Archive for Commentary
eBook Pirates – The Reasons Why People Do It
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It is easy to see how pirating copyright material in the digital age contrasts to how we people used to do it. You might remember mixed tapes, when cassette players first got the ability to record content, many people heralded it as the end of the music industry. People gave them to their high-school crushes and to their friends, and despite that fact they owned the music they were making a tape of, they were unlawfully distributing it. Next came VCR’s that had the ability to record television shows or movies you watched and enabled you to make your own private recordings. This spawned a tape trading underground that people mailed their tapes to each other or just loaned them out to friends, again it was harmless, but recording television shows was against the law at the time. Fast forward to the digital age when Kazaa and Napster hit the scene and piracy exploded, as it was easier then ever before for non-tech-savvy users to download full albums. Expanding on the peer to peer file sharing concept, Bittorrent piracy sites now flourish and pick up where Napster left off. Entire generations of users grow up getting their music, movies, and books for free and feel no moral qualms about what they do.
Many people initially purchase an e-reader because of the low entry level price points for the technology. It makes perfect sense if you are a voracious reader to buy a digital book reader for under $100 and then purchase ebooks that cost less then their tangible counterparts. A new hardcover costs anywhere between $20 to $40 and an ebook normally retails for $9.99. If you love to read, it makes sense to give your overflowing bookshelves a break and start amassing a digital library. The problem is a growing number of people choose to pirate the books instead of paying for them.
From various interviews and research we have conducted over the years, there are three main reasons why people pirate. The first reason is the type of person that grows up pirating content and has absolutely no moral qualms about doing so. The second is people who have a lack of a stable income or fixed income and still wants to satiate their literary thirst. Third, in the eBook realms people tend to pirate books they cannot get locally due to geographical restrictions or the lack of an official copy (such as Harry Potter).
Let’s take a look in greater detail at the three main types of people who pirate ebooks and try to understand why they do it. It is only by understanding the reasons behind the actions can people tailor the industry and try to get them to become paying customers. After all, DRM on ebooks alienates the users who actually paid the money for them and might want to load them on other devices. In addition, all current forms of DRM have been circumvented and you only have to Google any type to find easy to use tools to break it.
The current generation of young adults and adults who grew up with the internet in full swing have it easy. You only have to Google any book you want to find a pirated copy on file sharing websites or via Torrents. Movies, Games, Music, and many more are but a few clicks away and presented in super high quality. Many authors find themselves in the predicament that more people are pirating their books than they are actually buying them. This plays into the moral ambiguity angle we mentioned before, with people commonly aged 10 to 25, see no problem with file sharing because they have always done it. It is free and online and they aren’t really hurting anyone and getting content easier than paying for it. This is the type of situation that is hard for the industry to solve because how do you make money if people are getting your content for free?
The second reason for piracy and the situation most people can empathize with is the lack of income or a fixed income. Many pensioners and people who faced life changing disabilities are downloading and pirating ebooks. They simply are in a position where their monthly income is not enough to sustain their entertainment needs, which become more expensive every year. After bills, food, and expenses, there is not enough money left over to entertain yourself. It is easy to feel sympathy towards this demographic of people, but in effect it hurts the entire industry.
Many people find themselves in a unique position that the books they want to buy are simply not available! Most have told us that they would LOVE to throw money at ANY company that offered the books in their country that they want to buy. The Harry Potter series is the most pirated book of all time and it is mainly because they have never been officially released in digital format. If you look at the average pirated version, it is not some scanned copy that is hard to read but very slick and professional book editing to make it seem like the real deal. Geo-graphic restrictions by booksellers is also one of the largest reasons most people cite for having to pirate the book. Many publishing companies have different agreements in different countries and in some cases different units all together. You only have to look at the huge selection in the Amazon.com Kindle Store and visit the same store in Canada, UK, and Australia and the selection dramatically dwindles. Publishers and Book Sellers simply don’t have the rights to distribute books in different countries which stifles the growth of ebooks in general.
So how can the industry combat the ebook piracy issues? It is a daunting task and a huge mountain to climb in order to solve the problem. The most hurt are indie and first time writers who see a lack of revenue come in and fail to garner book deals because sales numbers are everything. They also hurt the publishing companies themselves, the big six are fairly immune to this problem but the smaller and mid-range companies are particularly vulnerable. We at Good e-Reader have NEVER endorsed piracy but we have open forums and sometimes things get uploaded that should not, but we are always diligent in policing it. I would say we are more vigilant than Megaupload and other file sharing sites that simply turn a blind eye to the entire problem.
There are two big ways the industry can adapt in order to curb the piracy problem and start to dwindle down on the number of people contributing to the problem. Stand alone books in the form of applications for Android and iOS is a solid start and advertising in books.
The Apple iOS ecosystem is the most lucrative way for authors and publishers to submit their content and maximize their returns. Most books that are considered enhanced are standalone applications that you have to buy via the iTunes store. Some of these books have interactive content, audio, video and more. A fair portion of them are aimed at kids because they are great learning tools and don’t cost a ton of money. These are not EPUB books per say, but instead are fully fledged applications that are notoriously hard to pirate. It is quite easy to pirate a book that is in PDF, ePub or MOBI format but pirating an iOS app? Not so much. Now that Apple has released new tools for authors to make their own books in a proprietary Apple format exclusive for iBooks, this is a step in the right direction. You can either make a book as an app or make a book available in a format that no other device can read.
I have debated the semantics of this issue before, but advertising in ebooks is a viable way for the industry to mature and actually make money on people who pirate your books. Companies could tremendously benefit by offering free versions of their books but having internet banners or ads embedded in them. Amazon released the Kindle Special Offers Edition line of devices that show an advert on your screensaver and homescreen but never in a book. This subsidizes the cost of the hardware to serve you relevant campaigns from their partners. Companies could run Google Ads since almost every PC, eReader and Tablet on the market right now has WIFI connections and could make money from people pirating them. The industry also should develop metric tracking software embedded right into the book that would provide valuable metrics so they could keep track of who is reading their books and in-turn sell that information to advertisers.
Piracy will never go away and the easier it becomes to do the more people will do it. If there is a new form of encryption or security people will break it in short order and offer easy to use tools for people to download. The industry in order to combat this problem should not go after the pensioner who likes to read or the 13 year old reading a James Patterson book, but should incorporate new technologies to make piracy profitable.
I really think that enhanced ebooks and ebooks as apps is the way the industry is gravitating towards right now. You only have to look at the Apple Newsstand and companies like Zinio. All of their newspapers and magazines are basically enhanced ebooks with cool interfaces that are tailored towards a touchscreen device. You simply could never get the same effect in a PDF document and most people would gladly take out a Wired Digital Subscription for a low cost and get touchscreen optimized features then try and find a pirated version of it somewhere. Same goes with eBooks that are sold and marketed as enhanced books. You simply cannot make an EPUB or a pirated book file out of a proprietary copy that has rich media features that could not be rendered on a e-ink based device like the Kindle.
Companies have been trying to solve the built in book advertising solution for a number of years and even Amazon has filed several patents on technology that they are trying to develop. I feel this endeavor would cost too much money and people aren’t interested in investing a ton of money in research and development without a firm notion if the premise will take off and people would be willing to license it.
Why do you think people pirate books? This is a fairly complex issue and would love to hear what you have to say about it.
The Book Release this Year I am most Excited About
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Books are an essential part of my life and the joy of discovering new authors is pivotal to my literary growth. Last year I discovered one particular author that resonated with me, Justin Cronin who wrote ‘The Passage’
The things of your life arrived in their own time, like a train you had to catch. Sometimes this was easy, all you had to do was step onto it, the train was plush and comfortable and full of people smiling at you in a hush, and a conductor who punched your ticket and tousled your head with his big hand, saying, Ain’t you pretty, ain’t you the prettiest girl now, lucky lady taking a big train trip with your daddy, while you sank into the dreamy softness of your seat and sipped ginger ale from a can and watched the world float in magical silence past your window, the tall buildings of the city in the crisp autumn light and then the backs of the houses with laundry flapping and a crossing with gates where a boy was waving from his bicycle, and then the woods and fields and a single cow eating grass…….
…..Because sometimes it was one way, easy, and sometimes it was the other, not easy; the things of your life roared down to you and it was all you could do to grab hold and hang on. Your old life ended, and the train took you away to another…”
The Passage was heralded by some to be too long at over 800 pages but I found it compelling because of its narrative. It was originally written in 2010 and is considered to be a horror epic on-par with Stephen Kings ‘The Stand.’ The book starts in the near future with terrorist attacks on malls and subway stations as being commonplace. The military influences the work of a microbiologist working in Bolivia who is working with bats for common cures. In secret 12 different death-row inmates are brought into the project who have no family, friends and are otherwise unforgettable. Like any military experiment they are held in quarantine and all suffer from psychological maladies that surface throughout the book. The premise is to create a new kind of super solider who can regenerate and learn new tasks very quickly. All goes wrong and one of the virals escape and in a few short years the human population is nearly extinct. They are fairly akin to vampires but are never named as such in the book which makes them compelling.
The next half of the book is set in a dystopian future where a group of survivors lives in a compound ruled by family caste system and this is where the book really comes into form. The colony was originally started by FEMA has being one of the last bastions of humanity and is fairly self-sufficient but on the decline. It is a mortality play with a destructive and flawed race of beings. Justin will be releasing a new book this year which I am very much looking forward to and will be called ‘The Twelve.’ You can read a great review by the New York Times, HERE.
Is a Dedicated e-Reader Right for You?
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In a world of tablets, smartphones, computers, and e-ink based book readers many people naturally wonder if a dedicated e-reader is right for them.
Dedicated e-ink based readers have been around for six years in the public consciousness and have drastically altered their technology and price-point to be easier to carry and pocket friendly. e-Readers have a great way of giving you the ability to carry thousands of books on the go and be easy on the eyes during long reading sessions. Most have the ability to connect via WIFI to the internet so you can purchase e-books, newspapers, and magazines directly through the companies you do business with.
The big question is a dedicated e-reader right for you? The main reason you want to buy one is the cost. Many people who have tablets often never bring them outside of the house in fear they might get damaged, lost, or stolen. Carrying a $300 to $800 device out and about is a recipe for disaster unless you are in a controlled environment like an office or business. Another huge factor is the portability, since most are light-weight and easily fit in your back pocket or handbag. Finally, most people get LCD burnout when staring at a computer monitor or tablet like the Apple iPad. I hear all the time from people who wear glasses that they can’t stand to look at a screen for more then an hour before they have to do something else. e-Readers do not have light emitting from the screen and instead rely on ambient light. Most e-readers have a grey screen with very high contrast black text that makes reading for hours very easy and much akin to reading a real book.
Personally, I carry my smartphone with me everywhere and hardly ever bring my various e-readers out with me when i am running errands. It is much easier to carry a device that has a 4.3 inch screen and can use for phone calls rather then carry a six inch device that is a bit more encumbersome. Although I do use my phone to keep up on the daily news, it could never be my go-to device for reading books due to the small screen.
Many people rely on their tablets, like the Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, or Apple iPad, to read all of their content. There are large benefits of using these types of devices because they are full color and you reap the rewards of content tailored for this medium. Magazines, Cookbooks, Kids Books, and Interactive enhanced books really shine in full color and give you a chance to see videos, animations, and other content. Not to mention the full internet experience with Adobe Flash, Youtube, and much more.
So is an e-reader right for you if you love to read? Ultimately it is your call and depends on your financial situation and how your eyes hold up reading LCD screens. Many kids and teens these days have grown up with a computer and phone in their hands their entire life. They are used to reading on bright screens where the older crowd responds quite differently. I normally have both a tablet and an e-reader that I use for different things. I normally read at night before bed, so my iPad is what I use to read books and listen to podcasts. When I travel, which is often, my e-reader is always with me because it is lighter and easier to carry.
I’d like to hear what other people have to say on the issue. Is your dedicated reading device a tablet, e-reader, or phone?
We broke the news last week that Apple is in development of a self-publishing program and many leading websites such as Media Bistro, Paidcontent, and tons of others. The essence of our writeup was that Apple will be holding an event at the end of the month where they are expected to take the wraps off of their self-publishing program for iBooks. This may benefit indie authors that want to submit directly to the service and not be forcibly relegated to doing business with various Aggregators. What does it mean for these companies if Apple starts their own program?
iBooks only launched in the last few years and has been playing catchup with Amazon, Kobo and Barnes and Noble. All of its competitors have expansive ecosystems that have been developed for many years and have solidified partnerships with the leading publishing companies and also smaller ones. The iBooks store is woefully sparse in terms of selection compared to the other stores. Most of their books are overpriced and many bestsellers are not available for an international audience.
One of the advantages Amazon and Barnes and Noble have over Apple is their own self-publishing program. Apple does have a little known process to publish your own books but it involves a validated ePub file, ISBN identifiers from the Library of Congress and a willingness to run the gauntlet of contracts, paperwork, and use iTunes Connect. This entire process is very daunting and many users are unaware of its existence.
Instead of dealing directly with Apple self-published authors have been using official Aggregator’s such as; Ingram, INscribe Digital, LibreDigital, Lulu, and Smashwords. If you live and publishing in Europe, you can do business with Bookwire and Immatériel. Of these, only Smashwords will convert MS Word documents to ePub.
Publishing Aggregator’s are proving to be a popular option for people to self-publish with because they help you along the entire process and normally submit to many other bookstores. Smashwords is one of the leading companies that do this and even provide you an ISBN number for free. They submit to Kobo, Sony, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple and a few others. One of the drawbacks of using any major Aggregator service is that they brand your book and serves as self-promotion.
Now people in the industry will say that Apple relies too heavily on their 3rd party service that allows companies like Smashwords to benefit. In a recent interview the CEO of the company Mark Coker said “Apple realizes that they’re going to earn a 30% commission whether they source the book from an aggregator or from their own platform, and books sourced from aggregators are more profitable for Apple because they can be sourced at lower cost (no need to invest millions of long term dollars to maintain and staff their own platform) and greater scalability than from one’s own platform.” Obviously many companies have to downplay this new platform because it seriously impacts their own business and have to try and rationalize why it won’t be profitable for Apple.
What does it mean for these companies that made their living from submitting peoples books to the Apple iBooks store? If Apple does start their own self-pub service in the next few weeks many people will gravitate towards it because of Apples famous ‘ease of use’ philosophy. It is hard to dispute the growing number of indie authors breaking out of digital and getting huge book deals. Amanda Hocking continues to be the poster child of ‘indie author makes good’ and has landed major book deals from a major publisher due to the success of her ebooks. In a recent study over 60 million ebooks were sold worldwide and 20 million e-readers were sold just in December. These are huge numbers and goes to show people are hungry to consume digital content. Smashwords can undoubtedly survive with Apples new publishing program because it is easier to sign up for one service that automatically submits your one book to many other websites, rather then doing it one by one. The others will continue maintain the status quo, for at least this year, but face diminished returns.
The people I can see benefiting from Apples new program is small and medium size publishing companies. Many organizations and companies right now publish kids books and rich media titles and sell them as apps. Having the option to publish ebooks with their same Apple Developer account or making the process more streamlined will help the authors who have signed on with them. I am a huge fan of the Apple iPad because does the huge app selection available and the sheer amount of kids books, cook books and various media based books make the platform very unique. The ability for an author to make an animated cookbook and an ebook variant during the assembly process and submitting it to one entity could be financially lucrative.
Finally, the Apple iBookstore platform could see a tremendous boost in books submitted and could finally make it a viable alternative to Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and others. The huge advantage Apple has is their own iTunes platform to facilitate purchases. This has alienated most of their competition who decided to remove the ability to buy books on their app rather then cave into Apples demand to give them 30% of each book sale. The average user only knows that they used to buy ebooks on their iPad with Amazon but can’t anymore. Boosting up the number of books in the iBookstore and buying books directly through it could really help with overall sales and visibility.
In the end, with the Apple Self-Publishing platform small and medium sized companies will benefit the most with its ‘all in one, turnkey solution’ and indie authors who have more control over their individual brand. It could also over competitive advantages to choosing them and only publishing with them, like Amazon is doing.
How has your Reading habits changed during 2011?
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E-Readers and tablets in 2011 have really come into their own and are readily available to suit most peoples financial budgets. Now more then ever newspapers, magazines and books are readily available in digital format. Marvel, DC, Darkhorse and other comic books companies have all come to an understanding that it is in their best interest to release the digital format on the same day as the printed. Since content is so easy to get and the technology to read it with is in the hands of many people, how has your reading habits changed?
You have to look no further then every major retail and big box store in the USA to get your hands on a low-cost e-reader or tablet. The Amazon Kindle, Nook Simple Touch, Kobo Touch and many more have broke the $100.00 price point and you can get a solid e-ink based device for $79.99. The devices themselves are not only more affordable then ever but have really matured to appeal to a wider audience. Two years ago you would be hard-pressed to find an e-reader that allowed you to purchase books right on the device. Reading and loading books entailed complicated procedure to buy them with your PC and then transfer them to your device via Adobe Digital Editions. For the less tech savvy inclined this factor was very challenging for new users. Now most mainstream devices allow you to connect right up to the Sony, Google, Kobo, Amazon or Barnes and Noble digital store and have access to millions of books.
In the last year digital magazines have started to proliferate an an accelerated pace. Companies like Zinio has been a leading provider of high profile publications for a multitude of platforms such as Android and iOS. During 2011, Yahoo, Apple, Google, and Amazon have all entered the fray vying for your dollars. There is now more choice then ever before and most of these providers appeal to a wide range of people. Whether you have a Kindle Fire, iPad or Android smartphone it is easier then ever before to read Wired, the New Yorker or Vanity Fair on the go. Often prices for the digital editions are more cost effective then the printed variants and require not going out of your way to purchase and read them.
Comic books and graphic novels have finally reached the point where the same days the printed versions come out the digital version is released. This is very new and companies such as Marvel and DC were worried that retail stores would suffer because customers wanting to get 0 day editions would not come into the store anymore. After much research and due diligence they released the more people reading comics would result in more people visiting the stores to buy back issues or just to talk shop with the geeks running the joint. All of the major companies now offer dedicated apps to read and purchase content with the push of a button.
Tablet Computers have hit the point where every major company is releasing new models all year long and enjoying tremendous innovation on the hardware front. At the beginning of the year single core CPU processors were the norm and then many companies switched to the Tegra 2 and other multi-core processors. Now at the end of the year we see the advent of quad-core processors with Tegra 3 with the Asus Transformer Prime. During 2011 the technology underneath the hood of your device has really been refined which results in a better end user experience. You only have to draw parallels with he shift in standards with hardware with the Kobo Vox and Amazon Kindle Fire. It is really night and day differences with the performance side of things.
2011 resulted in peoples reading habits drastically change because of the technology maturing and coming down in price and the huge increase of content now available. It is simply cheaper and simpler to procure the electronic versions in the comfort of your own home then go out and buy it in the stores. e-Readers continue to lead the reading of books, while tablets give you the best newspaper, comic, graphic novel and magazine experience.
I know my reading habits have radically been altered in 2011. I used to visit my local used bookstore and Chapters every two weeks to buy the latest first edition hardcover books. My reading habits are all over the map with business, fantasy, sci-fi and socioeconomic. With digital comics really maturing I now exclusively buy my GI JOE and Marvel comics via my iPad and rarely go into my local store anymore. Mainly this is because I can lay in bed at night and check on the new releases of the day and pick and choose what appeals to me at the time. The other reason is my local comic shop moved from 2 blocks from my house to a bigger location 15 blocks away. While I use my Kindle for books and my iPad for everything else, magazine purchased in the tangible form I still purchase a copious amount. I honestly spend close to $90 every two weeks purchasing Stuff, Wired, PC Gamer, and many imports. It is really the magazines from Europe which I really dig that costs the most amount of money but hey, its great bathroom reading!
With the pace technology has changed in 2011, how has your reading habits changed?
Should Companies Pay for Product Placements in Books?
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Movies and television shows have had product placements in them since their inceptions. Companies pay big money for the lead character to drink a Coke or to place a FedEX truck all throughout the movie. With ebooks gaining more visibility in our culture and more authors trying to make a viable income from their sales, is it time for companies to pay for product placements in books?
I recently wrote an extensive piece on the merits of advertisements in eBooks and we received tremendous response on our article via emails and forum discussions. It seems we are not too far away from full fledged adverts in the books we read and have the price subsidized by product ads.
The big question facing us today is how visual media is inundated with brands being showcased. A recent documentary movie by Morgan Spurlock, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, evaluated product placement, marketing, and advertising in media. He garnered over 1.5 million dollars and financed the entire film with money from companies looking to place their brand in the film. The entire documentary walked you through the entire process of pitching the idea, going to meetings, legal concerns, and even hyping the film. He posed an interesting scenario that advertisements are visual in nature and not effective in books.
Books are a more visceral experience and many people internally visualize in their heads the plights of the character in the book and the overall theme and setting. Key product placements might in some cases distinguish an otherwise dull character. For instance, a main character might be addicted to Pepsi and will always be drinking it in key scenes and may mention it throughout the book. If you were to put a Pepsi in the hands of the character Jack Reacher from the Lee Child series of books, people would notice and maybe crave a soda.
Mainstream authors like Charlaine Harris, James Patterson and Lee Child have sold millions of books via Amazon and have a loyal following. Many authors do not receive a large percentage of their ebooks sold and publishing companies reap many of the financial gains. If authors were to come to terms with the companies to put their product placements within the book, they could make a ton of extra money. It is much akin to highly paid sports stars making more money with being a spokesman or to represent a brand. Why aren’t novels given the same treatment?
A James Patterson to invest in is fairly appealing, considering he pumps out more books then Stephen King in an average year. Many companies would be falling all over themselves if given the opportunity to have each novel reaching millions of customers. It seems there are no companies out there that facilitates product placement in books, which would be a solid business venture.
Product placements in books not only help the well known and substantiated authors, but also can help rising ones. There are many authors who are just starting out and can market themselves correctly enough to warrant the attention of companies looking to invest. Most authors we speak to in our eBook of the Week series often have a day job and like to write on the side. How glorious would it be to finance your writing career with the proceeds of a few companies wanting their product in a book. You main character is an airline stewardess? Why not have them a JetBlue employee? Your character is a drunk? Make them always drink Bud Light. Authors can look at it not as selling out, but buying in.
On the flip side of the coin, people may not respond well if this trend becomes prevent in every book that they read. One of the biggest arguments is that adverts run rampant in our society and you cannot avoid advertising in any aspect of your life. In San Paulo Brazil, the entire city mandated that public advertisements be taken down. “We all thought it was the end of the world,” said Marcio Oliveira, vice-president of operations at Lew’Lara. Three years after the new law came in, it is extremely difficult to find outdoor advertising in the city; no billboards, no ads on buses or taxis, or in shop windows. But equally remarkable is how quickly big advertisers and the industry itself have adapted and, in fact, thrived.
The city feels cleaner and the law forced creative innovations into other, newer advertising methods that have often been more effective. “In the first instance, everybody, including the advertisers, loved this – to see their city without this visual pollution we had in the past,” said Oliveira.
If done properly and in moderation, advertisements in books do have their place and could allow part-time writers to become full-time writers. Mainstream authors could gain tremendous extra income by making lucrative deals. Do you think we should see more product placements in eBooks? Do you think the drawbacks outweigh the benefits?
Advertisements in eBooks – Is It a Good Idea?
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Many publishing companies are toying with the idea of building advertisements contained within books. The idea is that books can be sold at tremendously reduced costs or given away for free with the intention of making long term gains by making money on ad-clicks or people purchasing products. Would customers accept this?
Amazon obtained a patent back in 2009 that describes the steps they would take in order to put adverts within books and another for printed content. In the details the company said “Including advertising and/or related content with on-demand printed content may prove advantageous to a consumer. For example, a lower price may be offered to a consumer regarding a request for on-demand printed content if the consumer is willing to accept advertising in the printed content.” The company has not used this technology yet within ebooks, but has proved that subsidizing the price of hardware with adverts being displayed is quite tantalizing.
There is no dispute that with the growth of e-readers and ebooks that rampant piracy is growing. You only have to look at some of the largest sites on the internet to see the tremendous growth. Websites such as Demonoid and the Pirate Bay have combined over 700,000 + books in their database , which is growing exponentially as hardware prices come down and the public is more aware of e-readers and tablets. I could see ebooks with embedded advertisements allowing authors and publishing entities to make money from their book being circulated on those websites.
The big advantage with advertisements being displayed within ebooks is the cost to the end user. It would encourage people to pirate less because they could get the official version for free and give the companies important data on downloads and customer demographics. Most users want to do the right thing and get the book via legitimate channels. A fair chunk of users would continue to purchase the ad-free books but the option to give it away with the ads embedded in the book might be a solid option.
The newspaper and magazine industry was built on the pillars of advertising. This is in many cases a large chunk of their financial strength comes from companies paying for ad placement in their publication. This is why, in many instances, magazine subscriptions and single issues cost less then their ebook counterparts.
Would customers accept advertising in the books they read on their e-reader, smartphone, or tablet? I would say there is a ton of money in this idea and no companies we have heard of are pioneering this. With the emergence of EPUB 3, Kindle Format 8, and HTML5, the core technology to provide rich media is going to be evident very shortly. I could see static, dynamic, and video adverts being very appealing to many companies, especially in bestselling authors who are assured to sell hundreds of thousands of copies.
E-Ink Holdings the company responsible for the most popular screens found in e-readers today have posted strong September gains. During that month the company saw 126 million dollars in sales, which is up 143% from the same period last year.
There is no dispute that e-readers sales continue to rise because of the large quantity of new devices utilizing the technology. More players have entered the market in 2011 and companies such as Amazon, Sony and Barnes and Noble have all released new devices this year.
Releasing new devices and making more of them to meet the needs of a ravenous public addicted to technology is strongly increasing e-Inks bottom line. During the period from January to September the company saw close to 928 million dollars in revenue. This is more then the entire company made during the entire year of 2010.
Scott Liu, the chairman of E Ink, commented, “This year our customers have launched a number of affordable, light-weight e-readers with exciting new feature sets. I anticipate that the e-reader will become a best-selling holiday gift this year.”
In the North American market dedicated e-reader sales continue to do well. Companies are offering more affordable devices and the public is becoming more aware of the tremendous benefits. Advertising campaigns are mostly the driving force informing the public to the very nature of the low-power devices that have a myriad of benefits. Low cost, saving trees and cheaper books continue to be the driving factors of the popularity of them.
In 2010 we did not see many readers in retail locations and mostly were relegated to a online business. Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Sony were three companies with retail clout and high visibility to potential customers. It has really only been since 2011 do we see e-readers sold everywhere. Walmart, Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Staples, Office Depot, Radio Shack and Futureshop have ALL got into the e-reader game and you can find every popular device being sold. This is increasing the amount of units sold and manufactured which is a boon to e-ink Holdings.
I surmise 2011 will be the biggest year ever in the e-Reader industry as a whole, and more particularly to the tech companies responsible for providing the parts and screens. Freescale and e-Ink are two companies seeing unrepresented profit, but the real question is can it be maintained?
2010 was the year e-readers matured from being a fringe device to something people were aware of. In 2011 was the huge success commercially and drastically reduced the prices. They are really as low as they can get, with entry level Kindles costing $79 and companies trying to follow suit. Can this trend be maintained throughout 2012, or have we hit our peak?
There is a convergence in the air with smartphones and tablets blurring the line of a one in one, multimedia device. You can’t really go a day without new phones and tablets being released. Phones are getting bigger while tablets continue to decrease in size. There is no dispute that the tablet sector is making a pile of money right now but what bearing does it have on e-readers? Phones and Tablets are a merriment of the same technology and e-readers full in an entirely different segment.
Many younger people are growing up with full color touchscreen devices from a very early age. We hear from parents all the time that their three year old is playing with their iPad. Who will grow up from these high level color interactive devices and go with an e-reader? I would say it would be the same amount of young adults these days that use the computer all day long and never read a book.
Tablet sales in a whole are doing billions of dollars each year and e-readers continue to sell well, but is there a glass ceiling? Tablets have more of an innate ability to provide stronger processing and visual power then e-readers are able to provide. The Tablet PC space is accelerating rapidly and dual cores and more then 1 GIG of RAM is commonplace now. In 2012 will we see the new Nvidia Kal El Tegra 3 Quad Core Processor in many tablets AND smartphones. This will be a huge increase in performance on a hardware level and provide content developers with a higher range of options to deliver better experiences. This means PC quality gaming and full application suites such as Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Not to mention all of the different app companies drooling over the prospect of developing better quality content.
Tablets have really matured in 2010 and 2011. e-Readers, not so much. We basically have the same amount of RAM, Pixel Resolution, screen refresh rate and even the processors. The technology found in almost 90% of all e-readers is basically stagnant. Of course Freescale constantly releases new processors and e-Ink Pearl is found in more readers, but there is no quantum leap in the core hardware.
I think in 2012 unless color e-ink Triton is available in more devices the technology cannot effectively move forward and still remain low cost. Bookeen is doing very interesting things with displaying high frame rate video and a next gen web browsing. There is room to move in the e-reader sphere and if they can adapt color, audio, video and a better internet experience. If the technology basically remains the same and we see only the same small increases in hardware, it might not be enough to continue to the strong sales figures. After all, we have have done many polls lately on what devices people read the most on, tablets led by a wide margin.
2012 will be a very interesting year and e-Ink Holdings projects that they will have enough record year. The company is doing well, but how will the industry as a whole mature? Will tablets continue to chip away at the market share and will more people gravitate towards the Kindle Fire, Nook Color 2 and Kobo Vox? I guess, we’ll see.
Can the Kobo Vox Succeed in a Market Saturated with Tablets?
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The Kobo Vox is the first tablet offering from Canadian based Kobo. They recently won FCC certification for their new device and the full specs have been prematurely leaked by Futureshop. Kobo is well known for their line of e-readers, but how will their tablet stack up against the competition?
The Kobo Vox will feature a 7 inch display and run the Android operating system. The resolution is fairly solid with 1024 x 600 pixels, which will give a vibrant experience. The tablet comes integrated with 512 MB RAM, 8 GB of internal memory, and 802.11b/g/n WiFi but no 3G. There also is a microSD card slot in case you need more storage power, while the built-in speaker will let you have a richer multimedia experience (as much as a single speaker is able to). There is a USB port and a headphone jack as well, though no microphone slot.
The price mentioned was $250 CAD which translates to $242 and would be hitting streets on the 17th of October, at least within Canadian shores. The tablet weighs a quite convenient 400 gms while battery life mentioned is about 6 hours. Needless to say, the latter aspect could have been better. File formats mentioned that the tablet will be compliant with include Adobe DRM, EPUB, and PDF.
The Kobo Vox is really nothing too special in terms of straight up hardware and puts it on a even playing field with the Kindle Fire or the Nook Color. The huge difference is the ecosystems.
Kobo has its work cut out for itself in the USA market where the tablet arena is firmly saturated and you don’t have to go far to buy an e-reader or tablet. 2011 has seen the retail sphere explode with every major store carrying a wide array of offerings. Best Buy, Walmart, Radio Shack, and Target all have a huge selection of e-readers.
Kobo had an agreement with Borders to exclusively sell its devices in their retail locations. Since the collapse of the company Kobo has really been without a home in the retail sphere. They really need to iron out a new agreement when their contract officially expires in 2012 in order to secure more stores to peddle their wares.
The Canadian e-reader company and bookstore normally does fairly well outside of the USA market where it is less competitive. Kobo has a strong retail presence in Canada where they are sold at Futureshop, Best Buy, Chapters/Indigo and many other locations. This was a good call because the selection of e-readers in Canada is very lackluster and normally each store may have Pandigital, Aluratek, and Kobo e-readers in stock.
Internationally, Kobo has been doing a good job at getting their brand out there. They secured deals with Swindon books in Hong Hong, Nigel R Khan in Trinidad in the last few months, and have expanded into Europe. Recently they launched ebook stores in Germany and in the last few days France via FNAC and will be selling their e-readers in a retail setting.
Kobo does a great job at the international accessibility of their e-readers and ebookstore. Its main competition, Barnes and Noble, only targets the USA where it is the number 2 ranked device in the e-reader product category. They see much success with the Nook Simple Touch and Nook Color but you can only purchase them in the USA and ditto with ebooks. Amazon has a bit better presence outside of the USA but they suffer from a limited selection in Canada and Europe, due to publisher restrictions. They have also done a good job at expanding their ebook store into Germany, France, and the UK this year. The Amazon Kindle Fire is going to be the largest competition the Vox faces for the next few months, although you can only pre-order the device if you live in the USA. There is zero international availability for the first tablet offering from Amazon. The Vox therefore has the advantage over both of these companies because of how easily it is available.
I foresee the Kobo Vox selling well because of their retail and distribution channels in many international markets. Many of their immediate rivals have failed to penetrate properly. Their entire book catalog is normally maintained and you are not limited to books purchased like their competition. They have a huge selection of books in English in all of their international stores with 2.3 million. Their new stores in France and Germany also offer almost 100,000 books in French and German.
The greatest strength Kobo has, in my opinion, is their social media approach to reading. Many companies offer Facebook and Twitter integration that allow you to share passages and update your status with the books you are reading. Kobo really takes it in another direction with their Reading Life and Kobo Pulse projects. Reading Life allows you to collect awards and achievements for reading and sharing them with your friends. Pulse is a very new product announced last month and gives you the ability to chat with other people reading the same book in real time via Facebook. They are leading the charge with their social media approach and many other companies could take a lesson from them.
Finally, Kobo has a ton of apps on many different platforms. Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and others allow you to buy and read books on the go. This ensures you do not really need an e-reader to read books under their ecosystem.
Kobo is a distinctive company and plays the roll of the underdog in the e-reader arena. Their main advantage is their ecosystem and wide range of devices. Many of their competitors like Pandigital and Aluratek only sell the hardware. They do not sell ebooks or give you a personalized experience. They rely on pre-installing various Android or other book stores to give you the ability to buy books.
In order for the Kobo Vox to sell well they have to focus on the international approach. It is really impossible to compete against Apple, Amazon, and B&N in terms of hardware and ecosystem in the USA. Their products have too much durability online and in the retail setting. Normally the success in the USA makes or breaks a company, but Kobo does well at marketing their products everywhere else.
Stay tuned to Good e-Reader in the coming weeks when we get our hands on the Kobo Vox and do our standard written reviews and video reviews! We will also provide tutorials on library borrowing, ebook loading, and advanced features. If you want to ensure you get this in time for the holidays, you can reserve yours today on http://www.shopereaders.com
The Real Battle with the Kindle Fire Is with the Nook Color
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At the most recent e-Reader Conference 2011 in San Francisco there was one prevailing sentiment among all others. Major news media outlets are trying to drum up a Kindle Fire VS. Apple iPad debate, which is not really important. The big news that everyone in the industry is talking about is how the Kindle Fire will affect the Barnes and Noble Nook Color.
Doug Klein, the VP of Product development in the Nook division, sees the Kindle Fire as the primarily competitor to the Nook Color and could cut into its profit margins.
Barnes and Noble saw 1.2 billion dollars this year so far in Nook Sales and is considered an unheralded success for the retail chain. Part of the reason why it does so well is thanks to the female demographic. Doug speculated that 70% of all Nook Color users are females and they use the device to access books, magazines, and other content such as NookKids. The Nook Color is priced at $249 and is within the price reach of most customers looking for a device that not only can read books but can access most media in full color.
Doug Klein mentioned that the Nook e-readers are the most successful Android products of all time and the scope of sales speaks for itself. The Nook Color Android experience is locked into a custom GUI and UI and is not like most stock tablets that rely on the Google App store or other markets to pump content into the device. The company recently opened its own App Store earlier in the year that allows customers to download apps and games certified by B&N. The Nook e-Readers also use Android as the main OS, while most others on the market use Linux.
So the strengths of the Nook Color entail Magazines, eBooks, Apps, NookStudy, NookKids, and a deep content distribution system. The biggest con is that the device and all of the content is primarily USA only. You must have a registered billing and shipping address in the United States and the company does not ship the device overseas. The only way to get it is via 3rd party companies such as our own sponsor Shop e-Readers.
The Kindle Fire is also a full color tablet and is priced well below the cost of the Nook Color at $199. It also uses a custom GUI that makes the tablet much like the Nook Color in the respects that it is locked down to be a media/book reading device and not a run of the mill android experience.
The new Kindle Fire tablet coming out in November is poised to be one of the most successful tablets of all time. It is priced very aggressively at $199 and may get more sales because it is within the price range of the average person. It is designed in the same way as the Nook Color, in the respect that it is a locked Android experience and promotes exclusively Amazon products and services. Amazon has said that it is not going to lock the bootloader and will allow customers to load in their own applications. This means if you want a more traditional Android experience you won’t have to wait very long until someone roots the device.
The Kindle Fire may not have the deep magazine experience the Nook Color has right now, but Amazon has made inroads in securing the top publishing companies to offer subscriptions and single issues. This puts the Fire in direct competition because it intends on offering magazines at more affordable costs.
The big draw on the new Kindle Fire is the ebook, audiobook, and the cloud based solutions. Amazon has one of the best ebook stores in the world and has everything from classic books to modern day best sellers. It is also a nexus in terms of authors self-publishing, so you can easily discover new up and coming authors. Amazon does business with Audiobooks with audible.com and beats out the Nook Color for people who love having books read to them as they are driving, walking the dog, or doing whatever else. Some people just have a preference to have books read to them rather than just reading text on a page for a number of reasons.
The new Kindle Fire Silk web browser is also designed very well and will automatically cache the most visited websites so they instant load. This is very cool and considering the Fire is WIFI only and lacks 3G or 4G, it could provide a boon for offline reading.
One of the main benefits that will ensure Amazon sees a massive amount of sales is because of the international availability of its content. The company markets its entire content library to Canada, USA, Europe, Australia, and many more. This allows people to buy books, magazines, and soon download apps internationally.
Amazon also has plans for even more content as the Fire launches. They are approaching various publishers on a Netflix style ebook subscription service. They are getting resistance on that front because Penguin told us in an exclusive email interview that it “devalues their books sold on other platforms.”
So the Amazon Fire will offer magazines, books, audio books, apps, textbook rentals, video on demand, Amazon Prime, and a slew of other services. The company really does offer a greater media experience with its device than the Nook Color does.
Doug Klein mentioned that he is not worried about the Kindle Fire eating into his companies market share of being the second highest grossing e-reader line in the USA. He sees the Kindle Fire has a multimedia device and the Nook Color as a pure reading experience. The big reason why the Nook Color should continue to sell well is because “Barnes and Noble Stores are discovery engines, they allow customers to discover new books, magazines, and gadgets.”
The primary battle for LCD Reading devices this holiday season will definitely be the Kindle Fire vs the Barnes and Noble Nook Color. For the first time B&N will have serious competition on all fronts from its biggest rival. Amazon controls over 70% of the entire e-reader market in the USA and could make strong gains with the release of the Fire tablet in November.
The Battle of e-Readers in the Russian School System
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There is a battle brewing in the e-ink technology sphere and it is not in the American market, where over 75% of global e-reader sales take place. Instead, the newest version of reading is happening in the Russian Educational system.
During our discussions with executives at e-Ink and Plastic Logic over the weekend at the first E-Readers Conference in San Francisco, we talked in detail on the war being waged. Away from prying eyes two major companies are vying for market position and trying to land lucrative contracts in Russia.
The Russian educational system is providing an old west style free for all, that is encouraging many tech companies to vie with important contracts. Recently a top level decision was made to digitize the Russian educational school system. This has promoted companies to vie for contracts to be one of the technologies used in thousands of schools. This obviously means it’s a very important race to be the one to garner over a hundred million in sales.
Right now in Russia many pilot programs are being launched with competing devices to find the right solution. Different tablets and e-readers who have firmware geared towards schools are jockeying for position.
The two most important companies who have the best chance in being selected have a tremendous amount of experience and a solid management team to make it happen. Both Plastic Logic and Ectaco are considered the front runners so far.
After 4 years of trials and tribulations, Plastic Logic cranked out their first official device that is aimed at the Russian educational school system. Plastic Logic CEO Indro Mukerjee officially debuted the electronic textbook at an event held at the Moscow Planetarium during a visit by British Trade Minister Lord Green. The event, organized by RUSNANO and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), highlighted Plastic Logic as an example of the joint technology cooperation between the UK and Russia.
Plastic Logic had a major investment partner earlier on in the year from a Russian company looking to make a play at the educational market. Currently Plastic Logic has a Research and Development business in California, an office in Cambridge, a manufacturing plant in Dresdon Germany and an upcoming major factory in Russia. It is the plant in Russia that warranted the investment to create jobs, but more importantly to play an important role in why Plastic Logic should be selected. After all, it is an compelling case during negotiations that the device is made in Russia, for Russia.
The new Plastic Logic 100 is the new device they are testing right now and feels very polished. It uses a new technology that is neither LCD or eInk, it uses patented PlasticPaper. Because the base is not glass, the Plastic Logic 100 display is large, thin, lightweight and is uniquely shatterproof and rugged, which is especially important given constant use by students.
The new device sports a 10.7 inch shatter proof screen that reads like paper. The resolution is 1280×960 and has 150 PPI! It has a capacitive IR touchscreen interface that makes interacting with it easier then most touchscreen e-ink devices. This is the same tech found in the new Kobo Touch Reader. It has a 800 MHZ processor and 4 GB of internal storage. Battery life will last about a week of constant use, which is fairly solid.
The operating system and firmware is designed to be a students guide. It has all of the features of note taking, highlights, book reading and study guides to assist in this. The firmware is obviously evolving due to the constant feedback from the trial programs and is being polished.
Ectaco has been making e-readers for a number of years normally aimed at the end user. Due to the competition in the retail sphere the company is changing their business model to be more education based. This has prompted the company to launch their own Jetbook K12 e-reader that is aimed specifically at the education market. It is meant to be used by students from Grade 1 to 12 and has a myriad of options to make it student friendly. It has many books and firmware to maximize the effectiveness of a device made for schools. They have also purchased the rights to the Hanvon Color e-ink reader to distribute it in Russia. This is the new breed of e-ink Triton which mimics paper and gives thousands of colors and offers high resolution for books and images.
Ectaco is making a play with a color and non-color device aimed at various levels of the educational system. The K12 is for highschool and middle school while the Jetbook Color is aimed at higher learning environments.
I have had the pleasure of having hands on time with both of these devices and Ectaco has a more refined operating system and firmware enhancements directed at students. In retrospect, I see Plastic Logic as having better quality technology and their devices feel more polished and hightech.
What about the international market such as the USA, Canada, and the UK? Where do they fall into the plans to get their hands on Color e-ink technology? Both Plastic Logic and Ectaco stress that Russia is the critical market and will determine whether they have enough resources to penetrate markets that have more money to spend but are harder to break into.
Daren Benzi, an Executive Director at Plastic Logic, mentioned that the reason why they are focusing on Russia and not other markets is because of the “Top Down” approach. Russia on the highest level of government mandated that they want to digitize the school system with tablets or e-readers to conserve on money in the longer term. This means there is lots of money, set in stone, to be allocated to the companies who win the bids. When you look at the American educational market it is not “top down.” You have specific schools wanting to make the change, and maybe specific districts, but never entire states or the country wanting to update.
A few months ago, Mercy Pilkington interviewed Governor Rick Scott of Florida about his proposition to implement e-readers and tablets in all of the classsrooms in Florida. “The decision on what devices to use will be left to school districts, with advice and technical assistance from the Florida Department of Education,” says Press Secretary Lane Wright. “The law allows districts to decide how they’re going to use the money required for digital learning materials, starting in 2015-2016. Districts will decide on which subjects and grade levels. Initially, school districts will only be required to begin buying digital instructional materials using 50% of the funds allocated by the state for instructional materials in the 2015-2016 fiscal year.”
Although specific states in the USA might be making moves to gravitate towards a digital experience, it is not a sure bet. If Rick Scott does not make it into another term in office, this bill can be shot dead. Until digital readers are decided upon, on a Federal level, most companies will focus on markets that already have these things decided from the higher reaches of government.
If Color e-ink by way of Ectaco and new tech from Plastic Logic are not in the cards anytime soon, where does that leave the market that wants color in their e-reading experience? When we met with executives from Liquavista and Mirasol over the last few days, they told me that we will see devices by the end of the year using their technology. Although both use different types of technology that is not e-ink, remember e-ink Holdings is a company offering screen technology found in the Kindle, Kobo, and Sony e-readers of the world. It is popular, of course, but there are other avenues available that been in development for quite some time and could eat away at e-Ink’s market share if marketed correctly.
Samsung recently acquired Liquavista earlier this year and this is why we have not seen their new Electrowetting technology in any products to date. I was told that “anytime you are acquired there is a always a long delay in manufacturing and management changes.” Obviously Samsung has perhaps one of the strongest companies in the world in terms of “the total package.” They make their own screens and components, and sell their items under their own banner. We could prospectively see some mighty new products from Liquavista that give us better resolution than e-ink and draw even less power, giving us longer battery life.
Mirasol based technology is another alternative that is coming soon and is developed in conjunction with Qualcomm. You might have heard a while back that Mirasol and Freescale had teamed up for an e-reader which was all over the news. When we spoke with Cheryl Goodman, who is in charge of Publisher Relations at Mirasol, she said that the e-reader was just proof of a concept to test the new chipset in their designs. It was never meant to be marketed.
The specialty of the Mirasol display technology is that the display does not depend on backlight, but instead uses the ambient lighting for it to show text on screen. In this respect, the Mirasol display can be considered similar to e-ink screens, though that’s where the similarity ends. While e-ink screens have the advantage of low power requirements, they suffer from the disadvantage of being unable to render color displays or support moving pictures. This is not so with the Mirasol screens, which can handle both.
The e-Reader space is too competitive for Plastic Logic and Ectaco to make a play for the Western European and North American Markets. So many companies have tried and failed to make an impress on a fickle market that is obsessed with Nooks, Kindles, and iPads. Many people wonder why color e-ink or color displays on e-readers are not a reality here at home. Hopefully this article has shared some insight on why the two companies are not ready to bring it over here yet on a commercial level.
Has Amazon’s Public Notes Gone Too Public?
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Earlier this year, Amazon.com launched its own social interactive reading platform, Public Notes. As the name readily implies, users can choose to follow other Public Notes users and see their highlighted passages and notes in the virtual margins for any book that users choose to make, well, public. The entire premise of social reading was conceived as a great worldwide web book club in which users who follow each other can comment on specific passages in the books they read and people can easily search for other users with similar literary tastes.
But as with all things social media, more connectivity was decided to equal more users relying on Public Notes for their social reading experience, a bigger-is-better approach. Once users linked their Twitter or Facebook accounts to their Public Notes accounts, their entire following or friend lists automatically became connected to their Public Notes friends. That wouldn’t really seem like a bad thing, to most users. However, the connectivity move was apparently made without prior information to those users who were currently signed up with Public Notes. Moreover, there is no automatic setting to enable users to not see someone’s notes.
Essentially, if two users are connected on Facebook, they are now connected on Public Notes unless they take steps to prevent it, without regard to their tastes in literature or their ability to string eight words together to make a coherent sentence, let alone to critique a book.
Admittedly, before Amazon forced the link between Facebook, Twitter, and Public Notes, it was difficult to weed through the plethora of Public Notes users to find likeminded readers with whom to connect. At the same time, how many different social networking sites can companies reasonably expect users to keep updating with the same names that have been in their Facebook friends’ lists for quite some time? Rather than cause readers to establish yet another social media fan base, Public Notes incorporated its users other accounts, like it or not. Apparently this was a little too Big Brother-ish for Barnes & Noble, who went to great lengths to stress to its customers that Nook Friends will not shanghai anyone’s friend list or followers.
The real issue of concern here may be privacy. On the surface, the gut reaction to this news might be, “Big deal, so the entire internet found out you read a book.” However, it would seem logical that there are books out there that readers don’t necessarily want their entire connected universe knowing they bought, read, and commented on, such as titles outside the mainstream in politics, religion, or sexuality, just to suggest a few. At this time Public Notes users have the option of not sharing their connections in their Twitter and Facebook accounts with Amazon, but users will need to correct the default setting of public sharing in order to keep their personal libraries hidden from the view of their contacts lists.
Should e-Readers Embrace Social Media More?
Posted by: Michael Kozlowski | Comments (3)Many e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle and Kobo Touch have embraced social media, but in very different ways. Amazon allows you to share via Twitter and Facebook quotes and passages from the books you are reading. Kobo has developed “Reading Life,” which takes this premise a step further and earns you awards and achievements. Kobo even allows you to access Reading Life with no software on the Kob Vox and Apple iPad gives you the freedom to talk with other people in real time who are reading the same book as you are. Are these companies doing enough with various social media platforms or is this a feature that takes away from the book experience?
Social Media is growing. A recent survey conducted yesterday on Facebook Burnout states that even though the social network is many years old, people are clearly not jaded or banal about it just yet. Facebook is in the news a ton lately due to its recent IPO filing and the company imminently going public, making many people rich. Twitter is the other mega-network that helps foster the revolutions of the Arab Spring and lets you find out what your friends ate for lunch.
Clearly, social media has come a long way since the early days of Friendster and Myspace. These networks are embedded into the fabric of our society and at the very least people can keep track of their old high-school friends. The question is how these networks enhance the reading experience or take away from it.
Reading is often an anti-social endeavor and whether you read for a few hours or an entire day it can be quite cathartic. People love to get into a book and live the life of someone else, battle dragons, or find out how Apple was created. Reading gets you away from your normal life and even for a brief moment you forget about emails, text messages, work, or the kids. Do people really want the distraction of popup messages or social media elements taking them out of reverie?
Many people who have emailed us or commented on our blog during the last few years have mixed reactions about social networks employed by Amazon and Kobo in their book experience. Some think its a great idea to chat with friends about quotes they are reading or form their own virtual book-clubs. Others find it a nuisance and a distraction from the process of reading. The companies offering the service do give you options whether you even want to use those features and are not embedded into the book experience, yet.
Clearly social media elements are severely lacking in the whole e-reader and ebook experience. I can send Tweets of a paragraph or make a Facebook status update of a book I am reading? How 2009. Kobo is about the only company that actually does something unique with the whole social experience while your reading a book. They stared with Reading Life, which was basically updating your status with text from a book. They expanded on this and offered merit badges and progress achievements on books you read and allowed you to share with it friends. Recently with their VOX Tablet they unleashed “Pulse” which allows you to read comments other users made about the book. It even gives you “spoiler” options so you will not read any comments made by users who have progressed further in the book as you. People use it to post reviews, ratings, or even just to chat. A few weeks ago they updated their “Timeline” feature into Facebook which was a culmination of their partnership with Facebook they announced at the D8 conference last year.
I think companies aren’t using social media right and are not offering anything very innovative or indicative of how it should work in the book experience. For one, this is no great virtual bookclub feature that allows me to talk with other users about the book I just read or are in the process of reading. Kobo Pulse strives to do this but falls short in the execution. I would love to see each book published in ebook form to have an automatic Facebook Group page started that is developed to be a virtual bookclub for that specific book. People who are reading the book have options to talk about it as they are reading it and say “I loved it when the character said this” and see an immediate response like “OMG ME TOO.” Blending a Facebook Page with a live chat option would really develop a sense of community. Personally I love the idea of a bookclub that meets once a week for coffee and discusses books they read, but seriously, they are so hard to find. I want to talk with other tech savvy people with e-readers that are reading the ebook version. When I am not reading at work, I want to login to the Facebook eBook Page and talk to the new friends I made or just relive past chapters.
There are clearly other major options, and standalone Twitter API and Facebook APP coding knowledge will reap you huge rewards. The sky is the limit based on the limitations of the platform to develop innovative ways for an e-Reading program to let you socialize more. Humans are naturally social beings and adding an expanded twist on the reading process might encourage more people to actually read. If a company were to use social media correctly, they would have a major selling point for their product or service. Customers who were looking for a more social book experience would gravitate to that company and everyone would make money.
In the end, social media in electronic books is severely lacking. Most companies are not exploring the myriad of ways that you can improve the experience of talking to other like minded people. What paltry features we have now really just spams other peoples walls and most of your friends don’t have the same taste in books as you do. Having more embedded social functions in an e-reading indie app or mainstream company taking to the next level will only help the industry grow and spurn more companies to offering competing or better options.