A few days ago, Amazon announced a reduced-price version of its popular Kindle E-Reader. Agree to have some ads served to your Kindle and you get $25 off the up-front price. Look at it from one angle and this is an old gambit being resurrected: ad-subsidized Internet Service Providers made their big stand years ago, eventually giving way – for the most part – to higher-quality, ad-free...
Before you discount what I'm about to say, hear me out: Barnes & Noble's nook Color just might be the best value on the market for somebody who wants a tablet computer but doesn't really know why. I know, I know, nook Color is an e-reader, not a tablet. It doesn't even have any apps yet. It doesn't even run a proper mobile/tablet operating system. It's sold by a bookstore, for...
Household name brand recognition? Check. Experience selling digital content? Check. Tons of books, music and video currently being sold and downloaded to mobile devices? Check. App Store? Check. Web store infrastructure that already has your credit card info saved? Check. Robust, trusted user reviews backed by loyal user community? Check. Proven track record selling handheld devices?...
Part of the draw of e-books (to me at least) is that they will theoretically last forever. Barring a small fire attacking every single computer and backup service I use, the e-books I purchase should be with me forever, more than I can say for my paperback collection. According to Harper Collins, however, e-books have an expiration date. The publishing company has told libraries that...
It’s been just about a year since the iPad was announced and many people predicted that it would bury the Kindle in the bowels of tech history, including yours truly. Well, we were all wrong, in fact, not only has the iPad not killed the Kindle, it may have helped spur sales. The more people who venture into the tablet market, the more people become comfortable with traditional media,...
At the end of Dec. Amazon announced that it was adding book lending to its popular Kindle e-reader. The idea was similar to what Barnes & Noble had done with its Nook e-reader in that selected books could be loaned to someone else you know with either the device or compatible app for 14 days free of charge. The issue, of course, is you need to know someone with the books that you...
On Nov. 29th, also known as “Cyber Monday”, monolithic online retailer Amazon had its best day ever selling more than 13.7 million items, or 158 items per second. According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon’s peak last year came on Dec. 14th with numbers of 9.5 million items, or 110 items per second, meaning that the company beat the old record by a hefty 44 percent. To paraphrase...
With the introduction of numerous new tablet devices that are beginning to innovate the genre in unique ways, and their obvious prevalence this holiday season, it is hard to see a future where dedicated e-readers win the eBook war: They are limited by function, processing power, and most of all production costs. While their prices have decreased significantly over the past few years,...
It seems that just about every where you go this holiday season you’re going to be seeing tablets and e-readers. With the rate Apple is going, we might see the iPad at corner gas stations soon, but this is leaving the stand-alone e-readers in a bit of a pickle. Up until now you have had to go to a bunch of individual stores to see all the different e-readers such as the nook and the...
As I walk through the bookstore on a busy Saturday I can’t help but think about the print industry and the effect technology has had on the different segments. Why has the Internet all but killed the newspaper business, yet the print versions of books are still thriving even with the growing popularity of e-books?In the early 2000’s I was working in the newspaper business and even at...