Wow, talk about re-inventing the wheel:
The launch title, UNMASKED by Nicola Cornick, a Regency-set historical available from www.eBooks.eHarlequin.com, has been enriched with interactive buttons that hyperlink to Web sites containing photos, historical commentaries, illustrations, sound effects, maps, articles and more, bringing the world of the novel to life without the reader having to leave the computer or the current screen page. The interactive buttons have been designed to be unobtrusive, so if one prefers not to access the bonus material, the reading experience remains uninterrupted
What like the hyperlink? At times like this it makes me think Jeff Jarvis might be right (and maybe not just about Newspapers):
Newspapers are in the wrong businesses. They should no longer be in the manufacturing and distribution businesses — which have become heavy cost yokes — and should no longer try to be in the technology business. They’re bad at it.
So the solution – also from Jeff Jarvis:
Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.
Or even don’t try and link to the rest by re-imagining the concept of the link – you know that thing that makes the internet kinda what it is, the underliny bit that doesn’t require a separate button and new idiom for users to learn.
Quite amusing that the press-release contains examples of the more usual way of linking to other sources rather than these snazzy buttons.
