I've Joined Inkling -- Digital Textbooks FTW!
This is my first week at Inkling and I'm super excited to be here. Inkling is building interactive and social digital textbooks on the iPad. Digital textbooks are a perfect place to explore moving beyond the traditional book.Traditional textbooks are heavy, so digital ones automatically gain the benefit of being lighter. Inkling textbooks can be purchased by the chapter, just like on iTunes. Traditional books, such as a novel, will probably not change that much as they transition onto devices like the Kindle, but educational textbooks are perfect for exploring ways to move beyond the book. Textbooks are educational and social vehicles, so it makes sense to integrate video, audio, and interactive quizes and illustrations. Inkling is doing all of this and more.
Inkling itself is built with a unique combination of HTML5; native bits in Objective C; a textbook markup language named S9ML; and parts in the cloud. I'll be focused on the JavaScript and HTML5 parts as a Web Application Engineer, though I'm interested in getting a chance to do some Objective C at some point. I'm also excited to be working closely with fellow JS folks Andrew Hoyer and Scott Kyle.
Inkling as a company and culture is interesting as well. They are based in San Francisco and are small, so it's easy to get things done quickly. They have a real commitment to usability with a great UX team.
Try out Inkling yourself on your iPad. Also check out joining Inkling if you're looking for a great place to work.
Comments
Major congrats dood! I created a student book exchange when at University many moons ago. I was disgusted with the prices.
Seeing beautiful text books and taking education to the next level through tech is really exciting, so I totally get why you would join Inkling!
Have a great time, and I hope we get to hear about the fun technical work that you do :)
Cheers,
Dion
As an instructional designer who researches the role of e-textbooks in course design, I have to admit I was pretty blown away with Inkling. The titles that you all are developing puts to shame anything that we're getting from the traditional textbook publishers. They thinking making a PDF file of the textbook available and creating some generic LMS content is innovative.
Look forward to enjoying your work!