Take a look at the Kindle related news for the day and you could be forgiven for thinking we’re still in 2008.
In no particular order here are the big news items shown for today -
- Kindle for Android arriving soon.
- Will ‘enriched ebooks’ work?
- Book Industry faces a new chapter.
- Article panning an eReader.
- Article saying new browser won’t save Kindle and tablets will kill it.
- Reading on the e-nemy.
- Reading on the iPhone.
Here are the 2007-2008 results for kindle related news and the topics they cover -
- Let’s hope Kindle is only Chapter One.
- Can Amazon Kindle digital book fever?
- Amazon needs to open book on its Kindle business.
- Amazon’s Kindle won’t spark your ebook fire.
- Will Kindle be the next iPod?
Finally, here are kindle related news items from March 2008 -
- Kindle, Amazon’s new best seller, is no page-turner.
- Another eBook Reader fails to beat paper.
- To Kindle or not: business models must not restrict access.
- Amazon Kindle Legal Issues: Do you Really Own the eBook?
- Ectaco jetbook Reader takes on the Kindle?
There’s far too much overlap – It seems that the Press have their standard set of eReader and Kindle storylines and they just keep running them again and again.
Newspapers and Blogs’ favorite Kindle, eReader storylines
Let’s take a look at some favorite storylines.
Device X is going to kill the Kindle (or ereaders)
This is the most popular by far. It talks about how a new device, preferably one that has nothing whatsoever to do with reading, will absolutely destroy all eReaders and drink their blood out of their skulls. It usually fixates on the fact that electronic book readers can’t do anything except read books.
When desperate and lacking a convenient eReader killer the press switches to the Kindle killer storyline. This also drums up some feature completely unrelated to reading like a device’s ability to understand Farsi. The less that is known about the device the higher the chance it’ll be used.
Apple’s Device X will kill eReaders (or the Kindle)
These are the crowning jewels of the ‘Device X will kill eReaders’ genre. They give reporters an opportunity to use Steve Jobs quotes, wax poetic on the beauty and simplicity of the iPhone, and go crazy with their ’100 reasons completely unrelated to reading why eReaders are going to die’.
Device X is not going to kill the Kindle (or ereaders)
Perhaps the least popular. A small portion of reporters will write these articles simply to derive pleasure from arguing with their brethren. These are usually pretty balanced and hard to make fun of (unfortunately).
eReaders are going to die
These are posts that simply talk about eReaders dying out - there not being enough of a market, prices being too high, piracy, and other assorted reasons.
These are usually articles where the reporter wrote down the title and the conclusion and then foraged for any rudimentary analysis or quotes he could find. You can imagine his Chief Editor telling him - We want a death of eReaders story. Don’t mention the iPhone.
A new eReader is launched – it’s beautiful
These always show up a few months before anyone has a good idea of what the eReader is actually capable of.
Examples include articles that lauded the Nook’s color screen and openness and articles that paint each new ‘to be released in 6 months’ eReader as the messiah.
eReader X is terrible and good for nothing and kicks puppies when no one is looking
After 3-6 months of building up unrealistic expectations reporters get the eReaders to review and proceed to be as vindictive as a man taking revenge for his family’s massacre. There are times when a reporter manages to not find a single good thing about an eReader – a phenomena usually only seen when people are describing their exes.
eReaders are going to sell tens of millions of units
An analyst will occasionally get embarrassed by how low his/her eReader sales estimates were and compensate for it. If he’s feeling rational the estimates get doubled. If a temporary madness takes over he talks in terms of tens of millions of eReaders sales a year by 2012.
There have been no reported cases of anyone going beyond estimates of tens of millions of units – though it shouldn’t be too long before someone does.
eReader X is delayed or out of stock
A favorite – Since every known eReader has been inflicted by a lack of adequate stock or shipping delays (sometimes both) these are very common. These are accompanied by estimates of sales figures and allegations that the shortages are being doctored.
eReaders are too pricey
Another favorite – These are usually written in a ‘Back to the Future’ tone with the confidence of someone who travelled to 2012 and saw a world overrun by $50 eReaders. There’s usually a chart which shows a remarkably smooth passage from today’s hideously expensive $259 eReaders to a bright future in 2012 when $50 eReaders will turn the 60% of the US that doesn’t read into true believers.
Books are too pricey, Books are not pricey enough
These always seem to come in pairs – A Publisher will write a love song to the $25 hardcover and allege that eBooks cost even more because they have to fly out aliens from another galaxy to translate words into bits. There is much pleading to save the future of books and to save starving publishers – Smell closely and you might get a whiff of the corner office mahogany desk the article was written on.
Almost immediately another type of article appears – A user that either wants books to be free or wants to be paid for doing the author the favor of reading a book. These articles are equally as impassioned – calling on the Gods of the Internet and bemoaning the loss of the used book market and of sharing.
What will happen to Books, eReaders are a threat to Books
Authors are the usual suspects here – they’ll draw up a beautiful image of how physical books and all their beauty is being lost and how we are losing something invaluable in the transition from paper to electronic.
eReaders violate your rights and they leave the seat up
The EFF and anti-DRM people have a steady stream of articles – sometimes valid, sometimes paranoid. Easiest way to identify these is to replace Amazon by mothership and DRM by Martians – the article then reads like War of the Worlds.
Kindle needs to open up its eco-system
These are usually written by someone from O’Reilly or another Kindle Store competitor – These are always based in a perfect world (with unicorns) where companies exist solely to give competitors the pleasure of beating them up with a baseball bat. The arguments are so poetic and ‘good’ it seems that we are at a table with Gandhi and Mother Teresa signing a peace accord.
Publishing needs to evolve in this particular way
Always written by blogs that have been around for a few years (and that make money off of running advertisements that their readers hate). Blogs wanting to help newspapers is like Rome building roads through the Alps for Hannibal.
We will have color eReaders in 3 months, we will have flexible eReaders in 3 days
These are the press releases and the interviews with the ePaper companies. The same companies that were sharing images and prototypes of color ePaper in 2005. The same companies that have done squat in the last 2+ years.
Why is history repeating itself?
Actually, there’s not that much to write. It’s 2.25 years and you could summarize it in 3 sentences -
Sony makes an eReader and then Amazon beats it by making one that’s easy to use and has cheap books.
Oprah recommends Kindle and it takes off and soon after Kindle 2 arrives and readers are sold.
Kindle keeps doing well, ePaper refuses to evolve, and everyone’s trying to get a piece of the eReader pie.
There’s no great storyline here -
We had black and white eInk in November 2007 and we have black and white eInk in March 2010. Kindle had the lead soon after it came out and it has the lead now. No one realized that people who read want a device optimized for reading books and no one realizes it now.
Not much has changed.
Filed under: news Tagged: | history repeats itself, kindle news
