May 05

More Heat in the Kitchen!

There’s a rumor that Amazon is getting ready to release a large format Kindle (roughly letter-sized), maybe this week, designed to handle newspaper and magazine-sized displays. Read the full story here at the New York Times. Kindle 2 already offers some specially formatted news feeds, but lacks the display ad capability that is integral to the beleagured newspaper publishing industry.

So is Amazon finally getting competitive in this game, or is this a gut reaction to the rumors of an approaching Apple Media Tablet and a marketplace rapidly filling with competitors–some already tricked out for full color magazine and newspaper display? See Plastic Logic’s here.  See Bridgestone’s here. We’ll see, yah?

May 04

SAY NO to DRM!

Read a press release from Kitabe announcing the expansion of DRM Free MP3 Audio Book Downloads here. So, if a leading audiobook retailer understands its product should be DRM-free, why are the eBook heavyweights Amazon, Mobi, Fictionwise,  etc. still pedalling that contentious form of content control?

DRM HURTS CONTENT CREATORS and CONSUMERS by PROMOTING PIRACY! When will they learn, yah?

May 03

$99 eBook Reader? Kind of…

An article at wired.com talks about BooksOnBoard, the largest independent eBookstore, announcing a $99 eBook Reader. It’s a little misleading. Read the story here, and you’ll see there are strings attached. You can buy the reader for $99 after you shell out $500 for a Gift Certificate.

They’re offering the older Sony PRS-505 model Reader in the deal that retails for $299, so it’s a fine piece of tech that would be an excellent starter model, yah?

The moral of the story is plain. eBook Readers are still way too expensive for the mainstream, and eBook sellers know it. We’ll certainly give them marks for trying and for seeing the writing on the wall.

May 02

Wattpad: Free eBooks for your Digital Library

For your weekend reading pleasure Wattpad.com offers eBooks to Mobile users. They’ve got a really interesting and large selection of free eBooks formatted for your favorite device. Not just the old public domain stuff either. (Ever read Moby Dick on a cell phone?) Writers and publishers are using it to show off their wares, and users can add their two cents if they’ve got a hankering. Really kind of cool, yah?

Wattpad says they are “all about reading and sharing ebooks. You can read what you like and share what you write, because the material on Wattpad are uploaded by community members like you. You can upload whatever you want to share – a story, an essay or a joke, and then read it wherever you are even on your mobile phone. Can’t find something? You can request it from other Wattpad members.”

Check it out!


May 01

Writers: Start Your Engines

These two stories signify important steps in the eBook Revolution. The technology is new, and the prices are still too high, but this is the beginning of the start.

$200 eBook Reader to make its Debut

BOOKS ON DEMAND

We’ve got a related story about Print on Demand (POD) Printing Machines and Kiosks here.

If I were Amazon.com, I’d worry less about competition and think more about staying relevant. After these stories, it seems to me that Amazon and other online eBook and book retailers begin to resemble overpriced search engines, yah?

Apr 30

Rumbling from the Apple Orchard has the Amazon trembling.

Click here to read this story at Powerpage.org about Apple’s rumored iPhone Lite release this summer. We’ve all heard the whispers about Apple gearing up to enter the eBook market. There has been talk of an Apple Tablet or “Mediapad” as described in the article, and now this, a thinner, stripped down iPhone with a screen just slightly smaller than Kindle’s. Amazon’s acting like its heard the same rumors, with its knee-jerk purchase of Stanza. (Stanza wasn’t even a competitor…)

Or maybe they’ve read the story here at PCWorld that’s outright dubbed the Apple iPhone “Mediapad” a KINDLE-KILLER!

When a GIANT like APPLE, with a winning track record in handheld devices, steps into the eBook Device market, the Internet will tremble, yah?

Apr 29

Fall out from the Amazon Stanza purchase.

The future of Mobipocket Reader is now in question as Amazon nabs Stanza–even though Amazon owns Mobipocket. (It get’s confusing…) This article is just the first of the sob songs, yah? Read it here at AllAboutSymbian.com.

Watch now, as the market adjusts, as monopoly slips away from Amazon again. Watch Mobipocket Reader designers disappear and then resurface with a free Mobipocket-like DRM-Cracking eBook Reading software that competes directly with AmazonSTANZA. Then, Amazon would have to buy… ah, you get the picture.

Apr 28

Amazon Buys Stanza’s Creator

In the “I’m My Own Worst Enemy” department, Amazon has purchased Lexcycle, creator of Stanza eBook Reader for iPhone and iPod Touch. Read the New York Times story here. Why not, they almost forced Stanza into existence?

Have you have been following this? Amazon’s subsidiary, Mobipocket, delayed the release of Mobipocket Reader software for iPhone for over a year. This was Amazon’s attempt, through Mobipocket, to keep a clear field for Kindle to play in, and further to keep competitors at bay for the release of Kindle 2.

iPhone users, used to this sort of corporate manipulation, cried fowl and started digging around the net for something that would allow them to read eBooks. Enter Lexcycle’s Stanza, an excellent application that turned iPhone and iPod Touch into eReaders. The only thing Stanza couldn’t do was read Mobipocket DRM locked files.

It gets funnier when you realize Amazon through Mobipocket, still delayed the release of a Mobipocket Reader for iPhone, forcing the Stanza readers to turn to the black market and/or file sharers for cracked and illegally unlocked eBooks to satisfy their craving to read, further fuelling the illegal trade of digital content that Amazon whines about.

This is what happens when you play god, yah? Now watch as this plan fails. They used to be able to do this in the old world. Buy a competitor and then use him or shut him down. They don’t seem to understand the speed that apps appear on the market, evolve and spread. And they’ve already started a negative relationship with Stanza users (0r millions of iPhone owners) who might prove unwilling to use Stanza with Amazon’s name attached. (And why bother, when a new Stanza will pop up faster than you can say: DRM!) Amazon will not be able to control the market with this kind of thinking.

 The only way to dominate is through excellent prices, products and service.

Apr 27

This Guy’s Defending the ‘real’ Pirates.

An article at techradar.com says it all in this sentence: “There isn’t much illegal content to drive hardware sales, which mean [sic] that the Kindle is some way away from being the iPod of books. If publishers are smart, they’ll keep it that way.” The writer’s premise is that adopting the new technology will make books easily copied and therefore re-sold and shared illegally. The publishers, the writer claims, will be shooting themselves in the foot if they digitize books. Read the article here.

The truth is illegal content will be created by the traditional publishing houses’ stubborn and greedy adherence to outdated business practices and the forcing of that corporate, quarterly-profit-driven business model on the new technology, in a marketplace that favors the consumer with access and choice.

I couldn’t put it more simply: AFFORDABLE PRODUCTS MAKE PIRACY UNPROFITABLE and FILE SHARING A WASTE OF TIME! And people don’t like to waste time. Indeed, as he says, digital technology has changed the music industry, but it has also changed things for the creators of that music and fans through availability, a vastly larger marketplace and affordable prices, yah?

Apr 26

Get Free eBooks!

I mentioned this site before, and thought I’d bring it up again for all you early adopters building eBook libraries. It has to be their name: getfreeebooks.com (just about a perfect!). Anyway these guys are driving a ton of traffic and pushing a lot of e-ink.

Check out getfreeebooks.com. They’ve got a wide selection that cross may genres, available in Mobipocket/Kindle prc, pdf or other. I popped in for a visit and noticed their list is growing in leaps and bounds, so if you haven’t visited, it’s worth a look, yah?

There are public domain titles available, but they’re also offering a growing list of Indie authors from many genres.

Oh… and another thing. They reject all that “Internet Marketing” free eBook junk, so you don’t have to worry about getting hooked into that racket. Enjoy!