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Amazon “collections” feature is detailed
May 5, 2010 | 10:00 am
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By Paul Biba
This is from the Amazon Help page:
After you create one or more collections you wish to use for organizing your Kindle’s content, you’re ready associate items on your Kindle with those collections. Here are a few handy collection features:
Collections are stored on Amazon: When you create a collection on a device, we’ll save your collection so it appears in Archived Items on other devices registered to your Amazon.com account. This allows you to transfer collections across registered Kindles.
Books are associated with collections until removed: If you add a book to a collection on your Kindle and then delete the book from your device, it remains associated with that collection in Archive Items. If you download the book again, it will automatically appear in the appropriate collection on your Home screen.
Books can appear in more than one collection: You can associate a single book or other item from your library with multiple collections if you wish.
Collections don’t change device or Archive Items content: If you delete a book from a collection or delete an entire collection from your Kindle, it does not change the actual items saved on your Kindle or in your Archive Items on Amazon. When you delete a collection from your Kindle, any downloaded items from that collection will appear the Home screen instead of in the collection.
Thanks to Amazon Kindle Review for the heads up.
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Comments:
If I am reading the info in Amazon’s help section correctly, this organization is not good news for those of us who have other family members on our account. If I sort my books into collections, then those collections will appear on the screens of the other two Kindles the same way? The other two may have different sorting ideas. On the other hand, those two are K1s and mine is a K2. Since the upgrade is only for K2, then if I want to sort, it will only affect the others if their Kindles are upgraded.
If they ARE upgraded, and we each make several collections, whose collection “wins?” It is making my head hurt.
Collections appears to be Account specific instead of device specific. There are pros and cons to this choice but I’ll be wanting to play with it a bit before passing judgement. It doesn’t sound as if it allows nesting.
It sounds as if it works a lot like the FAVORITES feature of the POCKETBOOK reader family. Not an implementation of folders but rather more like Sony’s tagging system.
I’m new to all of this but really have enjoyed my kindle2 to date. Am thinking of purchasing one for my granddaughter on graduation but, at the same time, wish to be able to ‘swap’ books with her. If I’m reading this correctly, you can only ‘swap’ books on a kindle registered to you. Is this correct? Naturally, my next question is why? I can purchase a hard cover or paperback book, read it and give it to anyone I choose. What’s the difference with an ebook? I paid for it and it’s not software.
You can share ebooks on kindle if both are registered to the same account. Most commercial ebooks that are copy-protected have the same lumitation; it is not limited to Kindle.
The reason for the restriction is that the files you get from Amazon can be copied and the copy works as well as the original on any kindle registered to the purchasing account. If it were *not* locked to the purchasing account, you could give away an endless stream of copies becoming, in effect, a publisher yourself.
Way back in the early days of mp3 digital music, Sony tried to establish a check-in/check-out system for files that would move files out of a PC before moving them to the music player. This was supposed to allow lending of files; what it resulted was mangled or lost files, user inconvenience, and a total failure of Sony’s product line based on it. Sony’s never recovered from that early mis-step.
In the ebook space, Barnes and Noble has implemented a book-lending feature on their Nook ebook reader but it has severe restrictions:
- you can only lend a book once
- only for two weeks
- and only *if* the publisher allows the book to be lent. So far, very few books are able to use even this crippled feature.
Sorry!
There is no middle ground in this area, so far; the only three solutions are:
1- to abide by the restrictions and register both devices to a common account you both share and buy books for using gift cards
2- only buy books that *don’t* come with drm and are thus sold, essentially, on the honor system
3- learn to remove the drm which is technically illegal in most places but easy to do.
Felix,
I understand the whys but disagree for various reasons and none have to do with money. However, enough said on the subject. Love my daily kindle report
You’re not alone.
Few people like DRM restrictions. Even less like geographical restrictions.
Its an immature business.
We can only hope publishers learn to trust their customers.