Please explain

[james_davis_nicoll]

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

Comments

[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.

Re: Hmmm

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect that this is where that particular market segment will settle: micro tablet computers that are approximately the size of a trade-paper back book in HxW and about 0.5" thick. There are rumours flying around that Apple's designing a solid-state laptop-like device that uses the same touch-recognition code in the iPhone and iPod Touch, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if that's what will come out the back end of that research. Such a device would probably have WiFi and Bluetooth radios in it, but not cellular, and would be your portable document reader/web browser/video watching device that you can tote about your house and take to the coffee shop (where you can use their hot spot).

If you need/want to use a keyboard/mouse with it, you can use your Bluetooth input devices while the tablet is propped up on a small stand to act as a "display", or you can use the Touch onscreen 'keyboard' that's part of the iPhone/iPod Touch interface.

I'm hoping that they do really produce such a thing, because it's what I would probably purchase if it were available. Of course, being Apple, it may not be exactly inexpensive...

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I've seen the N800, and the screen is just a wee bit too small for me to comfortably use it as a document reader. Right now I have a BB Curve and I wouldn't particularly want to read text-based or PDF-based eBooks on it... it's OK for web browsing where you're not wanting to read lots of text, but as a reader of long content, I'm not sure I'd want to...

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I've seen the Rocket in action, and I must admit, I would have liked to own one. However I would really prefer to have native support to view PDFs on the device. The Rocket is just the right form factor (although perhaps a bit thick) for me.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

The Iliad provides those things sans the phone features.

[catbear.livejournal.com]

Four?! [ envy ] Every time I touch mine, there's a subtle horror that I'll drop it or break the screen and find myself bereft.

[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?

[slrose.livejournal.com]

I did drop and break my first one. Fortunately early enough that I was able to get it repaired. So I bought a spare.

And then I got others when I saw them for a reasonable price on ebay.

One is held together with tape -- the screws stripped, but it works fine, and even have some spare parts, just in case.

[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.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

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

[armb.livejournal.com]

At which point it's merely $100 more expensive than the Sony reader for a wireless connnection that won't work in the UK. (Not, of course, that the latter is a problem for everyone.)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/19/amazon_ebook_reader_folly/
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/11/oops.html#comment-11829

[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.

[sraun]

It looks like they're trying to set up something analogous to iTunes.

Check out http://www.naebllc.com/ for a seriously competing piece of hardware.

A friend of mine bought a bunch of PDF e-books from Amazon a few years ago. He lost them in a computer catastrophe, and went to re-download them. They were no longer available on his Amazon bookshelf. Customer service told him that they cleared all the 'you bought this e-book' info after one year - if you want to download a book again after that, you have to buy it again. I do not find this encouraging when I'm thinking about buying any e-books from them.

Having said that, I have heard one scenario where it makes sense. Mass transit commuters - say, New Yorkers who commute by train - who want to read their newspaper en route. Subscribe via Amazon, have it delivered to the device automagically, read it on the train on the way in to work. The next day, the new content is automagically there again. If you're reading your newspaper daily, and don't care about keeping old copies around, that works - it's got to be much easier to manipulate a Kindle on the train than it is to manipulate a newspaper!

One of the good things I've heard about iTunes is the indie presence. If Amazon can do something analogous to that - make it easy for small press publishers to get their books available via the Kindle - it might make it a more tempting device.

I'm not buying one - I'll get the NAEB device first. The wireless delivery doesn't come anywhere near off-setting the DRM - right now I have three authors I'll buy in DRM, I don't anticipate that number growing by orders of magnitude in the future. I'm in the 'If you insist on DRM, you're telling me you think I - as your paying customer - am a thief' camp.

[sraun]

You might want to check out http://www.naebllc.com/ - e-ink reader, no wireless delivery, no DRM, lots of formats, form factor similar to the Kindle.

Re: Hmmm

[sraun]

Have you seen the ASUS EEE PC? It's running Linux or Windows, solid-state hard-drive, 2 pounds, 7" screen, wireless connectivity. No touch screen. autopope & kinzel have recently (within the last week) gotten them, and their initial comments are very positive.

[epi-lj.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!"

*head explodes*

Just out of curiosity, how many iterations of a product get to have "FINALLY" applied to them? I mean, given that this is roughly the hojillionth "electronic paper"-based product on the market.

[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?

Re: Hmmm

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

No, I hadn't. Thanks for the link.

[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

[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.

[matt-ruff.livejournal.com]

Arrrrr!

[kate_nepveu]

Rar.

[(Anonymous)]

Whoa. That looks like the closest thing to the ebook reader I want that I've seen yet. I have a lot of Ereader and Mobipocket files. I've been reading on my old Palm devices, but I worry about what will happen when they die. :(

I loved my PDAs. /sigh/

[janciega.livejournal.com]

Whoa. That looks like the closest thing to the ebook reader I want that I've seen yet. I have a lot of Ereader and Mobipocket files. I've been reading on my old Palm devices, but I worry about what will happen when they die. :(

I loved my PDAs. /sigh/