Well, I guess they are still around. Copia, according to Publishers Weekly, is talking to independent bookstores in order to become their online retailing solution. They would provide a turnkey operation which would supply digital fulfillment. According to Copia vp Anthony Antolino, they have been talking to the American Booksellers Association. Publishers Weekly has reported that they spoke the the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association and offered indie bookstores a revenue shave between 30% and 50% of the retail price. Antolino described the new Copia program as a “turnkey retail partner and affiliate program” for indie bookstores. Copia claims that...

We've written about Copia in the past. They are setting up a social reading platform on the web which will be combined with an ebookstore and a series of ereaders. I was very impressed with them at Tools of Change and we reported on their revised devices about a month ago. According to the Wall Street Journal they have revised their hardware platform for a second time. They will be offering, among others, a $99 5-inch color debice this fall “The iPad disrupted pricing strategy for everyone in the e-reader market, and after the price wars with Barnes and...

TechCrunch has a piece looking at the new low-cost tablet and e-reader devices planned by Copia (as well as a Copia iPad app). We’ve covered Copia before; the readers’ “gimmick” is supposed to be a unique social-networking component to the devices, allowing readers to exchange reviews and recommendations about books. They recently announced new pricing on their devices. Another TechCrunch writer uses the opportunity to suggest that we are seeing a repeat of the pricing race to the bottom that happened with netbooks: everyone is coming out with cheap devices, and most of them will be junk. John...

Copia has announced new pricing according to Publishers Weekly and they also have reconfigured their line of devices. They are now offering a 5" color LCD model for $99 and a 10.1" color LCD touchscreen/WiFi model for $299. The latter unit will support video and multimedia. There will also be a 7" color LCD non-touchscreen and two 6" b&w e-ink devices. Prices for these haven't been set. According to the article Copia's social networking platform will launch in July and the devices will be available in the fall. I've checked the Copia website and none of...

Copia is a new social reading platform and I had it explained to me by Anthony Antolino, their senior vice president. At the outset I must say that I was skeptical, after all another social platform? But I ended up being very impressed. Copia is first and foremost a software experience that is designed to be interoperable and platform independent. It will run on your PC or Mac and on your smartphone or tablet. To the extent possible the UI will be the same across all platforms. Copia is a mixture of three things - content, community...

I noticed that in the stories following CES this year, lots of media outlets were amazed at the sheer quantities of e-readers, tablets and other media devices on parade. Library Journal, http://www.libraryjournal.com/, also noted this but mentioned as well new companies such as COPIA, http://www.thecopia.com, and Blio, http://www.blioreader.com, which are advocating new methods and formats for ebooks and other types of media. At the cost of alienating many of us, the push for innovation and different formats, I think, is a good thing. From a library standpoint, now is a great time to push for internal change...