Are eBooks Moving to the Clouds (and Will Google Dominate)?

[Mikewolf]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Mike;

I don't know if you're a paid shill or not. Frankly, I don't care when you're a new account promoting a blog and making precisely the same tired corporatist arguments about needing to remove user rights.

Cloud computing is inefficient for many uses. Processing speed advances faster than bandwidth prices fall - only for tasks involving a considerable degree of computing power (such as rendering farms) does it make sense now to offload tasks to a "cloud" at the end of a long internet connection, and the business case for it will never be better than todays!

There is a case for a local distributed mesh network, but that is NOT the cloud as currently envisioned.

Storing "content" in the cloud is an entirely different use case and no more and no less than taking content out of consumer hands and adding additional restrictions on its usage, without an appropriate price drop. Most consumers are not going to agree to that. All you're doing is, indirectly, chearleading the darknet.

HTML5 is a red herring, HTML5/CSS3 is all about empowering web designers at the expense of everyone else. To quote reddit's CSS3 dev:

"Perhaps the biggest annoyance with CSS3 is the need to define multiple properties multiple times. Each rendering engine seems to have its own prefix for most everything, so you have to do a lot of copy and paste coding."

That's your future, right there.

No, not a paid shill. And I still would like a link to your well-designed, well written blog, as you seem to be quoting from a position of authority there.

Your argument against cloud is basically counter to what most people who understanding computing efficiency and networking would say.

Anyone whose hosted a trafficked site on a single server without scalable compute knows hosting on a virtualized compute system is way more preferable. Sure, broadband is always the "soda straw" in the equation, but not sure how the move to cloud-computing away from single-server or local resident content is more efficient.

HTML5 isn't a red herring if you want persistent connections to your content offline. Its also a move away from proprietary plugins (like Flash), which most would consider a good thing.

I'm not really a conspiracy theorist and conversant in darknet theories. Apparently this is part of your worldview, which is fine. But large-scale enterprise and web services aren't moving to cloud computing infrastructure to take away rights as their primary goal. They just aren't.

[DawnFalcon]

Shocker - I don't feel a need to have a badly designed blog for every one of my online identities! Heck, I actually use a CMS (Drupal) rather than a blog for the site - linked to my real name, which I chose not to link to this one - because it's far more suitable.

HTML5/CSS3 (they're not really separable) is *totally* a red herring, especially when XP users won't be able to use IE9 - come back in three years, and it might be worth discussing starting the feasibility studies, if you're smaller than Google.

And of course "web and enterprise" isn't. "Web services" were doing a "cloud" long before that buzzword came around, and for certain forms of enterprise service, such as the aforementioned render farms, it does make sense to offload the processing load. For now - again, processing speeds go up quicker than bandwidth falls in price, so the viability of those services is only going to fall.

The content providers, though, are going to consider it a major benefit given their track record of preferring minimal user rights, as demonstrated by their current efforts to change the law around the world in their favour.

It's their track record. Argue with them, not me.


"Anyone whose hosted a trafficked site on a single server without scalable compute knows hosting on a virtualized compute system is way more preferable"

A complete sideline of nonsense. Firstly, I don't think "trafficked" means what you think it does, I'm not selling roads here. Secondly, virtual machines were arround well before cloud computing, and there is a distinct difference between being able to fire up additional instances of a web server at a remote facility and "cloud computing" as is being used as a buzzword.

But frankly, in the vast majority of cases it makes more sense to throttle connections for temporary spikes than to pay for virtual instances, when 100% uptime is not a priority - as it isn't for many sites. You are pushing a highly monolithic, corporatist view of the future, and this is as they say not coincidence.

(I also note you only denied being a PAID shill. Sigh)

[Mikewolf]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Shocker - I don't feel a need to have a badly designed blog for every one of my online identities! Heck, I actually use a CMS (Drupal) rather than a blog for the site - linked to my real name, which I chose not to link to this one - because it's far more suitable.



(I also note you only denied being a PAID shill. Sigh)

Shocker - you don't have a well-designed blog/site nor a well-written one.

Listen, I'm done with this flame war.Not a last-word freak, so you can have it. But before you start insulting folks - just show you speak from position of authority. Link to your site within your comment thread so we can marvel at your design and writing skills in the future.

[DawnFalcon]

Take your pure big-media corporatist arguments, turn right, and march - the pier's that way. It only hurts you because it's accurate and true, and your inability to respect the fact that people don't necessarily want to link their online identities with their real one only comments on your personal ethics as well (Seems to be a rule with big media flunkies, really).

Your blog's been reported as spam. Thanks for trying but repeating the precise same arguments, down to the precise wording, as known RIAA shills wasn't smart. As sock puppets go, you're not even a good one.

[Mikewolf]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Take your pure big-media corporatist arguments, turn right, and march - the pier's that way. It only hurts you because it's accurate and true, and your inability to respect the fact that people don't necessarily want to link their online identities with their real one only comments on your personal ethics as well (Seems to be a rule with big media flunkies, really).

Your blog's been reported as spam. Thanks for trying but repeating the precise same arguments, down to the precise wording, as known RIAA shills wasn't smart. As sock puppets go, you're not even a good one.

Reported as spam by someone who is a conspiracy theorist and disagrees with me? If that's how this forum works - you disagree with someone and then report them as spam - then I'm out.

Listen, I understand you have a worldview, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to be bucketed under your categories. It's not spam. Your site, for all we know might be, if you let us know in this thread what it is (but you won't).

Also - once again, before making baseless accusations - cross reference where you think I'm quoting the arguments of the RIAA to my paragraphs. I don't think you will, as you've not shown any willingness to back up your arguments with actual research/linking.

[DawnFalcon]

Wait, you reported me for spam? You're the one pushing the conspiracy theory that users want to give up their rights and that it makes sense to push everything out to a "cloud" at the end of a very long line, when local processing increases far faster than bandwidth costs fall.

And of course you don't understand the worldview of consumer rights, and you are once more showing your lack of ethics - as per your corporatist masters - by trying to get someone to cough up a RL identity they don't want to share.

As I said, you're not even a GOOD sock puppet, most of them actually put some work into their blog before they start linking them to forums and trying to set their masters agenda out.

The cloud only makes sense, again, for a very limited range of processor-intensive remote applications. Storing data remotely in the normal way always beats the "cloud" approach of DRM-controlled availability. And you haven't addressed the local mesh, since that doesn't meet your masters control goals.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Mikewolf

I tend to think Amazon, Apple and others will eventually adjust, and Amazon in particular will not hesitate to make the Kindle app and store a "service" that can be consumed in the clouds.

What do you think?

I think the whole broadband/cloud/G3 ebook system is a niche market approach to a universal marketplace. The category "people who want books, and will consider digital versions of them" is a much, much bigger customer base than "people who want books, will consider digital versions, and will be content to read those versions at a desktop or on a device currently connected to the internet."

Allowing cached versions in personal computers is fairly irrelevant; the market for ebooks didn't take off until we had devices that let those books be read while lying in bed or sitting on a bus. If they don't transfer to mobile, offline devices, it's a limited-appeal techno-geek market. (Or a niche entertainment market. Yes, a lot of businesspeople have cellphones. It's fairly well established that very few of them are going to be reading substantial numbers of books on those phones.)

To tap into the reading marketplace--rather than the gadget-loving marketplace, or the computer geek marketplace, publishers & distributors need to first figure out how people use books. And a lot of ebook strategies have centered around "how do customers use computers, and how can we add ebooks to their use thereof?"

When it first shows up, it'll be greeted with enthusiasm. It's only when alternate bookstores and new devices become popular that the question will arise, "how can I read my google books on my [X] device?"

Of course, it'll show up immediately for current owners of ebook devices, and Google will have problems if they have to say, "You can't read our books on any of the current e-ink readers on the market." That'll get them publicly labeled as "online content, not really ebooks" -- or potentially "library, not personal books; you can read them in *their* locations, but not take them home." And people won't pay as much for access to online content or a library.

[DawnFalcon]

And yet, instead of filling that demand, big media and their minions want to move thing into a "cloud" to increase their control, and they certainly won't reduce prices.

Then they'll whine about unauthorised copying rising.

Ohsopredictable.

[Mikewolf]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Allowing cached versions in personal computers is fairly irrelevant; the market for ebooks didn't take off until we had devices that let those books be read while lying in bed or sitting on a bus. If they don't transfer to mobile, offline devices, it's a limited-appeal techno-geek market. (Or a niche entertainment market. Yes, a lot of businesspeople have cellphones. It's fairly well established that very few of them are going to be reading substantial numbers of books on those phones.)

To tap into the reading marketplace--rather than the gadget-loving marketplace, or the computer geek marketplace, publishers & distributors need to first figure out how people use books. And a lot of ebook strategies have centered around "how do customers use computers, and how can we add ebooks to their use thereof?"
.

I think we'll see offline caching on non-PC devices for eBooks, even from the likes of Google. Chances are it might initially require a download into an app , but I am sure the eventual goal is for caching of content to be read in a browser across a variety of devices.

Google will probably work with some select hardware partners to optimize their vision of an eReader, like they've done with handsets (in fact, I am sure Google Editions will work best and have more functionality on Android devices) - but over time you will probably see more non-Android devices allowing in-browser reading (though most likely NOT on Apple devices).

[DawnFalcon]

So why should people bother with it? What advantage does it give them over ePub, a standard? Heck, even the Kindle app is avaliable for iPad's, and they're working on an Android one. It's providing less functionality for the same price.

It's adding the requirement to pay for - expensive - 3G connectivity on mobile devices (the UK's unlimited download plans just vanished, you're talking 1GB/month max on expensive plans, and this adds up rapidly when you're using highly bandwidth inefficient cloud services) rather than simply a single download (from a PC, even). And it will require specific web browsers, which are often screen space inefficient for the task since they are designed for showing web page, not reading, content - this matters a lot more on smaller screens.

So you can go with a standard for purchased books, or you can be forced to use "select hardware partners" for the experience of reading the books you've rented. Corporatism at its finest.

[Kali Yuga]

My feeling is that as Internet access becomes more and more ubiquitous, a lot of content will wind up connected to "The Cloud."

People really like the idea of instantly buying and downloading content, as well as having data backed up and synced to multiple devices, instead of relying on a cumbersome "hook your device to your computer and use our clunky software" approach.

I don't expect Google to take over though. The reality is that they're a pack of navel-gazing self-centered engineers who overwhelmingly earn their money off of search, and do other stuff only because it's a puzzle or engineering challenge. They're not retailers, they barely do customer service, and they certainly don't know much about selling books. I don't see much reason to have faith in them delivering a customer-oriented, book-savvy service.

Also, there will be many unforeseen consequences of cloud-based services. The content providers will be able to wipe content; law-enforcement agencies face lower barriers to access the data (e.g. subpoena vs search warrant); increased susceptibility to data mining; better possibility of dynamic in-book ads, and who knows what else.

[DawnFalcon]

Kali - Except that's perfectly possible with, say, Baen. You log into your account, and there are the books you purchased, for reading online or download. No cloud, no DRM. "Cloud" as applied to data is a buzzword for taking control of your content away from you.

And there are the other big drawbacks you note. If I want to store personal data online in some kind of "cloud", you better be encrypting it. Public/private key, with me in control.

[PoG]

Hey all im a newbie here, been reading for a while but never bothered to post till now I completely agree with Dawn.

Personally I think cloud computing /software as a service whatever you want to call it is going to keep on growing and could be abused to a great extent screwing the customers over.

If abused this could result in us not actually owning any of the books we buy and books we do supposedly own could have very restrictive DRM and be under the complete control of the service provider.

I think its pretty naive to dismiss the threat to your rights from cloud computing. Cloud computing makes it easy to take away your rights and if there's money to be made in removing your rights then it will be done.

Personally I don't want to pay for access to a product I want the product! I don't think the advantages offered by the cloud are worth it in the domain of reading. I realy hope books don't move to the cloud.

[Mikewolf]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

So why should people bother with it? What advantage does it give them over ePub, a standard? Heck, even the Kindle app is avaliable for iPad's, and they're working on an Android one. It's providing less functionality for the same price.

HTML is a standard too. In fact, HTML is the most widely used standard on the web. The app-to-browser path is just one option for Google - they're not mutually exclusive.

Google will likely offer apps as an option, but try to get people to use browsers and enable offline access. Alot more folks will have access instantly to books through a browser than an ePub book app, and that will be Google's preferred method. The only gating factor is capabilities of browser on non-PC devices, and that's where the app strategy might come into play for Google.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Mikewolf

Google will likely offer apps as an option, but try to get people to use browsers and enable offline access. A lot more folks will have access instantly to books through a browser than an ePub book app, and that will be Google's preferred method. The only gating factor is capabilities of browser on non-PC devices, and that's where the app strategy might come into play for Google.

My ebook reader is incompatible with "apps."
So's my daughter's.

I spend about twice as much money per year on ebooks as I do pbooks--and the pbooks are either reference works (gaming) or niche market books unavailable as ebooks, usually religious books. (And those, I usually chop-scan-OCR & format. I've come to hate reading paper books.)

I spend more than 8 hours a day online. I read, on average, over 200,000 words/week on an ebook reader, and I'd be very happy to never read paper again. I should be very much part of Google's target demographics. I should be at or near the top of *every* ebook seller's target demographics list: someone who used to read friends' copies of books and is just getting used to buying her own, someone who's willing to put a substantial amount of her disposable income towards ebooks, someone who doesn't mind the fact that cutting-edge tech is sometimes glitchy or formatting is sometimes a bit off; just get me words on the screen and I'm happy.

Instead, as far as I can tell, I won't be buying any Googlebooks for quite some time, if ever. They won't be compatible with my reader, nor the one I've picked as my next choice when/if this one dies, nor my second choice. (I'm not looking for wifi in an ebook reader. I wouldn't mind it--as long as it doesn't cost notable battery time--but I'm not giving up other features, including low price, for it.) They might not be compatible with my browser (Firefox), or might require giving access to more of my personal information than I care to hand over to a bookseller.

Most publishers & ebook distributors seem to think their ebook customers should be the same as their print customers, and they're trying to figure out "how do we make pbook buyers switch to ebooks" instead of "how do we tap into all those people who never buy pbooks but would buy ebooks?"