Server-side ebooks - does publishing need to catch up?

Sony has recently announced the launch of a music streaming service, Music Unlimited, and I can’t help thinking that a similar model would offer far more to publishers of ebooks than the downloads we’re currently getting used to (along with all the associated readers and file formats).

For one thing, this kind of service is device independent. You can switch phone, iPad, reader or PC without worrying about how to access your files, since they’re all held on a central server. Of course, you do need to be able to access that server, but it’s getting cheaper and easier to get online wherever we may be. And the client-side data storage options offered by HTML5 should mean that temporarily losing an internet connection need not be a big deal.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of server-side ebooks, though, is in updates. This may save editors and proofreaders a few sleepless nights. If there’s a serious typo or if the wrong draft has been used, just the update the file – no need for every customer to download a replacement. It would even be possibly to notify only those customers who had read as far as the page containing the error – the others need never know.