“I love the EVDO access. I love being able to download books on the fly, being able to get my latest issues of the newspaper, anything else…pushed to the device wirelessly—awesome. I just wish it had come in black and they had hired an Apple design engineer….” – Benjamin Higginbotham of Technology Evangelist in a funny, informative video comparing the Kindle with the Sony Reader and the iLiad. Thanks to Mike Cane for finding this gem.
Related: E-book skeptic Ed Kohler of TE on Why the Kindle will fail with business book readers. Kohler doesn’t get it. He writes that you can find books at the airport shops—but so what, Ed. It’s the right book that counts. Do you think little newsstands can carry everything, particularly specialized business books?
And last but hardly least:The Amazon Kindle Book Availability Deceit and Other Oddities by Jane at Dear Author. Note to Jane, who quoted me (I’m sure accurately): At this point I’m giving up on saying which is the most popular commercial format in terms of title counts. Might still be PDF rather than Mobi (or, now, Kindle), depending on how you define a book.
David, thanks for the links. Interesting point about looking at the long tail potential of the ebook. Based on what I see business people carrying around today, it looks like the popular business books of the day are often their books of choice. Maybe that’s because that’s all they can find in airport bookstores, but it could also be because they want to be up to date on what everyone else is reading.
Ed, thanks very much for dropping by. Pleasure to link to such an informative, lively site.
As for bizpeople reading what others are, it’s an individual choice; many of the best executives will favor the Long Tail to stay ahead of the crowd. Thanks for considering the cause-effect factor. People are used to limited selections.
Now–about the conversational potential of E vs. P. Here again it’ll vary, but I think that blogs and in-book annoations (yes, that’s the future) can help address the issue. You can even set up your blog to list your favorites.
Depends. I’ll certainly concede that not everyone is wired! Also, I’m not suggesting that E should eliminate the old-fashioned type of converation. Here’s to a mix of approaches!
No prob, Jane–keep up the great work. And thanks in particular for the survey of the big houses in regard to exclusivity. I cited it in the PW blog. Happy holidays. David
Hey, cool video. I really envy you for your nice gadgets would love to have one of these eBook-reading devices.
I also was very curious about the Amazon Kindle but am mainly disappointed with its poor design. But its biggest disadvantage is how you get your own content to the device – via an amazon email service – no direct connection to your pc or something like that.
As far as I learned there is no way but Amazon to get any content to the Kindle?!
In no circumstances I would buy this thing.
Actually, Ron, you can use an SD card to sneak nonAmazon content in–but you can bet that Amazon sees itself as the main content provider by far. Happy holidays. – David
Addendum: E-book-capable PDAs cost less than US$100 on eBay. Keep us posted on your e-book progress!
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I am Guatemalan and I need library authors who say that libraries will disappear or change
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“I love the EVDO access. I love being able to download books on the fly, being able to get my latest issues of the newspaper, anything else…pushed to the device wirelessly—awesome. I just wish it had come in black and they had hired an Apple design engineer….” – Benjamin Higginbotham of Technology Evangelist in a funny, informative video comparing the Kindle with the Sony Reader and the iLiad. Thanks to Mike Cane for finding this gem.
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David, thanks for the links. Interesting point about looking at the long tail potential of the ebook. Based on what I see business people carrying around today, it looks like the popular business books of the day are often their books of choice. Maybe that’s because that’s all they can find in airport bookstores, but it could also be because they want to be up to date on what everyone else is reading.
It looks like Paul has my back on one of my points: paper books are more conversational.
Ed, thanks very much for dropping by. Pleasure to link to such an informative, lively site.
As for bizpeople reading what others are, it’s an individual choice; many of the best executives will favor the Long Tail to stay ahead of the crowd. Thanks for considering the cause-effect factor. People are used to limited selections.
Now–about the conversational potential of E vs. P. Here again it’ll vary, but I think that blogs and in-book annoations (yes, that’s the future) can help address the issue. You can even set up your blog to list your favorites.
Depends. I’ll certainly concede that not everyone is wired! Also, I’m not suggesting that E should eliminate the old-fashioned type of converation. Here’s to a mix of approaches!
Happy holidays,
David
I looked for the quote but couldn’t find it the other day. I’ll revise though.
No prob, Jane–keep up the great work. And thanks in particular for the survey of the big houses in regard to exclusivity. I cited it in the PW blog. Happy holidays. David
Hey, cool video. I really envy you for your nice gadgets
would love to have one of these eBook-reading devices.
I also was very curious about the Amazon Kindle but am mainly disappointed with its poor design. But its biggest disadvantage is how you get your own content to the device – via an amazon email service – no direct connection to your pc or something like that.
As far as I learned there is no way but Amazon to get any content to the Kindle?!
In no circumstances I would buy this thing.
Greetings from Germany,
Ron.
Actually, Ron, you can use an SD card to sneak nonAmazon content in–but you can bet that Amazon sees itself as the main content provider by far. Happy holidays. – David
Addendum: E-book-capable PDAs cost less than US$100 on eBay. Keep us posted on your e-book progress!