Lexcycle has been acquired by Amazon

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by anurag

Stanza has built-in Gutenberg and FeedBooks catalog integration which most iPhone users would prefer to Google any day.

I obviously misunderstood, I am sorry. I meant Google as an ePUB source, they recently ganged up with Sony and offered 500,000 or so ePUB titles for download. Crappy quality, mostly OCR's of public domain titles, but still...

I wouldn't dream of undermining iPhone/iTouch as a reading platform, that is a huge segment. Yet, I somehow think that it will take more than this acquisition to stifle one Project Gutenberg, or any other name from your list. Community efforts/non-profit organizations are notoriously difficult to kill.

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by akira28

And all on board are going to be taken for a ride. Hold on to your wallets!

Yeah, those $9.99 bestsellers are sure breaking my wallet. What's Fictionwise charging these days?

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by Seabound

Kovid, how about building your own iPhone App?

As the white rabbit would say, no time, no time calibre soaks up all of it

[InlawBiker]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

The question here is why Amazon took over Stanza, today. The only reason that makes sense, is to control the spread of non Amazon retail channels. And competitors to Amazon are certainly not insignificant today.

This is an insightful observation... Amazon had little to gain except in squashing alternative sales channels. I have to wonder what they paid for it. The purchase came right on the heels of a lot of press so probably too much.

But anyway, Microsoft has not yet turned its significant attention towards eBook reader software on hand-helds and their mobile OS. I believe that it what Amazon is getting ready for. Many also believe that Apple is working on a tablet PC. Amazon is under great pressure to lock up this market before the big players look this way.

Greg.

[ThomasMc]

I'm waiting for WalMart to come out with its own ebook reader, for under a hundred bucks, and start selling ebooks online for half of what Amazon sells for the kindle. Not that I like WalMart, but I like Amazon even less.

[anurag]

Originally Posted by Ankh

I wouldn't dream of undermining iPhone/iTouch as a reading platform, that is a huge segment. Yet, I somehow think that it will take more than this acquisition to stifle one Project Gutenberg, or any other name from your list. Community efforts/non-profit organizations are notoriously difficult to kill.

I agree - I didn't say removing them from Stanza will kill them - I am just saying Amazon would love to see them go away, along with the rest of the retailers linked in Stanza, and this acquisition is an effective step in that direction. But all said and done, if that's what Amazon really wants, they won't succeed. Open projects like Gutenberg and even for-profit community-based startups like FeedBooks are strong enough to resist the effects of such moves.

However, if Amazon decides to pull the plug on them in Stanza, it will make things just a little bit harder for everyone else, because I believe a lot of iPhone/Stanza users first find out about BooksOnBoard, Gutenberg, FeedBooks etc. through Stanza (I could be wrong about Gutenberg). Unless of course a competing reader/access mechanism makes it equally simple for users to find and access content. I believe the development of such a system is inevitable, regardless of Amazon's wishes. It just needs to come out soon enough.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Right now the Stanza reader works only on the iPhone, Amazon already has an iPhone reader.

Stanza can be used to read books on the iPhone, a Windows PC, or a Mac. I don't have much doubt that with a little extra work, an app can be put out for Blackberry or the upcoming Palm Pre. The idea would be to get it working on as many platforms as possible so that Amazon could sell books.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Furthermore it has an in house reader software development team in Mobipocket. EPUB is an open standard that is particularly easy to develop reading software for, by buying Stanza, Amazon doesn't gain any great wealth of proprietary code. The unique thing about Lexcycle was their attempt to develop a platform for independent retailers.

That's not really true. The thing that Lexcycle did that Amazon might have interest in is that they have the ability to download directly from Fictionwise to the software. That means that Kindles can read Fictionwise books without the use of scripts to strip the DRM. This would put Fictionwise (i.e., Barnes and Noble) in a tough spot: Do they simply keep the DRM as-is, and give the Kindle a big advantage in the market (even though they will be coming out with a competing reader), or do they change the DRM, leaving iPod/iPhone users and Kindle users without an easy way to purchase from Fictionwise?

I see the acquisition of Lexycle as an interesting way of keeping Barnes & Noble in check.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

If Amazon wanted to make their books available on multiple platforms, they could easily have done so via the Mobipocket software (which they also took over and then stifled).

Stifled how?

Last time I checked (a few minutes ago), Mobipocket was even distributing the MobiPocket Creator Publisher Edition, which works with ePub, among other formats.

If you're talking about "the Python script with no name", then I think that situation is a little bit different. (It's more confusing to me, since I don't see why a book from one Amazon company shouldn't be readable on a device from another, but nonetheless, it's different.)


We might be talking about different kinds of "platforms", here. I doubt Amazon has any interest in epub or prc format. What I'm talking about is hardware platforms.

That Amazon wants to make their books available on multiple hardware platforms is beyond serious dispute. Otherwise, the Kindle iPhone software wouldn't exist at all. If Amazon didn't want to sell books to other platforms, all they would have to do is nothing. They've already got a DRM'd proprietary format. All they'd have to do is make the Kindle work with only DRM'd AZW or Topaz files. What you'd be left with is a perfectly serviceable device for reading only Amazon e-books. They didn't do that because they realize that there's value in being able to read multiple formats. And you can bet that the acquisition of Lexycle and Stanza makes it both easier to sell Amazon's books on other platforms, and easier to undercut Barnes & Noble in any e-book they develop.

This is easy to forget, I guess, but Amazon isn't generally in the business of selling gadgets (not their own, anyway). Their main product, as a company, is books. The Kindle's main purpose is to promote, download, and display Amazon's books for reading. Getting the Kindle (or at least its software) into as many hands as possible can only be good for Amazon. And dabbling in other formats isn't a negative, when the software itself is so Amazon-focused.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

The question here is why Amazon took over Stanza, today. The only reason that makes sense, is to control the spread of non Amazon retail channels. And competitors to Amazon are certainly not insignificant today.

But Amazon can't control the non-Amazon retail channels that way. In order for a retail channel to exist, all that needs to happen is a supplier and a software developer get together. For example, all Fictionwise would have to do (again, if it was all about distribution) would be to distribute a different piece of software. Amazon buying Lexcycle to stop epub (for example) would be like Microsoft buying OpenOffice. People who still wanted to use the OpenOffice ODF format would still do so, and if there was a market, the developers would accommodate them.

The people at Amazon know all this. They wouldn't be foolish enough to try to stop a competitor simply by cutting off support for their format in a piece of software. They'd be much more likely to use the "adopt and extend" model, incorporating the format into their software to make the Kindle more useful.

The most immediate effect of this will be that the Kindle can work seamlessly with Fictionwise. Longer term, it means that we could be in for a real format war, with both sides trying to a) be compatible with the most devices and b) have features the other one lacks.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

Stanza can be used to read books on the iPhone, a Windows PC, or a Mac. I don't have much doubt that with a little extra work, an app can be put out for Blackberry or the upcoming Palm Pre. The idea would be to get it working on as many platforms as possible so that Amazon could sell books.

Umm the mobipocket reader can be used to read books on a much wider selection of devices, and Amazon already owns it.

That's not really true. The thing that Lexcycle did that Amazon might have interest in is that they have the ability to download directly from Fictionwise to the software. That means that Kindles can read Fictionwise books without the use of scripts to strip the DRM. This would put Fictionwise (i.e., Barnes and Noble) in a tough spot: Do they simply keep the DRM as-is, and give the Kindle a big advantage in the market (even though they will be coming out with a competing reader), or do they change the DRM, leaving iPod/iPhone users and Kindle users without an easy way to purchase from Fictionwise?

Stanza, with Adobe, was involved in the deveopment of an open standard to allow retailers to sell books to multiple devices in a simple way. It's based on the existing stanza atom feed technology, which is also openly documented. So by "buying" stanza, Amazon doesn't really get anything, as far as the ability to buy books from retailers is concerned, except, control of a popular platform that was threatening to make it easy for non Amazon entities to retail directly to multiple devices.

Stifled how?

Last time I checked (a few minutes ago), Mobipocket was even distributing the MobiPocket Creator Publisher Edition, which works with ePub, among other formats.

Just look at the pace of development of the Mobipocket software. It's had maybe three minor updates in a year and a half and Amazon decided to change the file extension for .mobi files to .azw for no good reason.

That Amazon wants to make their books available on multiple hardware platforms is beyond serious dispute. Otherwise, the Kindle iPhone software wouldn't exist at all. If Amazon didn't want to sell books to other platforms, all they would have to do is nothing.

With respect, I suggest you go read up a little bit on the history of ebook formats. Amazon took over mobipocket, whihc was selling books to a wide variety of devices. They then simply changed the file extension to .azw keeping the DRM technology exactly the same and decided to sell their books only for the Kindle. The wild success of the iPhone got them scared so they decided to belatedly port the Mobipocket reader to the iPhone and then buy Stanza which was the most threatening iPhone based competitor.

They've already got a DRM'd proprietary format. All they'd have to do is make the Kindle work with only DRM'd AZW or Topaz files. What you'd be left with is a perfectly serviceable device for reading only Amazon e-books. They didn't do that because they realize that there's value in being able to read multiple formats.

No, they didn't do that because they knew the negative press would have killed the Kindle.

And you can bet that the acquisition of Lexycle and Stanza makes it both easier to sell Amazon's books on other platforms, and easier to undercut Barnes & Noble in any e-book they develop.

Again, they already had the technology to sell their books on other devices if they wanted to.

[jbicha]

Well, Stanza was a much better e-reader app on the iPhone than the Kindle app.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Umm the mobipocket reader can be used to read books on a much wider selection of devices, and Amazon already owns it.

The reader is not available for the iphone/iPod Touch or the Nokia 770/8xx. Nor is the desktop available for any OS other than Windows. And development seems to have ceased at least as the Palm version goes.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by akira28

The reader is not available for the iphone/iPod Touch or the Nokia 770/8xx. Nor is the desktop available for any OS other than Windows. And development seems to have ceased at least as the Palm version goes.

Yeah, like I said, when Amazon took it over development on it was killed. But the Amazon iPhone app is (I believe) based on a version of the java Mobipocket reader.

[Lemurion]

I agree with Kovid:

This is an "All your base belong to us" move, plain and simple.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Seabound

What's a good alternative to Stanza on the iPhone/iPod Touch?

A good alternative then is a 505 or a 700 since they do handle ePub.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Right now the Stanza reader works only on the iPhone,

Does it? I thought that they had a Mac version, too.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Does it? I thought that they had a Mac version, too.

That's Stanza Desktop, for transferring/conversion.