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Is EPUB important for an ereader? Maybe not, says Amazon Kindle Review
October 26, 2009 | 8:03 am
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By Paul Biba
The always excellent Amazon Kindle Review has a great article today on whether it is really necessary for Amazon to adopt EPUB. It points out that in the past the Kindle has done well without such support. And in the future the author notes that B&N does’t bill EPUB support as a feature, the Sony Reader only mentions it as feature #11 and the Plastic Logic Que doesn’t mention it at all.
He goes on the say that of his 5 favorite “Kindle killer” articles 3 don’t mention EPUB and the other two list it way down on the feature list. As he points out the sales figures seem to indicate that people don’t care about “openness”.
This is something I’ve wondered about myself. I would point out that at the B&N press conference the President of the company stated outright that people don’t care about formats.
In any event, you should read the article if you are an EPUB fan and want to get your blood running a bit faster.
By the way, I would have loved to illustrate this article with an EPUB logo, but guess what?
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Comments:
Although we work with ePub a lot (as well as many other e-book formats), I really do not see it as the future of e-books or e-readers.
ePub is a fussy and unnecessarily complicated format that won’t even display consistently across all the devices that profess to support it.
I suspect ePub is really little more than an interesting experiment soon to be replaced by something more manageable.
By this logic people that bought a Ford Pinto didn’t care about safety, or if you listen to US car manufacturers that, “Americans want big cars”. This is just self serving noise on the part of industry representatives. I doubt that people don’t care about formats. It is more likely that they haven’t been affected by format issues yet and they don’t know what the down sides to differing formats are, because, so far, they have only had one reader and are buying books from one well stocked ebook store. The education of the consumer will come when they try to buy a reader from another manufacturer, or try to move their existing books on to the next reader. Then the issues of DRM and incompatable formats will become more clear and important.
I have to second the Real Bill C. People don’t care only because most casual consumers are still on their first Kindle. Just wait until someone releases a “Kindle-killer” and those readers realize that all of the books they purchased can’t be read on it.
I think you have to look at it across multiple markets. In the academic market, epub will be of more interest, mainly because the content (ebook) is being used differently then leisure reading. This again applies to ebook readers as well, what I have seen is that reading an ebook for leisure equates to those people wanting a stand alone ebook reader. An academic researcher is going to want to use a computer more because they will want to do more with the content; put it in a paper, have it automatically cited, cross reference the info with other information. I think we have to look at everything concerning ebooks with distinction, because currently you cannot apply one form across multiple avenues of interest with different needs for each.
Working with ebooks in the academic market I see much more need for a multifunction device like a laptop and needing specific tools for research vs just reading the ebook to read for enjoyment.
Maybe Amazon doesn’t need ePub to sell –they just need mainstream journalists talking about the Kindle only, and a lot–, but some Kindle owners need it and can’t make through the Mobipocket format limitations.
Besides the reader software of the Kindle is derived from the Java-based Mobipocket Reader, which has ePub support on other devices (PDAs, smartphones, ..), and actually TOPAZ files are suspected to be ePub files: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/AZW#Topaz
Amazon made no public speak about TOPAZ files, they merely appeared in the Kindle store. Probably because knowing that Amazon restricts ePub features to books purchased in its store would make some Kindle owners more angry and bitter than they already are.
Walt Shiel says:
Huh ? ePub is very close to existing and widespread formats.
And while you may not need some of its features, other people do. Technical and academic books (in their PDF form) makes a big consumption of vector graphics, multiple fonts, advanced formatting that Mobipocket, LIT, or BBeB/LRF cannot handle.
Use a standard-compliant web browser for reference, and blame the readers, not the format.
I think people do care about open formats that allow them to read and share content. When they aren’t given content they can read anywhere and share when desired, they pay less for it. Amazon didn’t set the price capriciously; they found out by experimenting what people are willing to pay for restricted content in a proprietary format. EPUB may not be perfect, but it is open. I’d think Teleread would at the least favor open.
Hi, Brian. I’m founder of TeleRead and emphatically agree with you about the usefulness of ePub (even if the IDPF has so often disappointed me on matters such as the much-delayed logo). Paul is simply expressing his individual opinion in this case. I don’t like to impose party lines on Paul or others. Of course, I’d be delighted to run a pro-ePub post from you, given your background in production-related matters. I myself published a reply to Paul shortly after he posted this. Simply put, proprietary formats reduce the value of books both as merchandise and as literature. Thanks. David
Most of the article’s points and comments sound like variations on: We were the first; we’re the best; we have no real competition; so who cares what others are using? This is the business equivalent of sticking your head in the sand.
However, if “the competition” start offering superior store experiences (in many cases, it will only take better prices), in ePub formats, and people start abandoning the Kindle store to buy ePub elsewhere, Amazon will figure out “why Kindle needs ePub.” Amazon obviously believes they can drop prices, and add support for a new device each week, and stave off competition. But that doesn’t always work forever.
Product design is a reflection of what the product is supposed to be and who the intended customers are. Kindle is one of the purer reflections of this design principle; form follows function.
Kind is, and has always been, a *storefront* first and foremost; a channel into the Amazon bookstore. The use of cellular wireless instead of wifi, the prominent of real estate to the keyboard, the limited format support. The reader experience (though good) has always been secondary (not great).
Kindle exists to sell ebooks off Amazon’s inventory.
It does not exist to pioneer a new reading technology–though it seems to bevachieving that.
It does not exist to promote reading as entertainment–though it serves that cause nicely.
And it does not exist to promote the cause of ebook standards.
It exists to sell ebooks from Amazon’s store.
For Amazon to open to support epub means it is opening kindle to:
1- its chief competitor, adobe, and helping kill its own investments, whichnno rational executive will done even one minute before being forced to. Want Bezos to supprt pub? Put a gun to his head. And maybe not even then.
2- open up the kindle to a horde of low-quality free crapscans and other non-revenue generating documents that cater to non-paying “customers”. Converting epubs to mobi format, for those free documents that aren’t already available in mobi format, is easy. There is no economic incentive to, at this time, bend over backwards to support google. If it ever becomes necessary, Amazon can follow the example of the portable media players and offer a “feeder” application to convett epubs and copy them to kindle, maybe into a separate folder and list. But again, it won’t happen one minute before it is absolutely required. If your enemies pin all their hopes on one feature, thatvis one feature you go out of the way to ignore/deprecate. Marketting 101. You never validate the other guy’s value equation.
It is early in the game.
Early in the game, proprietary solutions *always* win over standards. It is only later in the game that *sometimes* standards matter. Sometimes, not always.
Examples available upon request, but the simple fact is Amazon is not sticking their head in the sand; they are milking the early matket for all its worth.
Apple does it all the time.
AOL did it.
IBM did it.
Netscape did it.
Every well-run company does it.
Companies that get standards religion before they have to do not end well; they get displaced by the companies that understand embrace-and-extend.
epub may yet get to be a universal standard–if it survives adobe’s hijacking–but that day is not yet in sight.
Until it is within at least range of binoculars, amazon’s value proposition and their sales will not suffer for lack if epub support.
Becausevthe customers decide what they want to buy.
And there are enough customers who don’t care about standards and who do care about Amazon’s 20% price advantage (no adobe tax, perchance?) to keep the kindle project going for another year or three.
Beyond that, it will be the paying customers that decide by voting with their wallets how inportant epub really is to the recreational reading market.
Other markets?
(shrug)
Amazon isn’t going for those yet.
From a pure tech business standpoint Amazon is following the textbook script.
Anybody not content with their gameplan should do everybody a favor (including Amazon) and vote for the best alternative product.
Competition is good–monoculture is bad.
If you don’t like kindle or Amazon, support their opposition. Vote with your wallet.