Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

A lot’s happening in the world of eReaders.

Apple’s buying Ads on Google for Kindle related searches

In the US – search for ‘Kindle’ to find Apple and B&N advertising. In Canada – search for ‘Kindle’ to find Apple and Sony advertising.

Here are what the ads say -

New iPad iBooks App

Read and buy books in sharp, rich color. Easy to read in low light.

Become a Sony Insider

Text READER to 76691 to receive $25 off a Sony Reader Digital Book

nook by Barnes & Noble

Voted Best New Gadget of 2009! Over 1 million titles. Free Ship.

There’s something absolutely delicious about Apple using Google Ads to try to steal people interested in the Kindle. Isn’t there an iAd for that?

Barnes & Noble Nook will be sold at Best Buy starting Sunday

From 18th April, 2010 the Nook will be available at Best Buy. It certainly puts pressure on Amazon since the Kindle has zero presence in physical stores.

FT write -

Barnes & Noble will distribute its Nook e-reader at Best Buy, putting it on the shelves with Apple’s iPad and Sony’s Readers. The Nook was previously sold only through the bookseller’s stores and website.

It’s amazing to see some journalists (TechCrunch so perhaps the right word would be bloggers) use this as an opportunity to attack eReaders -

• They ‘predict’ that seeing the Nook next to the iPad will mean no one will want to buy the Nook. 
• They ‘predict’ that smaller, cheaper eReaders (including ones without eInk screens) will take lots of market share away from Kindle and Nook.

You can almost imagine them twisting and tormenting little voodoo dolls of the Kindle and Nook.

On a brighter note there are rumors that the Kindle will arrive at Target (April 25th) and Best Buy (sometime soon). Then we’d have more of a fair fight and LCD-compatible people and LCD-incompatible people would both get a chance to try out the screens themselves.

Sony Reader might get a $50 price drop

A Target employee leaves a comment at the official Kindle forum claiming -

1. Target will begin selling Kindles by month’s end.
2. Sony will drop the price of its eReaders by $50. Given the $25 off coupon they’re offering on Google Search the $50 price cut seems a reasonable rumor.

With a $50 price drop the Sony Reader Touch Edition would be $249 and more competitive with Kindle and Nook – especially as it has a touchscreen to make up for its lack of wireless downloads.

Amazon’s Canadian Expansion gets approval

The Toronto Star writes about Amazon being allowed to build a warehouse in Canada. It probably means Amazon expands into Canada in a big way.

Any eReader and eBook implications?

1. Amazon will invest over $20 million into cultural events and into promoting Canadian authors’ books. Probably means more Canadian Authors in the Kindle Store.
2. It’ll also hire its first Canadian employees and create a summer internship program for Canadian university and college students.  
3. Perhaps the biggest implication might be the ‘Kobo Books + Chapters Indigo Vs Amazon Kindle’ battle.

The introduction of the $149 Kobo eReader is a bit of a threat and a warehouse in Canada sets Amazon up to compete better.

The Book Depository launches eBook Store with 340,000 eBooks

MobileRead point out that the Book Depository have added an ebook store.

So, what does it look like?

1. 340,000 plus ebooks in all. 
2. 11,000 free ebooks – these are available for the Kindle in PDF format and seem to be public domain books. They are pretty well-formatted and there might be titles here not included in the Kindle Store’s 20,000 free public domain books.
3. Some of the prices are frightening – books are being advertised as 44% off when they are $15.63. 
4. They do support Nook and Sony and dozens of other ereaders. They don’t support the Kindle.

Have heard about them before and it seems they offer free worldwide delivery on physical books.

What happens to the dozens of ereaders that don’t make it?

Given the rate at which new eReaders are entering the market you have to imagine there will be lots of failures.

1. What happens to them?
2. What happens to the technology? That might be a simple answer given the lack of actual innovation.
3. What happens to readers who bought an eReader that failed?
4. What happens to all the eBooks that were bought?
5. Perhaps most interesting are the eInk screens – Can those screens be re-purposed into other devices?

Now more than ever it makes sense to go with the big three i.e. Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader.

Filed under: news Tagged: | ereader progress