Please explain

[james_davis_nicoll]

Why anyone would think that this product is a good idea.

Comments

[drplokta]

Because they want to travel with more books than it is convenient to carry in paper form, or they want to own more books than it is convenient to store in paper form.

[julesjones]

And they are completely unaware of any of the alternative devices which do not tie you to Amazon's servers and DRM. Amazon has actually achieved the dubious distinction of being even more bloody annoying on this front than Sony achieved with *their* attempt to conquer the world through proprietary content.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Whether another US only one is a good idea, good question.

Project Gutenberg.
Free SF Online.
Baen.
Fictionwise.

Easier on the eyes.

Cheaper books in the long run. (not everyone has the review fairy bring them boxes of books, let alone live in North America, and get charged half the price of elsewhere).

Helix.
Strange Horizons.

Newspapers are dying, dude. :) So are magazines.

Access to older stuff that is out of print - and see above.

Building all that up, we finally get to an Earth-Final Conflict flexible global to carry around.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

The price seems awful, but what are people paying for iPods and iPhones? *shrugs* I can see several ways in which the thing would drive me around the twist, but it has the potential to get people reading a lot more simply because the books are so accessible.

I would love to be able to carry multiple books around for only 10oz of weight. My disability makes carrying even a couple books difficult at times. I can see that it would be an amazing assistance for students. When they put school texts on it, I'll get really excited. Something along those lines could really make a difference for students.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

Perhaps more to the point -- why do you think it's a BAD idea?

I should note -- in the ways it would drive me around the twist mentioned above, the fact that it's proprietary and doesn't seem to be able to be synched with a HD, making all your purchases dependent on the continuation of that single device, are near the top.

As a piece of technology in general, I think it looks kind of nifty. Just needs to be more hackable. Open source, even.

[iamza.livejournal.com]

If it were non-US only, I'd think about buying it just so that I could get instant delivery of books without worrying about being out when the mail delivery happens, or where I'm going to store the books afterwards. Also, it would allow me to go on holiday with a library of books at hand, including one for every conceivable reading mood, and still not exceed my baggage allowance.

It doesn't look very pretty, but I'll willingly overlook the aesthetic issues if it works as advertised from the get-go.

[caias.livejournal.com]

You would be better off buying a OLPC and using that. It will support PDFs and, you know, have a lot of other functions...

[dsrtao]

There are people who will buy anything, including Microsoft products and Apple 1st-generation hardware.

I have a Nokia N800. It fits in a pocket, has a high-resolution screen, is outfitted with 2 removable 2GB cards - which are cheap - and I have about 700 books on it right now. It can also play music, movies, and act as a web browser. Not a great email client. The battery life could be improved, and the screen could be more readable in strong light.

However, I am a technogeek. This isn't just a bookreader, it's a pocket computer. So there.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Right after I got my phone (sony-ericsson k790) I looked for an ebook reader and failed. Your comment made me give it another go, and I found a few likely leads.

Ob-on-topic-bit: I had managed to avoid learning how much this Kindling thing cost until just now, and holy cats was that a sticker shock. I mean, /two/ OLPCs. tiny keyboard. reflective screen. Hm.

This sure looks like a v1, and a clunky-looking one at that. I'm curious if they'll get the chance for a v2, and the v2 might have something going for it- the subscription model sounds reasonable if you were willing to switch your purchases from paper... and if you, say, spent a lot of time reading on your commute. In that situation I would at least consider the device rather than reading the NYT on paper or a laptop screen.

iTunes subscriptions for books- might work for some people.

Just don't drop your Kindle in the tub.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

If they pay me royalties, it's a good idea...

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Not *this* device but *such* a device:
1. Portability: airports, always having a choice of books with you
2. Being able to carry both out of print and current books easily
3. Adjustable type size
4. Technophilia
5. Professional use (dependency on big heavy references such as Knuth, OED)

Not my kink, but I'm fond of many people for whom it is.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Also:

6. Textbook storage and affordability (for students).
7. Ease of note-taking without making a mess of a book.

And lots more. However, this is not the right device. It's far too expensive (though the cost could be moderated by including a bunch of credits toward buying books), isn't useful for anything but Amazon books (I want to read my .lit, .pdf, .htm, and so on files), and - critical issue here - and uses really dumb digital rights management. Also, note that it can do neither 6. nor 7. right now.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yay! Someone is FINALLY using the "electronic paper" idea that was protyped by Xerox PARC in the late Seventies! And which I saw demonstrated in the late nineties!

Basically, you have a matrix of very small electrostatically charged spheres, each of which is white on one side, and black on the other. A charge is put through, which flips each sphere, giving you a black-and-white display which is as crisp as ink, and takes no energy to maintain: in its "off" configuration, it keeps the image last put upon it. It does not work fast enough to do animation, but it works fast enough to turn pages. Since the Eighties, it's been talked about as the technology that would make e-books practical. Now, thirty years after it was invented, someone's FINALLY brought a product to market using the technology.

I think this has the potential to be as big as the Segway. Maybe even bigger.

[montoya.livejournal.com]

Sony's been using that same technology in its reader. And it's not really that crisp -- it's only 160 dpi or so, which is pretty comparable to a high-resolution laptop screen.

[zarq.livejournal.com]

What a boon it would be to professionals if their industry journals were available. I know quite a few researchers who would love access to PubMed on a portable device that doesn't weigh as much as a laptop.

Students could carry all of their textbooks in a single unit and search and annotate as well.

There's a lot of practical potential here. If only the price were lower.

[becky-monster.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of practical potential here. If only the price were lower.

And if it was available internationally and if both book and journal pubilishers were NOT so precious about their content (yes, I know it's allll about the copyright but...) and wanting to ask for about $160 for access to one e-book (if you want more than one person to read it - double or triple that price) that's even if they'll make it available in the first place (clue - two hopes and Bob is dead) as for journals... (falls over giggling hysterically)

In short a good idea - but the publishing industry are as bad as the RIAA or the MPAA for accepting new tech.

The icon should give you a clue what I do;)

edited to make the point better

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Most people find the work I do to get ebooks onto my Palm TX to be unacceptably dificult (I consider it trivial; but I've been a computer programmer since 1968). This device seems to be offering a very user-friendly process for getting content onto the device.

And for people who buy a lot of mainstream hardcovers, at a savings of say $15 per book, it'll pay for itself in roughly 26 books.

I find the closedness to be a fatal flaw, myself, but lots of people seem to not care -- or perhaps expect it'll get hacked shortly, as the iPhone did?

[mrgeddylee.livejournal.com]

It's so close to being a good idea that you can see a good idea from there.

Amazon's book pricing and DRM scheme say "we expect you to treat Kindle e-books as being every bit as desireable as real books." Sadly the device's cost, size, and battery life all say "Kindle e-books are not as desireable as real books."

As montoya says, if the Kindle experience admitted that e-books were still the ugly stepsister of the real thing, and priced them accordingly, it might go the other way. $10 Kindle editions of $25-$30 hardbacks are a start, but I want $3 Kindle editions of $7 paperbacks, and a further price break on a Kindle edition of any book I already bought from Amazon in paper format. Free would be good, but I'd still go as high as $2. Then when I was travelling I'd have a Kindle and a couple paper books in case of emergency, instead of a big sack of books and e-books on my PDA for emergencies.

Oh, and I hate the Kindle's keyboard. I see the necessity if Amazon expects us to do all our book shopping from the Kindle, but I'd rather shop from my PC and have more of the bulk of my e-book reader devoted to screen space.

The market is free, and parts are black.

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

Amazon's book pricing and DRM scheme say "we expect you to treat Kindle e-books as being every bit as desireable as real books." Sadly the device's cost, size, and battery life all say "Kindle e-books are not as desireable as real books."

Baen is the only publisher yet who understands e-book pricing. The competition for e-books is not hardcovers. The competition for e-books is (for the non-techie) MMPB and (for the techie) alt.binaries.e-book.flood. The fact that the latter is criminal, immoral and based on the idea that nobody at all gets paid doesn't change the fact that it's THERE and it is real competition.

I suspect that most publishers who dabble in e-books don't find out that the pirate 'market' exists until they've already got their business plans committed to the priced-like-a-hardcover model. Then they freak out and decide to add punitive DRM _on top of_ priced-like-a-hardcover. So both halves of the customer base roll their eyes and go back to, respectively, paperbacks and piracy.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Because there's always some technoweenie who can't conceive of anything that can't be "improved" with a lot of useless technology? Because you have a lot of book, magazine, and newspaper publishers who will have to go back to their original professions of asking "Business, mister?" down on the docks if they aren't somehow able to get more synergy with wildly inappropriate media acquisitions? Because you'll have dozens of Cory Doctorow/Bruce Sterling wannabes who will crow about how an invention such as this will somehow jumpstart the "but we'll make it up in volume" model of electronic publishing? Because some ideas are so stupid that you need a bank of Ph.Ds to make them happen? You got me, man.

[catbear.livejournal.com]

It boggles my mind. I still own and use my original Rocket eBook -- a lovely device about the size and weight of a thick paperback (think Dhalgren), with an incredibly high contrast LCD screen and 40 hour battery life, and just three buttons: page next, page back, and on/off. And, of course, a touch screen for everything else. And despite being cheaper than the Kindle, it still died in the marketplace -- because the publishers wouldn't drop the price of the books, citing "convenience" "instant downloads" and "a pocket bookshelf" as reasons why it was still worth $20 to get a DRM-controlled pile of bits you could only read on one particular device... instead of a BOOK.

I bought the Rocket because it came with the Rocket Librarian -- a snazzy piece of software that you could drag HTML/TXT files to and it would format them for the device and download them instantly. And because there was Baen Webscriptons. And I'm still using both it, and webscriptions. Although I need to swap out the NIMH batteries soldered inside it, because after eight years they won't hold a charge longer than 10 hours now.

Lovely machine, but stupidly marketed, and because it was beholden to the even-more-ostrich-like-than-the-RIAA book publishing industry, it died. Just like the Kindle will, unless Bezos can fix the cost profile.

[slrose.livejournal.com]

I adore my Rocket books. [I have four, which I rotate.]

I am still waiting for something as satisfactory to use.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Add phone features, PDF support and clear openness, and it'd be tempting.

iPhone -- locked up
N800/810 -- "Internet appliances", not smartphones
Nokia E90 -- getting there, though not Linux, and looks like smaller screens

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

The Iliad provides those things sans the phone features.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Maybe they think it will save trees.

E-books good, Kindle not so good

[marius gedminas (from livejournal.com)]

Mark Pilgrim has a nice take on this, composed entirely from quotes: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/19/the-future-of-reading

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

because people like me dont know the difference between it and any other reader unless we read the comments section of this LJ?

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Amazon thinks it's a good idea because they could theoretically sell infinitely many books at near zero production and distribution cost. Whether their strategy is compatible with the goal is a different matter.

[montedavis.livejournal.com]

Because although neither the device nor the business model is a good idea for me, they're two more contributions to the lengthy, expensive, duplicative, short-sighted, inefficient thrashing (to which I've seen no non-magical alternative) that eventually will yield something I like?

[skapusniak.livejournal.com]

Because every mark^H^H^H^Hunpublished wannabe not very savvy would-be author who would previously have been scammed by the 'we're not really a vanity publisher (honest)' du jour, or who would have made some poor editor or literary agent's eyes bleed by submitting their utterly unreadable magnum opus to a slushpile someplace, will now instead buy one of those (kaching! $400 to Amazon), then go to the brand spanking new Amazon Digital Text Platform upload their unproofread manuscript into the system, paying whatever fees (kaching!) are required, just for the fleeting pleasure of believing that they will soon have a bestseller on their hands.

In order to help their immiment bestsellerdom along they will also attempt bully everyone in their social circle into also purchasing one of those thingys (kaching! kaching! kaching!) so all their friends can read this ground-breaking tome, and posssibly spam every blog and forum in existence as advised by the soon to be released bestselling Kindle ebook title 'How to write and publish a Kindle bestselling ebook, in less than a month!'

I am possibly being unduly cynical about Amazon's business plan here.

[skapusniak.livejournal.com]

Oh, and somewhere among the resulting gargantuan pile of dross there will, merely by the law of averages, be a few pearls that will actually be worthy of being bestsellers. Some fraction of those will actually catch fire (hence the name 'Kindle') and *sell*. For that minute fraction of the longest of long tails Amazon will have cannily put themsleves in the position of completely cutting out the middle-man known as a 'publisher' and thus hoover up *all* that fraction of those title's revenue that doesn't go to the author rather than just the regular bookseller's portion.

In short it's an attempt by Amazon to monetize the collective English-language slushpiles of the world, with the majority of the monies going into their pocket. The content from established publishers is just a hook to legitimise stuff distributed on the device as being equivalent to 'real books' (whatever 'real books' happen to be).

Of course, remains to be seen whether the plan will work with a device that supremely ugly.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Ironically, they named it for a feature real books have that it can't possibly compete with.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

It's not a product that appeals to me at all, partly because I don't live within its service range, partly because I'm not interested in a unit that I can't sync data of my choice to, and I'll freely admit partly because it's so freakishly ugly compared to competing products. However, I'm sure that there are a lot of people who don't really care about being tied to Amazon to buy their books and for whom the fees for adding blogs and converting documents are inconsequential. For those people, if they want an electronic reading device, it seems an okay option. Certainly it's more likely to be exceedingly simple and convenient to use, which is a big plus for a lot of people. *shrug* What's the reason you find it impossible to imagine a person who would want it?

[amalthia]

I have no clue, I'm really attached to my Sony Reader. Sure it takes some work to convert my files to RTF but that means I can read anything I can add to RTF, it's so much more flexible and it actually is the size of a thin paperback and fits in my purse with zero problems.

[becky-monster.livejournal.com]

(Here via a rec on my flist)

Oh boy... where do I start? First off - they need to talk to those nice people at Apple about design. Secondly - what biologically obscene acts did they have to perform on the publishing industry to get them to go along with the idea... or shall I just get the mind bleach out now and have done with it?

And I haven't even gotten to copyright! Not to mention book costs - I'm from the UK and can't compare that well, but I know enough to say that if they can keep them to that cost then I'll be very surprised. See the NBC versus iTunes goatrope for more on that.

A bit of TMI - I work in academic libraries. We'd love to have more e-books but the publishers will only allow access to (on the whole) older titles and make subscribers (another point!) pay very well for the privelege.

V.Useful article by the UK version of the ALA on an e-book project (http://www.cilip.org.uk/publications/updatemagazine/archive/archive2007/november/Milloy+Nov+07.htm) not quite the same model but... damn close enough!

In short - will happen one day but not today and the book has been around for over 1,000 years and hasn't been superseded yet. Can't see it happening just yet either.