Odds are good that your holiday wish list includes one of the season's hottest electronic gadgets.
Not the Playstation Move. Not a 3-D TV. But an e-reader.
For the first time, devices on which to store and read books, newspapers and magazines made the Consumer Electronics Association's 2010 "Holiday CE Gift Wish List for Adults." This year, sales of e-readers to retailers are expected to top $1.03 billion, nearly double 2009 figures, CEA reports.
Affordability is a key reason for e-readers' popularity as a holiday gift, said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis with NPD Group, a retail market researcher in Port Washington, N.Y.
Prices have dropped roughly 33 percent. Average cost of an e-reader this year is $161, down from $245 last year, according to the CEA. One of the most popular devices is even less - the latest Amazon Kindle is $139.
Battery life continues to improve. Barnes & Noble says its Nook can go up to 10 days between charges, depending on usage.
Most e-readers are equipped with enough memory to store thousands of books. Other popular features, which differ by brand and model, include adjustable font sizes, built-in dictionaries and high-resolution screens.
The latest trend is toward color. First on the scene will be Barnes & Noble's Nook Color, expected to be available Friday. The device has a 7-inch color touch screen that, according to barnesandnoble.com, "makes reading more engaging than ever."
Kindle
Basics: Amazon's best-seller weighs 8.5 ounces, has a 6-inch diagonal display size (the unit is 7.5 by 4.8 by 0.335 inches), comes with Wi-Fi and stores 3,500 books. The battery lasts up to a month (with the wireless off).
Cost: $139. (Other versions offering more options are available).
Where available: Amazon.com, Target, Best Buy.
How to download e-books: Wireless delivery via Wi-Fi or cell network, depending on model. Books delivered in Amazon's proprietary AZW format. More than 700,000 titles, more than 550,000 of which are $9.99 or less, at Amazon.com.
What you should know: The Kindle has been updated with a high-contrast E-Ink screen (no glare, but light is needed in dim environment). Thanks to the Kindle app, you may access the store from smartphones and the iPad.
Nook
Basics: The entry-level Nook weighs 11.6 ounces, has a 6-inch diagonal display size (the unit is 7.7 by 4.9 by 0.5 inches), comes with Wi-Fi and stores up to 1,500 books. You can store additional books on memory cards. The device comes with six text sizes and three fonts.
Cost: $149 for entry level. The Nook Color, due out Friday, retails for $249 and includes color touch screen and Web-surfing capabilities.
Where available: Barnes & Noble stores, bn.com.
How to download e-books: Wireless delivery. Choose from more than 2 million titles, more than a million of which are $9.99 or less, at bn.com.
What you should know: Nook apps allow you to read books on an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, Android smartphones and personal computers. A lending feature allows you to "loan" a book one time, as long as recipient has a Nook or Nook app.
iPad
Basics: Apple's computer tablet can double as an e-reader, thanks to iBooks as well as free apps from Kindle and Nook. It weighs 1.5 pounds, has a 9.7-inch diagonal display (the unit measures 9.56 by 7.47 by 0.5 inches). It has an LED backlit color screen. Choose from 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash-drive versions.
Cost: Starts at $499 for the Wi-Fi version. A Wi-Fi plus 3G model also is available.
Where available: Apple stores, apple.com, Target, Best Buy stores, bestbuy.com.
How to download books: Download any of the apps for access to a particular store. Apple's iBookstore offers tens of thousands of books.
What you should know: You can read PDFs and watch supplementary videos.
Sony Reader Daily Edition
Basics: The newest top-of-the-line Sony e-reader weighs 9.6 ounces, has a 7-inch screen and comes with Wi-Fi and 3G wireless. It includes 2GB of internal memory, allowing for storage of up to 1,200 books With memory cards, you can expand your library to up to 50,000 books. Battery life is exceptional.
Cost: $299.99.
Where available: The Sony Style store at Scottsdale Fashion Square, Scottsdale and Camelback roads. 480-947-2312, sonystyle.com.
How to download books: Through the wireless connection to the online Reader store or download e-books from other sites to a computer and save them to your Reader.
What you should know: Works with PDFs. You can listen to music while reading. Other less expensive Readers are available.
MORE ON THIS TOPIC
E-books at the library
As e-readers become more popular, libraries are offering more digital titles, including current and popular novels.
The Maricopa County Library District offers a variety of titles.
First, download the free Adobe Digital Editions software at adobe .com/products/digital editions; it enables you to download Adobe-formatted e-books to your computer, said Stacie Delcambre, adult-services librarian at the district's Northwest Regional Library in Surprise. Then transfer the book to your e-reader via a USB cable.
Currently, you can use this system to check out library e-books for Nook, Sony Reader, Libre and a few other e-readers, she said. As of yet, its library e-books can't be downloaded onto iPads or Kindles.
You can check out e-books at any county library with a library card; you must be a Maricopa County resident. You can choose your lending period, whether seven, 14 or 21 days.
E-books can't be renewed, Delcambre said. After the lending period has ended, you will no longer be able to access the e-book unless you check it out again.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/2010/11/15/20101115ereader1115.html?asid=06b57d0d#ixzz15rWqkgoD
by Sue Doerfler The Arizona Republic Nov. 15, 2010 12:00 AM
Stocking-worthy e-readers
Showing posts with label kindle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kindle. Show all posts
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
iPad, Kindle and other e-reader technology book business
iPad, Kindle and other e-reader technology book business
by Max Jarman The Arizona Republic Apr. 3, 2010 11:27 PM
Matt Pavelek/The Arizona Republic
When the iPad hit stores, it joined the Kindle, Nooks and other technologies that will dramatically change how people read buy books.
Book industry experts say that e-reader technology will forever change how books are made, stored and lent.
The change is so profound that it could rival Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in the 1440s. The shift to viewing books on an e-reader could further erode market share of traditional book stores.
"I'm not sure if physical books will go away, but downloads will become the dominant form of distribution," said Sean Feeney, executive vice president at Bookmans, a Tucson-based string of used books, music and video stores.
The trend began long before the iPad. Amazon.com Inc., the world's largest retailer of digital and traditional books, sold more electronic books than paper ones last holiday season.
Analysts don't have a clear picture yet of what the new order will look like, but Amazon aims to have every book ever published, in any language, in print or out of print, available in less than 60 seconds to a Kindle user anywhere in the world.
The new era will bring out-of-print books back to life, making obscure titles, as well as current best-sellers, available on demand.
The pace of change, hastened by the iPad and numerous other devices, is likely to accelerate.
Not even counting the projected 2 million iPads to be bought this year, analysts estimate that 6 million electronic readers will be sold in 2010 and 19 million in 2013. In five years, more than 100 million could be in use, according to the Yankee Group, a Boston-based market-research firm.
As the e-readers multiply, they are likely to get cheaper, making them a must-have electronic device.
The shift is expected to have far-reaching effects, touching not only book shops and online stores but the entire publishing industry.
It likely will be an echo of the change brought about by iPod and MP3 players, which created the digital model for music sales that help spell the end for almost 1,000 traditional record stores and once-formidable chains such as Tower Records and Virgin Megastores.
Paper copies could become specialty book products similar to vinyl records and, increasingly, compact discs.
Reader impact
For students, change will mean carrying a lightweight Nook in your backpack instead of a half-dozen textbooks.
Instead of lugging a 2-pound copy of the "Inspector Morse Omnibus Volume One" on vacation, you could carry a sleek plastic tablet that would also hold Volume Two plus hundreds more of your favorite titles.
And if the person next to you on the plane recommends a "great read," you could buy it instantly at an e-book store and for less than you'd pay at a conventional bookstore.
An electronic version of Dan Brown's "Lost Symbols," which retails for $29.95 in hard cover, costs $9.60 at Amazon's e-book store.
New releases for Amazon's Kindle generally cost $9.99, while classics cost around $1.99.
Or you could download the book free from your local library, whether you're home or 1,000 miles away.
Carrie Wikle, the Phoenix Public Library's Internet Resources Librarian, said demand for downloadable books is extremely high and growing.
When readers check out a book, they obtain a temporary license to use the copyrighted material for the term of the loan. When the license expires, it is up to the user to delete the file. Emerging technology eventually will cause the file to vanish when the book is due.
The library now offers 53,000 of its 1.8 million titles in downloadable form and is adding more each month.
"It's a trend for the future," Wikle said.
A number of Web sites offer free downloads of many well-known books whose copyrights have expired. Gutenberg Project, Coolerbooks.com and other sites offer free downloads, including more than 1 million titles that have been scanned by Google.
Peer-to-peer file-sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay allow readers to share e-books the same way friends can share their digital music collections. Such sites already are facing legal challenges similar to those that plagued early music-sharing sites such as Napster.
Connor Hubach of Phoenix said his Kindle allows him to avoid the "awful selections" at airport bookstores.
"The Kindle has been a useful gadget," he said. "While it won't replace my library, it has made travel more manageable."
Technical shift
Digital books have been around for years. But initially they had to be read on a computer or laptop, devices with limited portability and offering a different experience than holding and reading a book.
But electronic readers, pioneered by Amazon's Kindle in 2007, are as portable as a book and offer a physical experience similar to traditional reading.
Since the Kindle, 36 electronic readers have appeared on the market, and more are coming. The Kindle, the top-selling e-reader, starts at $259. Others range from a Sony Pocket Reader with a 5-inch display for $200 to the Irex Digital Reader with a 10.2-inch screen for $859.
The Apple iPad, which has a 9.7-inch screen, starts at $499 and goes up to $829. As with the evolutionary transition from LPs to iTunes downloads, consumers will experience a learning curve and period of adjustment to books being hard and technical instead of soft and organic.
"I'm not into technical stuff," said Joan Heath, a Phoenix business woman who said she would rather read a book than watch television or a movie. "I like the ritual of holding a book and turning the pages."
With a Kindle, Heath would have to push a button to advance to the next page.
But she could read in the hotel Jacuzzi, without dripping water running all over pages.
Because of the cost and limited functionality, the devices now appeal primarily to avid readers. But the introduction of Apple's multifunctional iPad could create mass appeal. The iPad can be used for e mail, surfing the Web
, gaming and watching videos, in addition to reading books, newspapers and magazines.
"Longer term, the iPad offers the potential to redefine the boundaries between print and video, turning formerly passive media into active ones," Craig Moffett, an analyst with Bernstein Research, wrote in a note to clients.
But there are drawbacks.
The devices are relatively expensive. The Yankee Group believes prices need to come down to below $150 to gain mass-market appeal.
Unlike traditional books, which are always on, electronic readers require a battery that can die just before Inspector Morse reveals the murderer.
And the systems are not compatible. Amazon's Kindle, for example, will accept downloads only from Amazon.com.
Petra Ooton of Phoenix likes holding and reading traditional books, but she said her arthritis is making it increasingly painful and difficult.
She looks on an electronic reader as a device that could help her keep reading, but she finds them too expensive.
"I would love to have one," she said.
by Max Jarman The Arizona Republic Apr. 3, 2010 11:27 PM
Matt Pavelek/The Arizona Republic
A customer tries out the iPad on the day of its release, April, 3, 2010 at the Biltmore Apple store in Phoenix.
When the iPad hit stores, it joined the Kindle, Nooks and other technologies that will dramatically change how people read buy books.
Book industry experts say that e-reader technology will forever change how books are made, stored and lent.
The change is so profound that it could rival Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in the 1440s. The shift to viewing books on an e-reader could further erode market share of traditional book stores.
"I'm not sure if physical books will go away, but downloads will become the dominant form of distribution," said Sean Feeney, executive vice president at Bookmans, a Tucson-based string of used books, music and video stores.
The trend began long before the iPad. Amazon.com Inc., the world's largest retailer of digital and traditional books, sold more electronic books than paper ones last holiday season.
Analysts don't have a clear picture yet of what the new order will look like, but Amazon aims to have every book ever published, in any language, in print or out of print, available in less than 60 seconds to a Kindle user anywhere in the world.
The new era will bring out-of-print books back to life, making obscure titles, as well as current best-sellers, available on demand.
The pace of change, hastened by the iPad and numerous other devices, is likely to accelerate.
Not even counting the projected 2 million iPads to be bought this year, analysts estimate that 6 million electronic readers will be sold in 2010 and 19 million in 2013. In five years, more than 100 million could be in use, according to the Yankee Group, a Boston-based market-research firm.
As the e-readers multiply, they are likely to get cheaper, making them a must-have electronic device.
The shift is expected to have far-reaching effects, touching not only book shops and online stores but the entire publishing industry.
It likely will be an echo of the change brought about by iPod and MP3 players, which created the digital model for music sales that help spell the end for almost 1,000 traditional record stores and once-formidable chains such as Tower Records and Virgin Megastores.
Paper copies could become specialty book products similar to vinyl records and, increasingly, compact discs.
Reader impact
For students, change will mean carrying a lightweight Nook in your backpack instead of a half-dozen textbooks.
Instead of lugging a 2-pound copy of the "Inspector Morse Omnibus Volume One" on vacation, you could carry a sleek plastic tablet that would also hold Volume Two plus hundreds more of your favorite titles.
And if the person next to you on the plane recommends a "great read," you could buy it instantly at an e-book store and for less than you'd pay at a conventional bookstore.
An electronic version of Dan Brown's "Lost Symbols," which retails for $29.95 in hard cover, costs $9.60 at Amazon's e-book store.
New releases for Amazon's Kindle generally cost $9.99, while classics cost around $1.99.
Or you could download the book free from your local library, whether you're home or 1,000 miles away.
Carrie Wikle, the Phoenix Public Library's Internet Resources Librarian, said demand for downloadable books is extremely high and growing.
When readers check out a book, they obtain a temporary license to use the copyrighted material for the term of the loan. When the license expires, it is up to the user to delete the file. Emerging technology eventually will cause the file to vanish when the book is due.
The library now offers 53,000 of its 1.8 million titles in downloadable form and is adding more each month.
"It's a trend for the future," Wikle said.
A number of Web sites offer free downloads of many well-known books whose copyrights have expired. Gutenberg Project, Coolerbooks.com and other sites offer free downloads, including more than 1 million titles that have been scanned by Google.
Peer-to-peer file-sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay allow readers to share e-books the same way friends can share their digital music collections. Such sites already are facing legal challenges similar to those that plagued early music-sharing sites such as Napster.
Connor Hubach of Phoenix said his Kindle allows him to avoid the "awful selections" at airport bookstores.
"The Kindle has been a useful gadget," he said. "While it won't replace my library, it has made travel more manageable."
Technical shift
Digital books have been around for years. But initially they had to be read on a computer or laptop, devices with limited portability and offering a different experience than holding and reading a book.
But electronic readers, pioneered by Amazon's Kindle in 2007, are as portable as a book and offer a physical experience similar to traditional reading.
Since the Kindle, 36 electronic readers have appeared on the market, and more are coming. The Kindle, the top-selling e-reader, starts at $259. Others range from a Sony Pocket Reader with a 5-inch display for $200 to the Irex Digital Reader with a 10.2-inch screen for $859.
The Apple iPad, which has a 9.7-inch screen, starts at $499 and goes up to $829. As with the evolutionary transition from LPs to iTunes downloads, consumers will experience a learning curve and period of adjustment to books being hard and technical instead of soft and organic.
"I'm not into technical stuff," said Joan Heath, a Phoenix business woman who said she would rather read a book than watch television or a movie. "I like the ritual of holding a book and turning the pages."
With a Kindle, Heath would have to push a button to advance to the next page.
But she could read in the hotel Jacuzzi, without dripping water running all over pages.
Because of the cost and limited functionality, the devices now appeal primarily to avid readers. But the introduction of Apple's multifunctional iPad could create mass appeal. The iPad can be used for e mail, surfing the Web
, gaming and watching videos, in addition to reading books, newspapers and magazines.
"Longer term, the iPad offers the potential to redefine the boundaries between print and video, turning formerly passive media into active ones," Craig Moffett, an analyst with Bernstein Research, wrote in a note to clients.
But there are drawbacks.
The devices are relatively expensive. The Yankee Group believes prices need to come down to below $150 to gain mass-market appeal.
Unlike traditional books, which are always on, electronic readers require a battery that can die just before Inspector Morse reveals the murderer.
And the systems are not compatible. Amazon's Kindle, for example, will accept downloads only from Amazon.com.
Petra Ooton of Phoenix likes holding and reading traditional books, but she said her arthritis is making it increasingly painful and difficult.
She looks on an electronic reader as a device that could help her keep reading, but she finds them too expensive.
"I would love to have one," she said.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Amazon Wants To Give A Free Kindle To All Amazon Prime Subscribers
Amazon Wants To Give A Free Kindle To All Amazon Prime Subscribers
In January Amazon offered select customers a free Kindle of sorts – they had to pay for it, but if they didn’t like it they could get a full refund and keep the device. It turns out that was just a test run for a much more ambitious program. A reliable source tells us Amazon wants to give a free Kindle to every Amazon Prime subscriber.
Just as soon as they can work out how to do it without losing money.
Amazon Prime is a subscription product that gives customers free two day shipping on everything they buy from Amazon. The current fee is $79/year.
These are Amazon’s very best customers – the ones who tend to make multiple purchases per month. And they are also likely to buy multiple books per month on their Kindle devices. If those users buy enough books, and Amazon gets the production costs of the Kindle down enough, Amazon can get Kindles into “millions” of people’s hands without losing their shirt. At least when the goal is to break even or better over the course of a couple of years, the expected lifetime of a Kindle.
Amazon Kindle
Company: Amazon
Website: amazon.com
Introduced in November 2007, Kindle is an e-reader developed by Amazon.com to allow easy access to a vast library of electronic books to be downloaded and read on the device. Over 90,000 books were available for download at launch; that catalog grew…
Amazon
Website: amazon.com
Location: Seattle, Washington, United States
Founded: 1994
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN) is a leading global Internet company and one of the most trafficked Internet retail destinations worldwide. Amazon directly sells, or acts as a platform for the sale of, a very broad range of products, including books, music,… Learn More
Information provided by CrunchBase
In January Amazon offered select customers a free Kindle of sorts – they had to pay for it, but if they didn’t like it they could get a full refund and keep the device. It turns out that was just a test run for a much more ambitious program. A reliable source tells us Amazon wants to give a free Kindle to every Amazon Prime subscriber.
Just as soon as they can work out how to do it without losing money.
Amazon Prime is a subscription product that gives customers free two day shipping on everything they buy from Amazon. The current fee is $79/year.
These are Amazon’s very best customers – the ones who tend to make multiple purchases per month. And they are also likely to buy multiple books per month on their Kindle devices. If those users buy enough books, and Amazon gets the production costs of the Kindle down enough, Amazon can get Kindles into “millions” of people’s hands without losing their shirt. At least when the goal is to break even or better over the course of a couple of years, the expected lifetime of a Kindle.
Amazon Kindle
Company: Amazon
Website: amazon.com
Introduced in November 2007, Kindle is an e-reader developed by Amazon.com to allow easy access to a vast library of electronic books to be downloaded and read on the device. Over 90,000 books were available for download at launch; that catalog grew…
Amazon
Website: amazon.com
Location: Seattle, Washington, United States
Founded: 1994
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN) is a leading global Internet company and one of the most trafficked Internet retail destinations worldwide. Amazon directly sells, or acts as a platform for the sale of, a very broad range of products, including books, music,… Learn More
Information provided by CrunchBase
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Apple vs. Amazon: The Great Ebook War Has Already Begun
January 31, 2010 84
We’re not going to see the iPad hit stores for another two months, but it is already changing the ebook game and forcing publishers and consumers to pick sides.
Last night, several blogs including Venturebeat and NYT’s Bits Blog noticed something was amiss on the website of the world’s largest retailer: Amazon suddenly stopped selling books from Macmillan, one of the world’s largest book publishers.
Not every Macmillan book is gone, but popular ones such as The Gathering Storm are no longer sold by Amazon, either in physical or Kindle form. You can still find the Amazon pages for Macmillan’s books — you just can’t order the actual books.
According to the New York Times, the reason the books were pulled was the iPad. Macmillan told Amazon that it wanted to change its pricing and compensation agreement, upping the price of some books from $9.99 to $15 and splitting sales 70/30, the same model Apple uses for the iPhone app store and its upcoming iBooks store. Amazon’s apparent response was to flex its muscle and pull countless Macmillan books off the virtual shelves.
The Dynamics of the New Ebook War
Ever since we got word of the iPad’s existence, we’ve known that Amazon and Apple were on a collision course. Apple saw an opportunity to not only create a new category of device, but to get its hands into the publishing market. In the same way Apple has transformed music, the computing giant would reshape books and become the primary distributor of ebooks worldwide.
Back in September, we wrote a lengthy piece explaining why we believed Apple’s tablet would eat the Kindle’s lunch, displacing Amazon’s lordship over ebooks. We argued that its multipurpose functionality, color screen, and sexier interface and look would put it over the top. Now that we know the iPad’s starting price, ($499), our opinion hasn’t changed. While the Kindle will survive, its sales will likely never be the same.
Publishers like Macmillan apparently agree with us as well, otherwise they wouldn’t so boldly demand price changes from Amazon. Before the iPad was revealed, Amazon was the only player in the game. You played by its rules or you could take a hike. Now with a viable alternative only months away, publishers can run to Apple, where it will have more freedom over its ebook prices.
Amazon’s clearly worried, which is why it’s launching an app store and used its earnings report to remind us that the Kindle is far from dead. But if publishers decide to abandon the Kindle, then Apple will have won the war by default.
That’s why Amazon decided to use its biggest weapon, Amazon.com itself, against Macmillan to send a message to every publisher: If you don’t play by its rules, then you can’t be in its store. While a publisher can likely survive without the Kindle, the same cannot be said for Amazon.com. Publishers simply cannot afford to leave the world’s largest online retailer.
The Kindle and the iPad offer different experiences. The Kindle’s battery life and e-ink are strong selling points for the device as a reader, but the iPad offers so much more. Apple’s banking on those extra features and its undeniable reach to turn the Kindle into an endangered species.
Publishers now have to either choose a side or walk the tightrope between the two companies. The end result will be a long, drawn out war that will both help and hurt consumers. How it will end is anybody’s guess.
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