Archive for: ebooks
Curling up next to the fire with a good book will one day be no more than a faint memory. For the near term however, physical books won’t give up easily. Some simply won’t give up on the “real” feel of a stack of paper in your hands nor the smell of a fresh book off the printing press. Such things an ebook just can’t replicate. With all the talk around paper books and ebooks, the biggest controversy has centered around publishing costs. With paper back books, the obvious transportation, manufacture, and other “physical” traits are assumed, adding to the overall cost of a book. But ebooks don’t have any of that. Motoko Rich of the NYT has put together a handy little chart showing rough estimations as to the differences between your typical physical book and ebook.
Now to the common consumer, looking at this chart will justify our cries for cheaper ebooks and why you can’t charge for an ebook the same price you’d charge for a similar physical book outright. But of course, those in the industry will jump on this chart (and my throat) almost immediately, ripping to pieces the ideology and reasoning behind the numbers.
While the apparent differences in manufacturing and distribution prices between physical books and ebooks is different though not significant, does it warrant cheaper digital books overall? And what, if any holes are there in this particular chart?
I love a good debate. Let’s here what you’ve got.
Gizmodo > NYT
Fancy a good book? I used to be a big reader. I don’t know what happened really. I just drifted away from the written word. If I had to put my finger on any one reason I stopped reading, I’d have to say patience. Whether or not my gadget/electronic/fast paced fascination has anything to do with me not enjoying a slower paced activity (such as reading) anymore, I may never know.
For those of you who still consider yourself bookworms, this week is an exciting time. The Barnes & Noble Nook ereader is finally slated to trickle into retail channels. Even still, availability is going to be tight for the next several weeks. If you’re looking to score a new Nook for your significant other, you’re probably going to want to check out the Nook In-Store locator and/or go ahead and purchase yours online.
In light of the recent iPad announcement and taking into account all of the other ereaders flooding the market, does the Nook have a chance in your personal library in the near future?
BGR
One of the best ways to kill a product is to riddle the launch with delays, misinformation, and overall insanity and frustration. Barnes & Noble seems to be doing a might fine job with that as we speak. The Nook and it’s followers have been on a roller coaster ride for the past several weeks. Delay after delay has pushed the devices launch date closer and closer towards Christmas to the point that B&N is saying we shouldn’t expect Nooks to ship before Christmas. Hmm, somehow the people that pre-ordered these devices weeks ago with strong assurance that a pre-Christmas delivery date was a sure bet aren’t going to be too happy.
For now, prospective buyers and hopeful owners will have a new date to look forward to — January 15th. If we’re going to get all personal here, I’ve always liked B&N over Borders, perhaps it was the better cafe with actual functioning WiFi (Hey, what do you think I do when I go to a book store — it certainly isn’t reading books…) or maybe it was just the overall nicer layout and atmosphere. Whatever the case, this grand display of disappointment and extremely poor launch management is maddening to say the least. And I didn’t even order a Nook.
For now, I don’t think the Nook’s chances at the eReader market are being hit too bad, but if B&N keeps it up, I can see other eReaders making up for the loss. It’s a shame too, the Nook is by far one of the nicest eReaders to date. Though Engadget is reporting that a B&N rep has contacted them saying “select” stores will still have Nooks in by December 7th. This will definitely be a cross your fingers, multi-rosary, pray to whoever it is that you pray to ordeal. Feeling lucky?
Engadget
Oh boy. If you want to see a good form of irony, this is it folks. China is accusing Google of censorship. Never mind the fact that China has made headlines countless times for blocking numerous websites and social networking services above and beyond what is necessary. Though, censorship is never necessary. I’ll admit that many countries, the U.S. included, blocks sites here and there and manages to stay out of the public spotlight. But I’m sure we all know the difference between China’s censorship and everyone else’s censorship. Why all the commotion and sudden stampede of black pots and kettles running down the street?
It all has to do with a recent report written by China’s main newspaper, “The People’s Daily” accusing Google and their planned online book store of infringing on Chinese copyrights. For the last few days, the report on TPD’s website has been flagged as “malicious” in nature by Google and is seemingly unaccessible. Baidu, the 60+% top dog search engine in China reports no such problem.
So China is all upset because they are getting the ‘ol censorship stick smacked across their face? (If that is even the case at all…) Irony at it’s finest. So let’s take a poll: Is Google (A) proactively flagging and blocking The People’s Daily report/page, or is this (B) all some big mishap?
Leave it inside.
The Inquirer
The Amazon Kindle is one of if not the most popular eBook reader around. The iPhone/iPod Touch I would half hazzardly guess aren’t too far behind with the recent addition of an Amazon eBook reader app for said devices. One of the great features of digital books is that you can more or less transfer your books between devices, delete/redownload when storage is low, and generally enjoy freedom. However, according to Amazon and some rather unintelligent policies by Amazon themselves, their eBook business and Kindle devices may not be quite as rosey as before. It appears that there is an invisible download limit on books. The first problem is that there is even a limit. If I purchase an eBook, I have every right to download it a million times to how ever many devices I have. Second, there is absolutely no mention of any limit whatsoever on Amazon’s or the Kindle eBook Reader App Store page. Thirdly, the limit that you can never know is under the discretion of the publisher whom also won’t share that limit information with you. So let’s recap, you have a sliding limit that varies from book to book, that you can’t see or know about until you hit it. Great! That’s some damn fine constomer confidnece building quality there guys. Keep up the great work.
Are you an Amazon/iPhone/iPod Touch eBook reader user who has experienced this crapola first hand? Leave your impressions inside.
Source: Consumerist, Gear Diary
- February 6, 2009 10:24 pm
People who love words and trees were I’m sure ecstatic when ebooks first came to the technology scene. The Amazon Kindle has been regarded as one of the best ebook readers for the money. Not a bad accomplishment by any means. But all good things do come to an end and the original Kindle was growing a bit long in the tooth. However pictures of a supposed Kindle 2 have surfaced and have been quickly circulating around the corners of the web. It’s supposedly going to be announced/launched on February 24th and go for $359. (Unconfirmed) What does this new fangled tree saving word loving device look like? Hop…skip…jump….
