got all of the social media trappings, so you can discuss, rant etc. about the vook, (pronounced to ryhme with book), too.

The first four titles, available for $4.99  each on iTunes, are workout book “The 90-Second Fitness Revolution,” a book of DIY spa treatments called “Return to Beauty,” a thriller by Richard Doetsch called “Embassy” and romance novella “Promises.”

Check out a video of the inevitable plantation in bodice buster "Promises" with vook.

Check out a video of the inevitable plantation in bodice buster "Promises."

Each ebook, pardon vook, has between 85 – 130 pages of text and 13-17 professionally-made videos, some integrated in the text, others run along the bottom as a separate menu.

The idea is timely — Apple recently launched a similar enhanced eBook called “Mayhem” that also came with an original soundtrack and clips — but it may work better for some genres than others.

DON'T MISS
Anne Rice Story to Pump New Blood into iTunes Video Books?

The video enhancement is a great plus for how-to books,  while the video-enhanced romance novel (check out the brand-new period costumes and gauzy filters), leaves me cold.

5 comments »

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

If you're doing something new/cool that's Apple related, email her about it.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by .

Posted in iPhone 3G, iPod Touch, iTunes, News | Tagged: |

  • Charli

    very dumb name.

    I’m not so keen on the whole read a novel on a screen. The notion of mood music and photos of known places isn’t so bad. but i myself would rather curl up with a real ink and paper book for novels

    reference books on the other hand, brilliant move. Cookbooks where you can see videos of the techniques, exercise books the same. and so on. I’ve been reading a music theory book to brush up and i have to pop in a CD to hear the examples. being able to tap a button and there it goes, sounds (all puns intended) great to me. Travel books where you can have little video clips, or even hear those phrases pronounced. or in a pinch just play it back to ask what you need (I’m a muck up with languages cause I”m partly deaf so I would get just as many laughs trying to say things).

  • Paul

    Should just call them “Smart Books” . With the upcoming tablet from Apple soon we’ll all be “getting smarter” and “watching” our books.

  • iGenius

    “Vooks blend text and video into a reading and viewing experience, so the next time you’re not really getting a sense of place from a novel … you can watch a video.”

    Somehow, I think that reading a novel which is better-written might be a more appealing alternative. Hemingway (or even Stephen King, fer chrissakes) needs no videos to draw you in.

  • http://www.zoomata.com Nicole Martinelli

    iGenius: agreed. Though I have to admit if I’m reading something or watching a movie and I don’t quite understand where the place is, or it involves a culture/idea I’m not familiar with, I’ll stop to go look it up to make sure I’ve really got it…

  • http://www.eveda.org Georg Haller

    This is a Lite version of Multimedia EBook. For watch video and not lost letter…