For your Saturday reading pleasure here’s a mix of Kindle and eReader news.
eReader Videos
- There are some great videos from CES now available at ARMDevices.net including this video covering a bunch of eReaders.
- The first link will take you to a page that has videos for Pocketbook 901, Samsung 5″, Samsung 9.7″, Alex, and Que.
- Here’s a video of a flexible 9.7″ ePaper display built on LCD production lines.
- Engadget has a write-up and video on Intel’s Reader for the Blind.
CES is impacting the eReader landscape - though not as much as was expected.
Would PDFmyURL work from the Kindle?
The PDF my URL website converts any website into a PDF. It’s quite cool and makes me wonder -
- Could you navigate to it from your Kindle and download the PDF? Leave a comment if it works.
- The website looks amazing in PDF – both on your PC and on your Kindle (landscape mode).
Quite a nice way to read websites on the go if it works. It keeps the layout perfectly and shows images well.
BISG eReader, Kindle Survey – 20% of people might have switched to eBooks
The Book Industry Study Group released a survey of book readers that reveals 20% of survey respondents stopped buying print titles in favor of eBooks -
Roughly 1/5 of survey respondents said they’ve stopped purchasing print books within the past 12 months in favor of acquiring the e-book editions.
There are few data points released as it’s a paid survey -
Most survey respondents said they prefer to share e-books across devices. Only 28% said they would “definitely” purchase an e-book with Digital Rights Management (DRM); men were more likely than women to say they would not buy an e-book with DRM.
Survey respondents indicated a clear preference for e-reader devices used as of November 2009, with computers coming in first (47%), followed by the Kindle (32%), and other e-reader devices at roughly 10% apiece.
Advertising might not work for content and social networks
We have two people with very valid experience talking about how advertising isn’t the answer.
Bo Peabody, who launched Tripod in 2005 and grew it to the 8th biggest site in the world, has some great points -
The standard social networking business model relies heavily on advertising. As millions of members poured into Tripod, my investors and I thought the advertisers would follow. They never did.
Almost 15 years later and as one of the Web’s largest social networks, Tripod generates the same advertising revenue in a year that Google does in an afternoon.
The bottom line is that advertising does not work on social networks because social networks are not media businesses. Rather, they are communications businesses.
Martin Sorrell, Chairman and CEO of WPP and one of the world’s top ad men, also thinks advertising funded content won’t work -
Follow News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch down the paid content road, he tells Sparksheet, a new media company that lives under WPP’s umbrella.
It’s got to change – after all, how many new media companies are actually making money? They say they are, but Mark Zuckerberg says I need to earn one cent more than my cost!
PC World ponders the viability of Business eReaders
The article on Business eReaders starts off well -
The Que attempts to carve out a business niche, and justify the higher price, by displaying a wide variety of document formats including Adobe PDF’s, Microsoft Word docs, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and even Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.
It talks about Que proReader competing with notebooks etc. and thinks netbooks, smartbooks, and Tablet PCs have a better chance.
The real gem is the ending though -
The devices themselves should be given away, more or less, with the revenue being generated by some sort of subscription model–similar to the way mobile phones and some netbooks are currently subsidized by wireless service providers.
The eReader is a consumer commodity, not a business tool.
Another main stream blogger/journalist who doesn’t understand eReaders. The icing on the cake is them quoting from Forrester Research’s report and suggesting we need $50 eReaders for Business eReaders to succeed.
PCWorld has obviously never seen any business expense reports.
Closing Thought – The next 1 month is Huge
January 16th to February 15th might be very significant for eReaders -
- We might see Apple iSlate and find out if the hype is justified. The latest rumor is that iSlate lets you write just like you would write with a pen – except you hold your fingers up to the screen.
- The next Kindle might be released. Kindle for Mac and Blackberry could be out too.
- Sony might release a new Sony Reader. The Daily Edition didn’t make much impact and a new reader might be necessary to keep Sony in the eReader conversation.
January 27th and the Apple iSlate loom over eReaders and eBooks.
Filed under: news Tagged: | ereader news
