Mar 06

Barnes and Noble Stops Drinking DeCaf…

All right. They’re waking up over at Barnes and Noble. I hate to say I told you so, but Dec. 30, I kind of inferred it so, in my mildly catty way, that the old flagship Barnes and Noble was missing the boat.

Read this story. Barnes and Noble has acquired Fictionwise (15.7 million cash) in an effort to ‘ramp up’ their own electronic book store this year. (In place of ‘ramp up’ I’d put, ‘recreate because we were sadly lacking in foresight and imagination’…)

What’d I tell you about the arrogance of the status quo? (Now I’m sounding catty, yah?)

Mar 05

BUZZKILL ALERT!

time_fossil1

Blast from the Past

This article about eBooks and eBook Readers from the snooty bastards at Time Magazine got my dander up. Read it here.

I don’t offer it to venerate the snobbish tone, but to illustrate the kind of mocking resistance eBook and other technologies face from the establishment. (When I say “establishment” I mean, powers-that-be, status quo… that type of thing.)

Any journalist who can write: “Readers under 30 are scarce. They were raised on spending time on PCs and playing video games. Many are under-educated and can barely read at all,” is playing with generalizations that discount any value one could find in the article. And frankly, it shows a lack of respect for Time’s readership, many of whom have raised these “under-educated” under 30’s.

It’s also important to note this piece was published on Time’s online presence–a presence that I’m sure was predicted to fail by similar insecure pundits …

Also important to note that Time is a partner of CNN’s… yah? And they’ve got to be a bit nervous, since a company with a parent so entrenched in the digital world (TIMEWARNER) should have been out of the blocks long ago with its own eNews reader… 

Can you say: asleep at the switch?


Mar 04

First iPhone, now this rumored challenge to AMAZON’s attempt at eBOOK EMPIRE!

Over at the theiphoneblog.com you can hear rumbling that is being felt deep inside the Amazon, and might be the reason the tribe there is getting ready to launch a new touch-screen Kindle 3 in the fall.

The growing phenomena of iPhone & iTouch eBook reading has the people at Apple watching with great interest, but what are they doing? There’s a rumor in the pipe (read it here) that they’re going to be bringing out a bigger version of the iPhone or iTouch architecture, a tablet, for reading and display. It makes perfect sense and might be just what the languishing large format, newspaper and comic book publishing industries need.

There is also a rumor that they’ve been secretly converting truckloads of books into text for the possible launch of an Apple eBook store.

I’d say I’ll be watching with bated breath, but that always sounds like I had tuna for lunch. Yah?

We’ll find out more March 25th when Apple has scheduled a BIG announcement.



Mar 03

And They’re OFF!

Ok… I’m just going to put up a couple links to new eBook Readers. Why two at a time? They’re coming that quickly. It’s like everyone in the tech industry has been waiting for the release of Kindle 2, because it’s been one after the other ever since.

The latest development in the evolution of eBook Readers is a trend toward touch screens. Rumor has it Kindle 3 will be similarly endowed.

First: Onyx International of China is debuting the Boox eBook Reader at CeBIT 2009 taking place from March 3rd until March 8th in Hannover, Germany. Here’s the link to the Boox story. There’s a list of specifics as well.

Engadget.com has photos and video of Boox here.

When I look at the formats it supports: PDF, TXT, HTML, MOBIPOCKET, EPUB, CHM, PDB, JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, MP3, and WAV, I’m amazed that it was only a few months ago that some of these designers were trying to create proprietary formats. (Nice try, yah?)

Second: iRiver from Japan is planning to release its own eReader. Read the story here. It’s supposed to handle PDF files and use a simple joystick control. The story doesn’t mention price, but it’s got the look of a machine that is intended for a mass-market.

More to come tomorrow. SONY is up to something with their eReader. That baby’s a sweet ride.


Mar 02

I’m sorry, but I have to report this rumor…

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Kindle 3?

God! Just when I thought all the Kindle-talk was winding down, yah?

Honestly, there are other eBook Reading devices…

If this rumor is true, it proves that the eBook Revolution is kicking into high gear. (and suggests that Amazon is already feeling the heat…)

Read the story here.


Mar 01

Gadgets and Gizmos out the Ying Yang…

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Plustek BookReader

Here’s another interesting piece of machinery that can be applied to the eBook Revolution. Plustek has the BookReader, a device that will scan in printed text (your books) and convert it into a lifelike voice (voice options there…).

 At $699 you’ve got to be serious about converting books into MP3 audio files, but the application is perfect for the visually impaired while offering hours of hands-free entertainment for commuters.

The full story is here. Might be time-consuming to scan the books, but worth it, if you’ve got favorites that you don’t want to replace with eBooks, or others that are out-of-print. The literature says it will read PDF files, so there’s a crossover tech to eBooks. Very cool, yah!


Feb 28

Digital Divide Narrows

Author Patrick Carman (wow…mental gap there…at first I thought Eric Carmen…) is flogging a new multimedia book, Skeleton Creek. See the full story here. The children’s ghost mystery is a hybrid that takes the form of an ‘actual’ book that is also an online movie. Both elements depend on the other for the complete experience. It is Carman’s way to keep kids interested in books, and drag some of their net time toward reading.

It’s a great idea, and one that will truly flourish when he offers the book component as a tricked out eBook–something that links out of an eReader and interfaces with an online experience.

I can see this working well for kids and the adult market. This type of interface has been around for some time, perhaps in a less interactive form, with a paperback’s story augmented by online components like clues, illustrations and maps.

I can’t wait to see story ideas like this evolving until the reader is flipping between a hand-held reader and a wall-mounted flat screen. Too cool!

Feb 27

Newspaper Extinction? Not likely…

You can read it and see it all over the place. But that doesn’t make it true.  This morning CNN had a story  about the loss of newspaper jobs and the approaching demise of the newspaper industry. Watch it below. The powers that be blame the Internet for a decline in profitability due to the loss of ad revenues and readership .  

They’re clasping their chests and doing a great Silent Movie death scene. Ahhh! So are they really dying off, or are they just trying to sell newspapers? (Kind of creepy if  you think of it…reminds me of that kid who drove traffic to his web site by advertising his own suicide…)

Or are these crazed corporate giants using the economic downturn to make cuts intended to prop up the next quarter profits for their outmoded business model rather than open their minds and evolve to thrive in the landscape that the new technology is inventing for them. Then a jaded part of me whispers: Perhaps they’re crying poor, hoping to share in some of President Obama’s handouts to unsuccessful business models.

The technology is coming into place that will redefine newspapers and their profitability. See an example of newspaper eReaders here.  The future’s all about communications and information exchange, so newspapers will be there. However, it will be more difficult to monopolize the marketplace and to get their piece of it they’ll have to think outside the columns. Yah?

Feb 26

Sheesh, okay. Just well, another Kindle reference…

Look, you know I have to do this. There’s such a ballyhoo, it wouldn’t be fair to skip over something as important as Gizmodo.com‘s Kindle 2 Review Matrix. You can find it here. Enjoy! Yah?

I promise, soon we’ll all be talking about the next eBook reader out of the blocks… Who would that be, by the way?


Feb 25

An Excellent Option…now we need a Kiosk!

Here’s a nice warm and fuzzy, environmentally friendly meshing of worlds, perfect for anybody who’s nervous about leaving the Paperback Age behind. It’s another fantastic option, yah?

Using print-on-demand technology, the Espresso Book Machine can print a paperback in 3 – 5 minutes. That’s so cool!

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Click for More

I can see this working very well. It will take a bit of thinking, but as long as eBook retailers sell you access to various formats, or if eBook readers get smart enough to convert everything to a format your handheld can eat, it shouldn’t be too complicated. The main point is, eBooks will have to be available in a print-formatted version too. Simple enough, when you consider the number of formats most are already available in.

And it’s a reprieve for book designers, who must have been fearful that the eBook and its nothing fancy, text-o-centric display had them marked for death. Continue reading