The E-Books Last Stand? Internet Giants Are Gearing Up to Write The Next Chapter in the History of Reading
Source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/09/the-e-books-las.html
There's something comforting about reading words on good old fashion paper, but analysts say the time might be ripening for e-books as well. Before we thumb our noses at electronic reading, it's worth noting that due to the cheaper costs, publishers are more willing to give talented, lesser-known authors a chance to get their work out there. Who knows how many “Hemingways” have slipped through the cracks because their last name isn't Hemingway. Also, e-books are more likely to be published by independent publishing houses, which can mean greater editorial and authorial freedom.
There's also the convenience issue. A small electronic reader that contains dozens of your favorite titles is easier to pack around and store in an increasingly mobile world. It evens provides it own lighting, which is convenient for a late night read or in poor-lighting conditions like on the subway, for example.
But although techies have praised the advantages and predicted the emergence of e-books and electronic readers for years, the idea never caught on with mainstream book buyers. The reasons are many, some practical and others based in tradition. But some of those limitations have since been resolved and two new offerings this fall are set to test whether average consumers are willing to give e-books a chance.
Next month online mega-retailer Amazon.com will unveil the Kindle, an electronic book reader that has been the subject of industry speculation for over a year. The Kindle will be priced at $400 to $500 and will wirelessly connect to an e-book store on Amazon's site-a significant advance over older e-book devices, which require connection to a computer to download books or articles. The drawback is that it's rumored that you'll only be able to download e-books from Amazon as it will not support the standard format.
Google also has autumn plans for online books. They won't be peddling an accompanying product like the Kindle, but they plan to start offering access to full online digital copies of books in its database. Publishers will set the prices for their own books and share the revenue with Google.
Neither Amazon nor Google are expected to carve out a significant piece of the $35-billion-a-year book business-at least not right away. But these new services, from two Internet heavyweights, may help answer the question once and for all of whether consumers are willing to read books off of digital screens instead of on processed pulp. Some are skeptical that enough people will be up for the switch.
“Books represent a pretty good value for consumers. They can display them and pass them to friends, and they understand the business model,” said Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research. “We have had dedicated e-book devices on the market for more than a decade, and the payoff always seems to be just a few years away.”
Even so, hope for e-books was revived last year with the introduction of the widely marketed Sony Reader. The gadget costs less than $300 and is the size of a regular paperback. With a six-inch screen it holds enough memory for about 80 books. More impressively, the battery lasts for around 7,500 page turns before it needs a recharge. It uses technology from E Ink that creates power-efficient digital screens that very closely mimic the appearance of real paper. The Reader has done well enough that Sony recently increased its advertising for the device in several major American cities.
“Digital readers are not a replacement for a print book; they are a replacement for a stack of print books,” said Ron Hawkins, vice president for portable reader systems at Sony. “That is where we see people, on the go, in the subway and in airports, with our device.”
Book publishers also seem to be preparing for the kind of disruption that hit the music business when Apple introduced the symbiotic combination of the iPod and its iTunes online service. This year, with Sony's Reader drawing some attention and Amazon's imminent e-book device on their radar, most major publishers have accelerated the conversion of their titles into electronic formats.
“There has been an awful lot of energy around e-books in the last six to 12 months, and we are now making a lot more titles available,” said Matt Shatz, vice president for digital at Random House, which plans to have around 6,500 e-books available by 2008. It has had about 3,500 available for the last few years.
Amazon has been showing the Kindle to book publishers for the last year and has delayed its introduction several times. Last fall, a photograph of the device, and some of its specifications, leaked onto the Web when the company filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to get approval for its wireless modem, which will operate over a high-speed EVDO network.
“This is not your grandfather's e-book,” said one publishing executive. “If these guys can't make it work, I see no hope.”
Stephen Riggio, chief executive at Barnes & Noble, argues that for most people the value of traditional paper books will never be replicated in digital form. Nevertheless, he says they will compete with Google and Amazon. Riggio said in an interview that the full texts of many books will become available on the company's Web site over the next year to 18 months. He also said that Barnes & Noble was considering introducing its own electronic book reader.
“If an affordable device can come to the market, sure we'd love to bring it to our customers, and we will,” Mr. Riggio said. Posted by Rebecca Sato
Related Links: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1882305,00.asp
http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=5299
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/article1294870.ece
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SonyReaderAndAmazonKindleWillEBooksHappenThisTime.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-book
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/technology/06amazon.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/technology/circuits/09basis.html?ex=1344312000&en=ac17e3fe0ba12772&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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