[SensualPoet]

It's always amusing to see those folks who believe everything Amazon does must be evil, fret again when Amazon does (yet again) something really customer-centric.

Library lending has been the single outstanding ePub differentiator in the market. In all other respects -- depth of catalog, international availability, breadth of devices, platform features -- Kindle is superior on every count. But you couldn't borrow library books because Overdrive -- which manages the relationship between publisher, library and library patron -- developed an ePub solution.

Now Amazon has stepped up and provided Overdrive with a win-win: a seamless back-end solution which allows Kindle platform devices and apps to talk to Overdrive. Presumably there is no cost to Overdrive; and Amazon leverages its Whispersync cloud to deliver content to Kindles and Kindle apps. Amazon made the gamble from day one: your ereader and ereader app must be connected at all times; that is not true of leading competitors like Sony.

Currently, Overdrive hosts everything for libraries, including all content, the delivery costs and the e-mail notification system. All the library does is provide an encrypted link to verify the specific library patron is logged into the delivery page, and manage their own way of creating and maintainig a library account. The library also selects books to be made available and buys licenses accordingly -- all that changes hands is "cash"; Overdrive does all the work.

Back at Overdrive servers, files sent out to Kindles just have a different DRM wrapper on them -- just as its ePubs have a specially DRM warpper than "expires" after a set date. For a Kindle to work with this system, the Kindles will need a small new software patch to receive these books and ensure they expire appropriately. It could be that Kindle library books will reside in a special directory on the Kindle which, when opened, logs into Overdrive to switch content on or off. Whiel Kindles are all connected, their radios can be turned off; the verification on opening may be mandatory. Nuisance? Not really: because the content is delivered directly to your device. With the ePub model, you have to download as ASCM file, transfer this to an ADE reader, and open the file, then move that to your e-reader. Kindle wins that one!

Finally, the Kindle value add: keeping your annotations. There is no Big Brother thing here. The instant a Kindle file is opened on your Kindle, a small text file is created which holds any annotations you might make. That file resides on your device, or can be synced with your account cloud to be shared if you open the same file on another device. The file remains in your account (or on the Kindle you borrowed the library book on) until you manually delete it. If you ever buy the same edition of the book, your annotations are already there. Amazon isn't reading or sharing these notes; end of story.

So: Overdrive wins, Amazon wins, libraries win, the customer wins. Sorry, Sony.