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In ’09: Cellphone e-book boom, tough competition for Kindle, growing DRM resistance, and perhaps a shrinking Mobi share
January 5, 2009 | 7:16 am
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By David Rothman
I turned away from my iTod Touch screen and peered into a crystal ball for the January issue of Publishing Trends.
My 2009 predictions shouldn’t surprise TeleBlog regulars. For example:
1. Major growth in the use of cellphones as e-book readers.
2. Tough competition for the Kindle from new rivals such as the Plastic Logic tablet shown in this video—if it lives up to initial ballyhoo. What about screen refresh rates?
3. Greater consumer awareness of DRM as a threat to long-term ownership of e-books. To a multi-device user, the Kindle’s DRM is not seamless.
To the above, I’d add one more: a shrinking of Mobipocket‘s market share if Amazon won’t let Mobi release versions for the iPhone and Android. Native ePub rendering capabilities would also help.
A different set of predictions: Those from Michael Cairns, the former Bowker president, who, among other things, believes that 2009 could be still harder on the publishing business than was 2008.
“When times were good,” he writes, “an oversupply of market options—particularly in retail—hid a myriad of structural problems. Right-sizing in media retailing and distribution will result in one major physical book retailer, one wholesaler and one online retailer.” Ouch. I guess p-book writers had better be very nice to Barnes & Noble.
Technorati Tags: Plastic Logic,Michael Cairns
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Comments:
Add this one at least one ebook centered business will go bankrupt in 2009 As revenue might go up expect profit margins to drop significantly.
That’s entirely possible, Daniel. Got a few more specifics to share?
Thanks,
David
The only ebook ad ive ever seen in mainstream media is for a package of Clasics(public domain) for the nintendo DS game console(yes they run that in prime time tv in ireland and the UK), and it’s not offered by any established ebook company. This is what makes me think that most of them is just going to end up as roadkill if the mobile carriers decide that text is an interesting way to drive trafic.
Theres not only the huge backoffice of public domain, and books are different from music in the fact that a big part of what people read was written before mickey mouse got copyrighted. there the fact that hardware comparable to ebook readers are being made by the billions by non ebook companies.
I disagree with all three. Your blind spot is in thinking that the biggest market for ereaders is you (and me) and people like us, and it’s not.
How many VCRs spent their entire lives blinking 12:00?
The biggest market for ereaders is not early adopters. It’s people who want to easily approximate the experience of reading a book. Period.
They don’t want a tiny screen. They couldn’t care less about DRM, or multiple devices. They want reading an ebook to be just like reading a book. And just as easy as picking up a book.
The number of people who have never copied a file is a lot bigger than the number of people who recognise a DOS command line prompt.
My best friend also has a Kindle. She’s never downloaded a file to her computer, or copied a file to somewhere else on her computer. She knows how to buy a book on Amazon, and thinks it’s magic that it appears on her Kindle all by itself. That’s the big untapped market for ereaders.
Vicki
Thanks for speaking up, Vicki, but just wait until your friend wants to transfer her Kindle-format books to a better machine made by a different company. Her thinking just might change. Meanwhile e-book software for the iPhone is just going to get better and better. The iPhone for e-books isn’t right for everyone, but we’re still talking about a huge market. Thanks. David