I’ve decided to stop trying to use a bazooka to kill an ant.

For the last several weeks, I’ve been constructing a report on what’s happening with the culture of participation surrounding Web 2.0 (which I’ve taken to calling “FutureWeb”, by the way) and am intending to deliver a free ebook and had thought of doing so as a PDF. I’ve got quite a bit of experience delivering compelling, screen pleasing and readable ebooks — and PDF is a ubiquitous container that is cross platform — and good page layout tools and Acrobat Professional offer the ability to deliver great design, some interactivity and, most importantly, rapid ebook creation.

I decided instead to deliver this report online. Hyperlinks are imperative within this ebook and I can also make this a living, breathing dynamic product since change is accelerating. Wanting to leverage Typepad (and commenting, trackbacks, etc.) due to its ease-of-use, I spent HOURS tweaking the Typepad CSS and ended up stuck on the inability to deliver good navigation and, most importantly, to have good enough design. The process was exhausting, building it out laughingly slow, and the “blog look” was just simply too pedestrian.

I went on the hunt for another tool to quickly deliver this ebook with good design and solid functionality before I gouged out my eyes with a spoon and ran out of my office screaming at random strangers.

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