Beyond Passive Audiobook: How Digital Audiobooks Get Interactive

Although the audiobook market is growing at an exceptional speed, an audiobook is limited to passive listeners. In this paper we propose a novel approach to transform a passive listener into a story director. By introducing interactivity into digital audiobook, a user can interact with the storyline and the story develops according to user choices. We propose an architecture that produces interactive audiobooks in a transparent and secure way. Transparency is achieved by using the AAC format for the audio stream, the MPEG7-DDL for the audio description and the ISO Base Media File Format for the audiobook file format; security is achieved with a mechanism that protects the digital content from illegal usage and avoids any possible content malicious alteration. The simplicity of our approach, along with the growing usage of portable devices, may find new markets for the audiobook in the educational and entertainment worlds.