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Kindle Bliss declining? And could ePub and reduction of DRM lock-ins help repair the damage?
December 25, 2009 | 2:50 pm
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By David Rothman
Editor’s Note: The Kindle Review, from whose statistics the Times’s article was taken, has a rebuttal to the Bits Blog conclusions and The Review says: It’s a perfect example of why people are losing faith in newspapers. Paul Biba
The New York Times’ Bits blog has just compared the customer ratings of the original Kindle (seven percent one star), the Kindle 2 (11 percent) and the DX (15 percent). What’s more, fewer than half of DX owners are giving their babies five-star ratings. That’s not disastrous but hardly in line with past triumphs.
Is Kindle Bliss declining? The Times’ Nick Bilton quotes a Newsweek Q&A where Jeff Bezos says: “We start with the customer and we work backward.” But then with the numbers in mind, the Bilton post observes: “In actuality, Amazon’s Kindle customers aren’t getting any happier about the end product.” He notes complaints about “poor screen quality, unattractive device design and the constraints of digital rights management software on books and newspapers.”
One quick, partial fix would be for Amazon to include native ePub rendering in the Kindle and to either back off from traditional DRM or play up social DRM (names and addresses embedded in e-books to discourage copying). Both would help address the DRM compatibility challenges now facing e-bookdom. Jeff Bezos could even do a DRMless ePub store—just as he sensibly built a DRMless MP3 one—for interested publishers.
With nonDRMed ePub, books from Amazon would be readable not just on the Kindle but on any rival readers the customers might own in the future—thereby expanding revenue opportunities for Amazon as a whole, since the books would be more desirable as long-term buys.
Instead of DRM-lock-ins and stupid “exclusives” that reduce consumer choices, perhaps Amazon could bargain with publishers or authors to include its imprint on Amazon distributed titles. What’s more, it could compete with better-formatted e-books, doing the work itself or raising standards for publishers.
And speaking of the need for Amazon to avoid smugness: Amazon botches my ‘Scandals’ listing, hurting sales: Others harmed by inept database work?
Image credit: CC-licensed photo from austtindkeyscouter.
Technorati Tags: Nick Bilton
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Comments:
Actually, as a Kindle customer, DRM is pretty low on my list of things to get excited about. If Amazon were really interested in what its customers want, it would get in gear and provide either folders or a tagging system for organizing the thousands of books Kindles can hold. Folders have been the #1 customer request I’ve seen on all Kindle discussion forums since I first started investigating the device 2 years ago, and it’s a customer desire Amazon has so far ignored.
It’s not that I’m unaware of the problems of DRM. I have one of the original Rocket Ebooks and the only way I can still read the books I bought for it is on the Rocket itself (which still works, but then it’s made a whole lot more sturdily than the Kindle). During the time the Rocket was being sold, I saw postings on forums about software to hack it and never followed up. With the Kindle I’ve been more aware. So long as the ebooks I’ve bought from Amazon are available for me to read, I’ve no intention of using it, but I did download and test the software necessary to make sure I always have access to the books I’ve paid for.
Ellen: Thanks for the comments, and I’m rooting for your Rocket eBook to keep working so you don’t have to hack your books and break the DMCA. You’re right on target about the usefulness of folders. Let’s hope Amazon obliges. Thanks. David
Didn’t Amazon already announce folders are coming in the first half of 2010?
http://www.teleread.com/2009/11/20/quick-note-kindle-to-get-folders/
As for the declining ratings, it is hardly surprising.
Early adopters prize the pluses of their tech toys and tolerate the limitations since they understand they are buying into an immature product. As the customer base expands, though, it starts to draw in less tolerant buyers.
Felix, you’re right. Let’s hope Amazon keeps its word about a fix in the near future.
Re a different customer base: Actually I suspect that many DX customers would be upgraders.
Thanks,
David
My impression of the negative reviews is that many of them were written by people who don’t actually own the product they’re reviewing, and who are unhappy about DRM. I am no fan of DRM, but I do own a Kindle, and like the device, and I know that I could crack the DRM using widely available Python scripts if I really wanted to (e.g., if Amazon were to go out of business and I ran over my Kindle with my car).
About folders/tags: Amazon has promised to deliver a solution via a software update sometime in 2010. I’m hoping it’s tags, but even without that, you can simulate tags through the use of annotations that contain unique keywords.
Interesting comments, Mark. The DRM-related explanation is a possibility. But when the first Kindle came out, lots of people were also bothered. Non-owners lowered the score back then, too. More of them doing this? I don’t know. Just a guess: that isn’t the biggest factor even though unhappiness with DRM is growing.
Unfortunately your DRM cracking solution won’t work for many people, who would rather not violate the DMCA, or who lack tech savvy. Even if Amazon goes out of business, I suspect it’s still technically against the DMCA to circumvent DRM. Not sure. But I’m not sure if an exception exists for typical e-books users under those circumstances.
As for tags, that’s a handy tip but most people would rather see ‘em for real, not just use unique annotations.
Thanks,
David
One problem we haven’t yet noted with this “analysis” is that Kindle product reviews tend to improve over time. When each new version was announced, a bunch of people who didn’t like Kindle but didn’t have one jumped in and posted one-star reviews.
But as the announcement date fades into the distance, reviews from actual users increase as a percentage of all the reviews. And actual users rate the Kindle better than the non-users. What we’re actually seeing is the trend for the “average” Kindle rating to improve over time. The Kindle 1 has been out the longest, the DX for the least amount of time.
David, first, enough about the Solomon Scandals and Amazon’s screwing it around. If you are that unhappy, just stop selling the book through Amazon. I know the Solomon Scandals is important to you, but you are hammering home your complaint to your choir. If I could wave my magic wand and fix the problem, I would, as would most of your readers. But, alas, Jeff Bezos doesn’t care and probably is not reading Teleread.
Second, as regards Amazon and ePub, the bottom line appears to be that most Kindlers don’t care as long as they can buy from Amazon. The only way to get Bezos’ attention is through his shareholder’s pocketbook. Rather than preaching to the Amazon stone wall, you need to undermine its foundation by decreasing its market share and increasing the market share of its DRM-free or ePub competitors. As long as Kindle ebook sales continue to rise and constitute an ever larger percentage of Amazon’s book sales, other than the griping of a few people, Bezos doesn’t get the message that all is not well in ebook land.
Remember that Amazon went DRM free in music only because it wanted to decrease Apple’s market share, not because Bezos believes in giving up control.
Thanks, Rich and Aaron.
TeleRead gets its share of accesses from Amazon.com, but even if Bezos and friends aren’t reading us, they’ll hear the news. I intend to let Ian Freed know personally about the mess in Amazon databases–which affects paper books, too, not just the Kindle editions. In his place, I’d WANT the information. Amazon dominates the e-book market and rankings there can even influence the sale of paper books, so I myself have no choice but to pay attention. As noted, we all make mistakes, but it’s really incredible—the problems that my listings have suffered. Talk about reduced sales! I doubt that I’m the only victim of this, the reason why my problems are newsworthy—as representative of Amazon’s treatment of the non-Random Houses. The right listings won’t turn first novels from small presses into best-sellers but at least will give them more of a chance. A little fairness, please.
On the bliss issue: It’ll be interesting to see what happens if B&N can turn around the Nook and then some Kindle owners do want to switch. Then whatever the case in the past, the unhappiness may grow–in ways that the ratings don’t show.
> Remember that Amazon went DRM free in music only because it wanted to decrease Apple’s market share, not because Bezos believes in giving up control.
So why not use the same strategy against Adobe, which dominates nonAmazon e-books and is relying on DRM for lock-in (in addition to catering to the needs of DRM-crazed publishers)? Jeff could limit the store’s offerings to those of consenting publishers. And big NO DRM labels could appear on books without “protection.”
Happy holidays, both of you!
David
A huge number of the one-star reviews for all three products are from people who have never held a Kindle in their hands. Many of these people signify resistance the idea of ebooks themselves, which we here at TeleRead are fully aware of, right?
Another large percentage of these people signify resistance to DRM and any device which supports it. While I don’t fully agree with many of their views, I do understand them.
And that’s fine – all these people have valid opinions. They certainly should have a place to register those opinions, and it’s a credit to Amazon that non-buyer opinions remain visible on the site rather than being unceremoniously removed.
But the Times article uses the data to specifically conclude that “Amazon’s Kindle customers aren’t getting any happier about the end product” and is thus poor journalism. Because many if not most of those one-star reviews are from non-buyers opposed to Kindle for reasons other than product quality, they should have been filtered from the stats used to create the graphs for this article – which purports to be about Kindle customers, not Kindle protesters.
At least one website has been organizing a protest against Kindle by asking people to go to the Amazon site and post 1-star reviews. They claim to have generated hundreds of them. http://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/1249
Words of sense.