In other news…

I try not to publish rumours, but just for something different… Whilst Ozzies are busy dissecting the possible impact of the kindle, the e-book hardware scene continues to hot up. Some are breathlessly waiting for Apple to enter the fray and according to gizmodo, the latest suggestions are that Barnes and Noble’s new e-reader will run android – which means apps. So we have rumours of a convergent device with an e-ink screen competing with a convergent device with a colour LCD screen. Next year is rumoured to be very interesting.

Give the boy a walkman…

OK, so this is pretty tangential, but make of it what you will. The BBC gave a 13 year old boy a Sony Walkman from way back and asked for his thoughts. Pick of the comments:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.

Cool

And here in Australia…

Quick link to a great overview of the Australian ebook environment in The Age.

The Future of the Book in NZ

Just back from the Future of the Book Conference in Auckland, New Zealand, where I did a couple of panels. There were problems with the wifi network in the hotel (hence the lack of posts) and then my flight was delayed 19 hours (well, actually we got an hour out of Sydney then were turned back by Australian Air Traffic Controllers who were apparently having radar issues. Take two didn’t happen until the next morning). Here’s some impressions from a fun, and informative few days (notwithstanding the travel issues!)

• I blogged earlier this year that 2009 felt different in the e-book space. Sure enough, it seems that everyone (publishers, authors and the MSM) are interested. We had a fair amount of media interest and lots of publishers seemed to be attending.
• The lack of specialist e-book device in the Antipodes leaves a yawning gap. But it’s still chicken and egg – Oz/NZ publishers are really only just testing the waters – but the impression is that they *know* that change is in the air
• That gap is partly filled by the iphone. You could have been forgiven that part of the conference was an Apple fanboy festival Even there though, Stanza users in Oz/NZ only make up 2-3% of lexcycle’s userbase (which is still a substantial number though). Probably because the content relationships are still being forged. (Chicken/egg again)…
• EPub is winning the hearts in the format wars. And to my eyes, kindle (and its format) looks a little like Windows 1.0 – it’s a step towards the Amazon dominance, but there’s still time for other formats/platforms to play – they just have to remember what happened when Microsoft released Windows 3.0 (and hope that epub stakes its claim before Amazon gets to an analogous release.)
• Publishers are thinking about new workflows to incorporate ebooks (or subcontracting the digitising of backlists). And whilst xml *should* play some role, I suspect the real-life ebook workflow will be the ‘export to epub’ button.

BNindle?

The Street has a rumour that Barnes and Noble is looking at launching their own e-book device to compete with Kindle et al:

Barnes & Noble , the nation’s No. 1 bookstore chain, is working with a device maker and Sprint  on a Kindle-like device, according to one wireless industry insider. The news comes a week after the CTIA wireless show, where sources say there was heavy speculation surrounding Barnes & Noble’s plan to give eBooks another try.

Of course, Barnes and Noble purchased fictionwise recently, so their move to ebooks is no surprise. Indeed, the street reminds us that:

Barnes & Noble has been through this before. In 2003, the company ended a three-year eBook partnership with Microsoft  and Adobe  the electronic publishing shop, after suffering disappointing demand for the tablet device.

I find it a bit weird that *booksellers* are making the moves in this space. Amazon in the US, and Dymocks in Australia. It’s probably a bit of a defensive move in an environment where publishers have greater possibilities to bypass the traditional retail channels. And hey, publishers aren’t exactly pushing the bleeding edge (apart from maybe that Murdoch fellow!), so I guess someone has to!!

 

Via techcrunch

Speaking of Kindle 2

Which I’m sure you’ve all heard, was announced this week for shipping by February 24th. There’s a lot of coverage about the device, but it seems evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Nice summary of features here. Top threes from that post:

 

Kindle 2.0 High Points

1. WhisperNet and Amazon’s great range of book titles (over 230,000 titles including 7,000+ free public domain classics etc.) are still the 31 feature and make the Kindle 2.0 the best eReader available.
2. WhisperSync – synchronize across Kindle 1, Kindle 2.0, and soon across other mobile devices. Not only can you share books, you can also share the exact position in the book you were/are reading at – pretty cool in my opinion.
3. Read to Me feature. Text to Speech is very cool and should be fun.

Kindle 2.0 Low Points

 

1. Still Expensive at $359.
2. Still not pretty.
3. The lack of a colour screen  is another problem I have.

Thoughts on Google BookSearch

A link to a long piece in The New York Review of Books from Robert Darnton, covering a lot of the territory that needs to be covered as we move towards ubiquitous digital books. In particular he examines the possible consequences of the recent settlement between Google and publishers:

here is a proposal that could result in the world’s largest library. It would, to be sure, be a digital library, but it could dwarf the Library of Congress and all the national libraries of Europe. Moreover, in pursuing the terms of the settlement with the authors and publishers, Google could also become the world’s largest book business…

Darnton’s concern is that Google will essentially become a monopoly on the e-books business:

Google is not a guild, and it did not set out to create a monopoly. On the contrary, it has pursued a laudable goal: promoting access to information. But the class action character of the settlement makes Google invulnerable to competition. Most book authors and publishers who own US copyrights are automatically covered by the settlement.

It’s an interesting point, but one that shouldn’t remain uncontested. Indeed, Tim O’Reilly writes:

It is true, perhaps, in the narrow sense, that no other party will be able to do a mass digitization project on the scale of Google’s – but that was already true. The barrier has always been the willingness to spend a lot of money for little return; the settlement doesn’t change that.

Meanwhile, the settlement provides absolutely no barrier to publishers providing their own digital copies, and this is in fact happening.

He goes on:

Frankly, I’d be far more worried about Darnton’s wished-for utopia, in which the government had funded the equivalent, mandating that all publishers participate.

Managing cultural outcomes is always a difficult thing, and at first glance this appears to be a ‘market’ v ‘regulation’ debate. I’ve always thought that the middle ground requires a standards-setting process from the regulators within which a market can operate. So some work in ensuring interoperability in the ebook realm, and open access to that standard would be incredibly valuable to users. We already live in a world where there is a plethora of digital content available and savvy users have access to the tools to utilise that content, regardless of the provider. Whilst there are arguments about itunes and its dominance of the downloaded music market, they need to be balanced against the undeniable ease-of-use that Apple’s service has provided for its users.

Governments (as with other large, entrenched institutions like publishing companies) sometimes don’t get it. A decade and a bit ago, the Oz Government’s Creative Nation policy picked CD-ROMs as a useful interim technology for delivering cultural content and spent big on a project that delivered a range of (good and bad) CD-ROM content to schools and the general public. It mirrored the book publishers’ embrace of the medium in the mid to late 1990s – and whilst useful (particularly for those involved), it didn’t properly understand the rate and direction of change. Of course, many people didn’t back then (myself included) so I’m not pointing fingers. Merely pointing out that sometimes Governments should act and sometimes they should react. For the moment, I’m inclined to let the market reign in Google’s excesses. After all, Jeff Bezos has already declared that Amazon’s vision is “ every book, ever printed, in any language, all available within 60 seconds.”

Giant e-paper screen

For those of you fluent in Chinese, a quick link to an Engadget post (with pictures) showing a 24 inch colour e-Paper screen at a Taiwanese book show. Shorter English version here.

Kindle Christmas Weirdness

I still can’t figure out Amazon’s kindle sales strategy. According to the company, it’s so popular that it’s sold out until after christmas. From AlleyInsider:

Amazon says its Kindle will take “11 to 13 weeks” to ship and that it will arrive “after December 24.” We assume that means the Kindle 1.0 is totally sold out — Amazon (AMZN) will introduce new Kindles early next year.

To me, that’s just weird. I know there’s a global financial crisis, but you’d still expect the holiday season to be the source of a huge number of sales. It seems that Amazon got their sales forecasts all wrong and ran out of kindles before they could ramp up more production. Some are suggesting that they’re just waiting for kindle 2 to be ready. Whatever the reason, it’s not the way you’d expect a consumer electronics company to organise their sales and distribution approach.

More End of Print Notices

Following on last month’s announcement of the imminent closure of the print version of the Christian Science Monitor comes news that Ziff Davis is to move PCMag to an online only model. Not entirely surprising given the subject matter, but a significant shift from the 80s when it was a mammoth (400+pages) printed publication. Interesting note in the paid content piece covering this story:

… the revenues on the online side have grown an average of 42 percent yearly since 2001; digital is about 70 percent of the revenues for the PCMag brand, and overall is profitable.

So someone’s making money online.