How Companies Can Use iBooks 2 To Engage with Customers

Published: January 19, 2012

This morning, Apple held an event in New York City to announce two awesome new products: iBooks 2 and iBooks Author. Essentially, these two services bring the power and beauty that was only available to Apps to the world of eBooks.

Steve Jobs said in his biography that the next market he wanted to disrupt was that of textbooks, and Apple has done just that. Apple has made it dead simple to create and share content in the form of completely interactive books. But what do these tools mean for us, outside of the education spectrum?

iBooks 2

iBooks 2 is a free download for all iPads. It gives you the ability to buy and read textbooks and even flash cards (make your own Spanish flashcards), right on your device. The first time someone opens the App Store on their iPad, they are always prompted to download iBooks, so most people have it installed and will receive notification that the update is available. With this in mind, it’s safe to assume that the majority of people with iPads will have this update and will be able to take full advantage of this new interactivity, including (but not limited to):

iBooks Author 

iBooks Author is available to all Mac users with access to Mac App Store at no charge (EDIT: A commenter pointed out that iBooks Author is actually only available to Mac App Store users running OSX 10.7, though some users have managed to circumvent this restriction). Not only is it free, it’s 100% drag-and-drop, with built-in templates and the ability to add additional functionality using HTML5 and Javascript. Using the iBooks Author, it would be no problem for a company to make things like:

    • Beautiful coffee table picture books
    • Digital cookbooks
    • Interactive brochures
    • Interactive menus

iBooks 2 is a new platform that will make it super easy for companies to take their content and make it interactive in a way that would not have been possible before.  When it comes to content marketing, iBooks 2 is a powerful new tool that companies can use to tell stories and engage with customers.

How will you be using iBooks 2?