OPDS 1.1 and beyond

Hadrien Gardeur @Hadrien Feedbooks

Creating a new architecture using common, open standards that permits people to find, buy, acquire, and read books from any source, on any device, using many different ebook applications.

Goal

Read anything, anywhere.

Short Version

Two years ago From Stanza catalogs to a standard

August 2010 – OPDS 1.0 Standard way to search, browse & acquire

June 2011 – OPDS 1.1 Complex acquisitions, advanced browsing

December 2011 – OPDS 1.2 Better support for lending & subscriptions

Links to catalogs & callbacks

State of the ecosystem

20+ OPDS Clients … a must have feature for indie apps

… access to content from major international publishers

> 10 mil. users

… thousands of them using their own catalogs

A first version of an OPDS Validation Service

New Features OPDS 1.1

#1 Facets

#2 Featured content

#3 Indirect Acquisition

Support for complex acquisition flows

Among other things… support for transactions in browser

packaging formats (ZIP archive, DRM)

Solving the issue of having an intermediate

resource between the catalog and the publication itself.

From Catalog to Catalog / Shelf / Callback

Catalog

Catalogs are discoverable and can be shared

We use catalogs to… discover browse search

acquire content

Catalogs are meant to organize large collections, enable content providers to curate them, provide

an integrated experience for the end user

Shelf

A shelf is where I store my content

Shelfs can be… specific to a catalog global or aggregated

public or private synchronized

A shelf enables the user to find and read previously acquired content anywhere

Callback

A callback is a message

It contains… how to acquire the content

metadata location of the shelf & catalog service discovery information

A callback is a message between the content

provider and the reading environment. It opens the door to the reading ecosystem.

Callback Example #1 Web Reading Systems

Current workflow

1. Buy the book 2. Download the file locally

3. Upload the file 4. Start Reading

OPDS Callback

1. Buy the book (OPDS Callback)

2. Start Reading

Callback Example #2 Service discovery

22/09/2011

Services

Downloading a publication could trigger…

the ability to share annotations in your field

the addition of a peer reviewing service

the discovery of the full arXiv catalog

Upcoming Features OPDS 1.2

#1 OPDS URI Scheme

A necessary evil

One click to… Add a catalog

Add a shelf Launch a callback

#2 Lending & Subscription

Lending & Subscription

OPDS 1.2 will provide better support for…

Indicating the availability of a publication (pre-order, lending availability, next issue)

Length of the acquisition

(return date, subscription length)

A subscription shelf

What’s next ?

A new serialization ? JSON ? Maybe.

Domain & media specific metadata

Better ecosystem

(validation, discovery, documentation)

Integration with upcoming standards (annotations ?)

Discover OPDS at http://opds-spec.org