May 01
The Huffington Post has a piece by Steven Haber “Why the iPad Won’t Kill eReaders” that will calm any E Ink lovers who might feel a bit crowded by all the press about iPad taking over the world. A great weekend read by someone who knows readers.
Apr 30
Many thanks to Jorgen who dropped off a link to a rumor that sounds like it might have been started by Amazon’s Kindle designers. The post at PRNews says that reports are starting to filter in about Apple iPad users suffering from insomnia. Apparently the experts believe a backlit screen (like iPad’s much-touted full-color display) …
Apr 29
YoungMoney.com posted on a report from the International Digital Publishing Forum showing a 200% increase in wholesale eBook sales since January. Check out the cool graphs on first quarter growth at IDPF. While it’s an impressive visual display, it’s important to view this rationally. Yes, it looks like eBooks are here to stay, but all growth will seem …
Apr 28
Here’s a link from Jorgen that stands as a clear example of how fighting the flow will only bite you in the ass. Marketplace.com has a story about Random House, publisher of William Styron’s books (e.g. Sophie’s Choice), losing the digital publishing rights to Styron’s titles to a new company “Open Road” that will represent …
Apr 27
Electronista reports Barnes and Noble’s nook outselling Amazon’s Kindle in March making it the first time the frontrunner has been surpassed by the growing competition. Read the specifics here. We should mention, the results also say that iPad may have outsold both in the weeks around its release, even though only a third of those adopters …
Apr 26
It looks like Barnes and Noble is going to ramp up the performance of their eBook Reader, the nook, with some new abilities specifically designed with the bricks and mortar experience in mind. Some of these new elements will only work if you take your nook next time you visit a B&N near you. For instance, your …
Apr 25
Jorgen popped by with a link to an interesting PCWorld story about Color E Ink Readers on the none-too distant horizon. Liquavista is working on high efficiency color E Ink displays that show text, still photos and animation. The process is called electrowetting and it may offer some interesting options for eBook Reader designers who …
Apr 24
Our friend Jorgen commented on yesterday’s post with a link to an article at EbookWeek.com that delves into the environmental impact of eBooks and compares it to ‘paper’ book greenness with much more depth than The Washington Post story. It seems that there is a clear environmental benefit to going digital.
Apr 23
Yesterday’s Earth Day celebrations included this article in The Washington Post by Political Bookworm Steven Levingston that begins to compare the environmental cost of switching to eBook Readers from paperback and hard cover books. The eBook publishers tout the move to digital as more environmentally friendly, sidestepping the need to harvest the millions of trees required …
Apr 22
Many thanks to Jorgen for digging up this contentious and detailed article by BNET’s Erik Sherman where he takes The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta’s book-pricing arithmetic to task. I found it an interesting investigation of the number crunching, though it hardly settles the debate regarding the public perception that low-maintenance eBooks should be low-priced. Missing from …
