Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
He said ePud. 
*wishes there was a less extreme laughing emoticon* |
Naah! It's about right.
Only way it would've been more funny would've been if the typo has read: eDud.
Contrary to what most enthusiasts and standards fetishists believe, the book-buying masses don't give a hill of beans over the format of the ebook.
All they care is whether they can buy it at a fair price, not which format has a longer specsheet.
Given that the core of the Amazon business is recreational readers the added value of the technical "superiority" of the epub spec is nil; a difference that makes no difference is no difference. Not when it comes to the folks voting with their wallets.
Also, the so-called format war isn't; it's a DRM war.
It's not Amazon vs the world as the epub fans like to pretend.
To all practical effect there are five camps:
- Amazon
- Apple
- B&N
- Adobe
- DRM-free anything.
The first four players *all* seek to lock-in customers to *their* walled gardens. The only difference between them is that Amazon is *today* more successful than all the others combined. Adobe is no more an angel than Amazon is a devil.
(shrug)
It's early in the game.
And the only ebook market that is anywhere near mainstreaming is north america (with the UK on the cusp).
All other markets are nowhere near mature enough to make any defensible statements about what matters or doesn't matter to the populace since those are markets where the bulk of sales are still going to hobbyists/enthusiast types, not the mainstream population.
Which is why I'm skeptical that the linked article reflects any imminent shift on Amazon's behalf when it comes to downstream format support.
Amazon sells mobi format because that is all they need to sell.
If the market where retail epub matters ever adds up to significant revenue for *Amazon*, they'll make whatever adjustments *they* feel appropriate, not what we might thinnk they should or shouldn't do. But don't expect any change one second before that happens.