Readk.it, a new browser-based reading platform, offers to sidestep the complex and often costly process of preparing ebook content for a range of proprietary delivery systems.
Developed in New Zealand and launched in November of last year, the platform bills itself as a free, open-source solution to those production challenges by collapsing the publishing and reading systems into one. Readk.it allows users to harness a browser’s display capabilities to customize how the content will render there, regardless of the device being used.
One variation, called Readk.it Solo, converts EPUB content–including multimedia–into a single HTML file that can be delivered via email and read offline.
Readk.it represents a vote of confidence in the improving capabilities of modern web design to deliver rich content flexibly to a variety of devices.
According to Jason Darwin, the platform’s developer, Readk.it aims to push ebook developers toward adopting “responsive design techniques, given the proliferation of devices featuring modern web browsers (which are richer in functionality than most proprietary reading systems).”
That could also make the platform an appealing alternative to the perennially controversial digital rights management (DRM) systems that continue to shape the ebook marketplace.