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Amazon's Ebook The Future of Reading?
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Nov 18, 2007 06:12 AM
from the only-if-it-ever-gets-released dept.
from the only-if-it-ever-gets-released dept.
theodp writes "With a seven-page cover story on The Future of Reading, Newsweek confirms all those rumors of Amazon's imminent introduction an affordable ebook. Kindle, which is named to evoke the crackling ignition of knowledge, has the dimensions of a paperback, weighs 10.3 oz., and uses E Ink technology on a 6-inch screen powered by a battery that gets up to 30 hours from a 2-hour charge. Kindle's real breakthrough is its EVDO-like wireless connectivity, which allows it to work anywhere, not just at Wi-Fi hotspots. More than 88,000 titles will be on sale at the Kindle store at launch, with NYT best sellers priced at $9.99."
Related Stories
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Apple: Kindle Versus The iPhone 376 comments
Bernie Campbell writes "Forbes takes a look at the recently announced Kindle ebook from Amazon, and considers the possibility that Apple may have beaten them to the punch. 'Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has a not-so-secret weapon when it comes time to load up the iPhone with content: Google ... Google's Book Search project has already pumped much of the world's printed matter into Google's servers. Downloads of classic titles, such as Bleak House, can already be had for free. Mix Apple's iTunes content distribution smarts with Google's vast storehouse of content, and you'll have an instant competitor to Kindle -- one with a touch interface and the ability to play movies and music, too.'
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Hardware: Amazon's Kindle Sells Out In 5.5 Hours 417 comments
necro81 writes "As reported on Engadget, Amazon's Kindle e-book reader has sold out. Charlie Rose's interview with Jeff Bezos reveals that the Kindle sold out within just 5-1/2 hours of going on sale. Amazon hasn't revealed how many it had in stock at launch, so it may just be that they didn't anticipate early demand. A check of the Kindle's product page shows that more will be rolling out starting December 3rd." Wired also has a brief head-to-head of the more prominent ebook readers and PCWorld has a review of the new gadget from Amazon.
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Entertainment: Hands-On With The Kindle 365 comments
Amazon's Kindle e-book may have sold out in record time, but there's still a lot of discussion about the device's merits. Neil Gaiman likes it well enough, but it's sent Robert Scoble into a fit of apoplectic rage. For a real, meaty, hands-on look at the way the device operates in everyday life, Gamers With Jobs writer Julian Murdoch has a slice of life with the Kindle. He takes us through his Thanksgiving holiday weekend with the device, noting the quirks (good and bad) that cropped up with Amazon's new toy. "Short of reading in the tub, the Kindle is easier to read in more places, positions, and situations than a physical book ... But it's far from perfect. It is expensive. The cover, which I find completely necessary, is in desperate need of more secure attachment (Velcro works great). The book selection is less-than-perfect, although I imagine this will improve with every passing day. And Amazon needs marketing help. The Kindle's launch reeked of 'get it out fast.' The big-picture marketing efforts (like video demonstrations and blurbs from authors) were great, but simple things like communicating how freakin' easy it is to get non-Amazon content on to the device, for free, remain horribly misunderstood."
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The Cult of Kindle 283 comments
DaMan writes "ZDNet's Hardware 2.0 blog is pondering the Kindle this week. There have been many attempts at an ebook reader in the past; why does Amazon think it can do any better? Given the high cost and DRM issues, will cachet be enough to win them financial success? Will the 'Cult of Kindle' help guarantee Amazon's success in the ebook reader market? 'A group of people willing to give it a five star rating just because someone else didn't, willing to back up every design, engineering and marketing decision that Amazon made, willing to defend the Kindle with their last dying breath. The Kindle doesn't cost money, it saves money. That 0.75 second flash as the pages turn isn't a downside because it gives you an opportunity to take in the previous page. It doesn't harm your eyes, in fact, it fixes them. Ergonomic issues that other reviewers have bought up are dismissed by the Cult of Kindle as flaws with the reviewer, not the device. The Kindle is perfect, and the Kindle 2.0 will be a little more perfect.'"
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Linux: Source Claims 240K Kindles Sold 176 comments
Naturalist writes "Exact data on (the Linux-powered) Kindle sales figures have been hard to come by. Amazon is notoriously tight-lipped about it, and although CEO Jeff Bezos did give some Kindle-related information back in July, the company has yet to break out how many readers it has sold to date. Now TechCrunch claims to have spoken to a source close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the company's sales figures. According to this unnamed source, Amazon has sold 240,000 Kindles to date, for an estimated hardware revenue between $86 million and $96 million; media sales would push the total above $100M." We've been following the Kindle since its launch nine months ago.
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No picture? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or are they afraid a picture would distract the reader from the many shiny ads on the page?
Re:No picture? (Score:5, Informative)
Some (alledged) pics here:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/11/amazon-kindle-meet-amazons-e-book-reader/ [engadget.com]
Parent
Re:No picture? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some (alledged) pics here:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/11/amazon-kindle-meet-amazons-e-book-reader/ [engadget.com]
It is sad the industry never learns from failure of hi-tech multimedia devices to some "no wireless, lame" iPod.
Hope they are fake shots.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Learn (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way I'd ever buy one of these is if it nicely renders unDRM'ed PDFs and features good bookmarking (not just files, but page and line too). If the idea is a device that will only work with some DRMed format, then it'll have the same future as an ATRAC-only music player, which is to say... None.
No, I didn't RTFA, I'm just naturally pessimistic about these devices because everyone seems to be out to sell a service and 'give away a device'.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually the Sony Reader does nicely render unDRM'ed PDFs and features good bookmarking! It's pretty neat. The DRM'ed books suck, of course, but I've never bought one. Guttenburg texts pre-formatted for it [manybooks.net] rock.
I like the idea, but the execution? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, what is more likely to happen is that you'll pay just as much as you would for the real thing, be severely limited by crippling DRM, have to pay all over again to re-download the data should you ever need to and also be bound by all sorts of limitations that only benefit the publishing industry. For instance, now you won't be able to sell your book back to a store for them to sell on-the-cheap as used to another reader. The publishing industry HATES the used-book trade and they'd even love to see it criminalized. Not to mention how this could affect libraries.
So yes, the idea is great. Just like the idea of an immense online collection of videos that I can cheaply download and watch any time I want to with some sort of subscription service. Sounds great, but every implementation sucks and is more limiting than anything else.
Re:I like the idea, but the execution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure if it will change with these, but when I experimented with eBooks on my Palm Pilot about 5 or more years ago with peanut press that was what you found.
Parent
Too expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Paper books have to be printed, they have to be printed before you buy them and this costs lots of money. The publisher has to take a gamble on how many books can be sold, he will then put in an order for that amount at a printer, who wants his money NOW thank you very much. He will then have to stock those books before sending them to the various retailers. Those retailers will have to stock the books as well, until the customer hopefully end up buying them, eventually. In the meantime a lot of the books will get damaged and be less desirable to buy.
It is a huge complex operation that EATS money. It is why books are still so damned expensive.
Go digital and you loose an awfull lots of costs. First, with digital distribution you can always create EXACTLY the right number of copies. You will never have to take unsold copies back or have to turn a customer down. Never again will the last copy be in some bookstore in a remote place devoid of human life, like New Jersey.
The cost of "printing" is insanely low and in this case for a large part already paid for by the consumer. The consumer PAYS for the download through his internet connection and PAY for the "paper" through the ebook reader. Would you pay the same for beef at the butchers if you had to bring your own cow? The cost of distribution also plummets, what do you rather send, a paper book or a megabyte (and text books are well under that) of data? Could you even express the cost of transmitting that amount of data in whole cents anymore?
Then there is the fact that the costs remain the same no matter where the ebook is send, that there are no losses or damages in transportation and that there is no wait time for delivery.
The costs of stocking disappear as well, you only need to stock one "copy" of the book and then can sell it through the magic of the computer a million times over. The ebook doesn't get old, can't be stolen from inventory, doesn't get eaten by rats. It just sits there, pristine, ready to be sold anytime there is a buyer. For a company like amazon that stores a great many books going to ebooks would mean a fortune saved in warehouse space.
The cost savings of going to ebooks are gigantic.
Yet we still got a price of $9.99 for an ebook when all that is really left is to pay the author, a bit of hardware and software and electricity?
Anyone want to make a bet that an ebook means a profit margin for amazone that would make Apple blush? I am no economists, but I think you can express amazon's angle as "Cazhiiing", or eyeballs spinning and being replaced by dollar signs.
Do you also want to make bets that authors won't all of a sudden find that they get a huge increase on their income?
I can see Amazon's reasons for keeping theprice high, amazing profits is one, not wanting to canabalize paper sales (anyone could setup an ebook store, no need for huge investments Amazon had to make to setup its paper book distribution system) but I also fear it will kill the idea.
Why is it so hard for these types of companies to understand that the less you sell something for, the more you sell. Rather then trying to squeeze a limited audience for all you can, squeeze them less and find yourselve with a bigger audience.
It is depressing that business just doesn't seem to get that with the costs of selling digital content being so low, you could expand your market to truly epic proportions.
Imagine for instance if comics (or manga or strips) were no longer sold JUST on their original continent, but were distrubuted worldwide at a fraction of the costs. I find it very hard to believe that this would not massively increase the sales and profits of the publishers. Yet they keep insisting on distrubting their works in the most expensive way possible that limits the exposure to potential customers.
Truly amazing. $9.99 for a megabyte of data, that requires me to pay for delivery AND the tech to read it. Yeah, why not.
If business had been charge of the internet, email would cost 0.50 euro cents to send. Because hey, that is what regular mail costs so why should we pass the savings by going digital on to the customer?
Re:Too expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
And then the authors will get ideas -- all the sucessful ones say to themselves "Hey, all I need is to hire a good editor and then I can do this myself!" Of course, they would want marketing and such services -- but instead of having an editor which controls you to a degree -- eventually an ebay/amazon/itunes of ebooks gets developed by someone who wants only a small percent and who the general public congregates upon to get this type of item.
If iTunes were to become the major (>50%) sale's force in the music world over CDs, you will see more and more artists doing the same.
So while it would drive their costs down, publishers have almost no interest into shifting to such an paradigm as the distribution channel is their source of power. They don't do retail, they don't control the shops directly, but they can pretty much decide if your books hit the physical shelves or not. Lose that and they become irrevelent -- much of the publishing industry could become a free associations of editors, authors, and artists who work with each other on a one by one basis as need arises.
Parent
...which is why it will fail (Score:5, Insightful)
An EVDO connection instead of WiFi: Well, okay, 802.11x sucks for a variety of reasons, but there is one good thing about it: many people have home networks that use it. EVDO? That's a fancy way of saying "we control the device's access to the internet, and you will pay for it."
According to the article, "classics" will be available for $2/pop, and you can subscribe to blogs for $1/month. You know, classics, like the ones that are out of copyright, and blogs, like the ones you can get for free.
How many times do companies come out with a "cool product", and then think it will succeed purely as a vector for other purchases? It might work for video games (where the base product's performance and design is unique) and inkjets (where the supplies drive the retail price), but here you're competing with services that are free. You want to point to the iPod and ITMS? What percentage of tracks on all iPods out there were purchased at ITMS?
Okay, one more thing, this time from Microsoft's Hill:
There's more than that. Codices have been around since late antiquity (I dunno, 4th century maybe?). Before that, we had papyrus rolls. Books are also more versatile than that, with some being designed to be read from across the room.
Finally, how fast does kindle let you flip through the pages?
Like many other people here, I've been waiting for an affordable and usable eInk reader, but this ain't it either.
Parent
Will it include all the "books" I already own... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How does it beat just using a PSP or Gameboy DS? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I was into ebooks, I'd probably prefer reading them on a PSP because it's screen is wide. For reading, a wide screen is more important than a tall or square screen... IMO.
Re:How does it beat just using a PSP or Gameboy DS (Score:4, Informative)
The large screen is a must. The DS's screen doesn't get enough text on it at once, even using both screens, to read at a good clip.
The touch screen is -really- useful. I can tap a corner of the 'page' with my thumb and it'll go forward or backward in the text.
You don't have to hack or buy a questionably-legal cartridge to use the n800 for reading.
I can guess the Kindle would also add: 30 hours of battery life, and paper-like screen which could be easier on the eyes.
I bought the n800 mainly for ebook reading. I use it for other things as well now, but it really was just another $400 ebook reader when I bought it. But it -could- do other things, which this Kindle cannot. No Skype phone, web browsing, organizer, etc, etc.
One last unrelated thing: I see everyone talking about DRM'd ebooks. I have never bought a DRM'd ebook in my life and never will. I buy my books from baen.com (ALL completely DRM free and in several formats) which has -years- of good books that I don't have yet, and they release more each month than I can read in a month. In addition, Project Gutenburg has the classics.
Parent
Re:How does it beat just using a PSP or Gameboy DS (Score:4, Informative)
Amazing screen, open, FBreader has amazing format support, pretty good user interface (I like zoom buttons for page browsing, in addition to the thumb press). And while they might not get quite 30 hours of battery life, if you're just reading without using wifi/bt or anything cpu intensive, my 770 gets at least twelve hours. While the paper-like screen could, in theory, be better for your eyes, much of the eye-relief of paper comes from huge resolution, and e-ink just doesn't have that yet - the Tablets actually have quite a bit better resolution (~225DPI) than the amazon gadget (167 DPI), so it just might be that they're actually better to read on, to boot.
And of course, as you say, while they're good book readers, they can do a whole lot more for almost half the price (n800 is going for just over 200 now that n810 is out).
Parent
Re:How does it beat just using a PSP or Gameboy DS (Score:4, Informative)
Amen to Baen! Darned near all of their catalog is available electronically [webscription.net] (certainly everything printed in the past decade), they have a huge library of free books [baen.com], and everything is available in plain ol' HTML as well as other forms (Rocketreader, Palm Mobipocket, Microsoft Reader, and RTF). Individual books are priced about the same as a paperback, cheaper if you buy the bundle-of-the-month.
They also publish a monthly SF magazine [baens-universe.com] in a purely electronic format, if that sort of thing floats your boat.
Baen has a serious corporate allergy to DRM. Jim Baen hated it, and his successors hate it. This is what commercial electronic media should be. (I'm talking to you, RIAA!)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you didn't read the other articles then. How about this quote? salon.com
Or how about this quote? cnn.com [news.com]
I don't get this (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.amazon.com/E-reader-Portable-Silver-E-book-Approx/dp/B000WPXQ2M [amazon.com]
and it looks a million times better with less buttons. While I personally want to buy it, I won't until the screen is the size of textbooks or a standard 8x11 page sheet. I hate squinting -- I might as well read off a PDA if they keep insisting on making screens so small. What is so frustrating is that we could have our libraries - every newspaper we read, every book we ever bought, every textbook in such devices already with current technology.
But how long will it be in coming? Will textbook manufacturers stall until the wikibooks project provides real competition on any level?
Will the future releases of J.K. Rowling come in pdf or will they wait until, like music, they can't ignore the market due to downloads they don't get any compensation for?
$399 affordable? don't be silly! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll call this revolutionary when the reader costs $50 or less (or is free) and when the books cost $2. Not when you get ripped off on the reader as well as on the book price (zero cost for the manufacturer, same or higher price than a paper book).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But I would pay $400 for a well-engineered, well-built reader. A device that would be about the same dimensions as a smallish laptop, only really thin. A full-sized screen (about 12"). Designed to take a lot of punishment. Able to display ordinary
Is it waterproof? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's not waterproof, when I drop it in the bath I'll be $400 down instead of $10 down. And will I have to turn my book off during take-off and landing? Oh look, I'd need to change my mobile phone service provider! How much does EVDO cost, anyway? I can't find anybody offering UK-based contracts? Can I mark text with different coloured hi-lighters and draw diagrams in the margin?
Looks to me as if it might find a place alongside the book, but I don't see it being a replacement any time soon.
Ebook Copyrights (Score:5, Interesting)
With a book it's quite LEGAL for me to loan what I've purchased to somebody else. With most ebooks I can't. They usually are locked up with DRM as well. The publishers want to treat ebooks like traditional software (in regards to copyright). You can't just check out an ebook at the library free of charge (usually) and you can bet the publishers would like it to stay that way as they generally hate libraries.
The liberal copyright restrictions on books when it comes to loaning them to somebody else is very important.
$9.99 for a book? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not ready yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
- Cost: Cheap. If it gets wet or you losse it, no issue.
- Reliable: Works. And everybody understands what it can and cannot do.
- Resilient: Works when damaged. Pretty hard to destroy to non-functionality unintentionally.
- Compatible: Works with eyeball mark one and light mark one. No vendor lock-in here.
- Easy to use: Flip a page.
- Versatile: Can also double as fire-starter, toilet-paper, doorstop,
- Durable: If stored carefully, will still work after decades
- Non-surprising behaviour: No virusses, disk-crashes, empty batteries,
The only advantage I see in a dedicated ebook is the following:
- Simpler transport and storage: Easier for the bookseller to make money.
I think this thing has zero market. At some time we all will be carrying around a PDA stype devices that can match most of the advantages of a book, and then we will be buying ebooks, But not before that. And there will allways be a market for trade-paperbacks and hardcovers. It is not only about getting a sequence of letters to the customer.
Link to Under-Construction Kindle Store at Amazon (Score:3, Informative)
Non-starter (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely (Score:4, Interesting)
Something new and fun to play with. Get to use it for a few hours to see if you like it - and offering a plane trip with an onboard library of a few hundred thousand books deinitely ranks above half a dozen crappy blockbusters.
More importantly, you can seed the market by letting travellers pay to walk off the plane with their new Kindle and their half-read book.
(Jeff, you owe me if you run with this)
Formula for Successful E-book (Score:4, Insightful)
When will they learn? Greed guarantees failure for yet another e-book reader entry. Only $400? Wow, I can buy a laptop and donate another for that price. Let's go over what you need to succeed One More Time:
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Informative)
Basically zero. They generally don't change reflectivity/brightness very fast, on purpose. A static electrical charge will keep them in a particular display state, at least the ones I've read about. Saves energy. A good thing for these designs.
However, at $400 a pop, I think this is another "Segway" of e-books. Sell the reader for $9.99 and make up the cost on the media, then you've got something. $400? Heck, I could drop $400 on one just because I wanted to, but I won't. Doesn't feel like I'm doing anything to do with books at $400. I like books, anyway. They're tough, you own them, you can do the usual things as compared to any physical possession, and they have a delightful physicality to them.
The experience of an e-book is no foreign thing, either; I've got numerous volumes in PDF on my laptop, full color illustrations, etc... just isn't the same.
I will own up to being a book freak [flickr.com], though. The next generation may completely lack my preference for the real thing. We'll see.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What really interests me is this book vending machine thing. Now that I could get behind.
Re:I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
I think ebook readers are a great idea, especially when they can be extended so I could get my favourite newspaper on it (the Independent in the UK). I thought this [bookeen.com] one looked better than the Amazon one and I thought about getting it. It's still too pricey for what it is, though. When these things are cheaper, I'll consider it if I can still find one then that's under my control and not some DRM infested nightmare.
Parent
Re:If the shoe fits (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
That's too bad. I guess they'll just have to market this device to the proper niche... the other 99% of the population.
Parent
Re:I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems like just a little effort and they could side light it with a few LEDs and a well chosen bezel. Separate battery for the light, maybe. White LEDs are getting fairly amazing in output and efficiency.
Re your age, I think you're naturally a little more flexible about this than I am. Ok, it's not just flexibility, I'm downright cranky. :-)
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, one question then: How old are you?
I'm 51; to say that I am habituated to books - physical ones - is to understate the case rather severely.
Age is no barrier to change unless you wish to claim it as an excuse. I, too, grew up with paper books. I now have an e-reader and only buy the paper books when I can't purchase them online. I like being able to take my reader with me on trips... do you know what it's like to be able to bring 80 books with you on a long business trip? I do, and I love it.
Certainly many people will never bother with them, but, quite frankly, it's just like reading paper. If you're already used to reading things on your LCD and clicking a link to go to the next page, this shouldn't be a big leap for you. The only difference is that these devices have batteries that will last for weeks of regular reading and they have displays that don't cause eye strain.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Real books aren't necessarily trivially replaceable either. I've bought plenty of $400 academic works for my research, as university presses sell things at high cost and then it only gets higher when the book falls out of print.
Re:I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
your post prompted me to write this in my blog... ~;-)
eReaders and eBooks
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/11/ereaders-and-ebooks.html [blogspot.com]
For those who don't want to follow the link and check out all my other zuper ztuff...
eReaders and eBooks
Here is an idea for all of the companies trying to get this right.
You need a great reader at a great price. This $400 reader I just heard about from Amazon is not the great price by a long shot. $50 sounds ball park off the top of my head. $100 might be pushing it at today's dollar value for my part of the world.
eBooks should be way less than regular books people.
Have every regular book come with an eBook in a sleeve in the back or have a code printed in it that allows for a free download of the book.
Why this last bit? Best of both worlds for people who like physical books. You get the physical book with all of its advantages, plus you get the eBook with all of the searching, bookmarking, cross referencing possibilities.
Stop thinking about how to milk the people. We are not your cows and goats. Give the people a product that will make things better for them and settle for an honest, decent profit while doing so.
drew
Check my NaNoWriMo Novel in progress:
http://dangernovel.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
Danger - A Safe Bahamian Novel
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, one thing you can't get - yet - is a laptop that'll go thirty hours on a charge that only takes two hours to get. Another is this is designed to read, and ergonomically speaking, it's easier to handle than a computer for reading purposes.
Other than that, yeah, $400, four grey levels, 256 MB of (expandable) storage, much easier to break than a book, and if you break it, you lose ALL your books, and the other shoe for DRM hasn't dropped (and sadly, I think it will)... laptops are MUCH more general,
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
no but any decent phone can go for days on standby and you can be reading books on them in that time. last year i was commuting 3.5 hours a day by bus and using qreader on a nokia n70 while also using it as an mp3 player. and then using it during the day to take picture and video at work. barely decreased the battery gauge by one bar. the screen is small but i found it acceptable.
on a few occasions
Re:Problem with Ebooks (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:More info... (Score:5, Informative)
From a year and 2 months ago. Knowing that, can we really rely on that picture?
Parent
Re:Yes!! (Score:5, Informative)
1. Great to have hundreds of books at the press of a button.
2. Easily navigatable.
3. The 6 inch screen is a bit too small for reading technical pdfs (long equations, detailed graphs etc) even in landscape, if you really have to have that you want an Irex Iliad $650 (£468 in the UK)
4. Can be read in direct sunlight, great for beach reading.
5. Contrast is not fantastic, reading black on light grey not white, there is a tool on MobileRead called RasterFarian [mobileread.com] that helps with pdfs, but I've found the best solution to copy the text of pdfs out of Adobe Reader into Open Office Reader, reformat the page to 9cm x 12 cm and change the font to Arial Black 11 or 12, the formating might be a bit messy but I can read it low light conditions easily and it only takes about a minute to convert a whole book.
6. Overall I'm glad I got the Reader, if the Iliad was cheaper or I could have expensed one I would have prefered it for technical pdfs.
Parent
Baen Books _are_ DRM free (Score:4, Informative)
* a good start would be one that does detective stories - that itself might be sufficient to bootstrap ebooks to a larger audience.
Parent