Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
I do not know if the e-book market is huge. Nearly everybody I saw on trains using there Mobile phone seemed to either play a game or participating in some discussion forum. How many people do you know that reads from a computer and reads without doing anything else hours in a row? I think this is a rare "skill".
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I see very few people do that now with books, magazines or newspapers. So I don't consider that a prerequisite to reader success.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLongshot
I disagree. Most "text" is black and white. Newspapers are still mostly black and white. I see little added value in color that would all of a sudden make eBook readers a hot item.
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True... but I see a market that hasn't been tapped yet, that of online e-magazines, as being a potential "killer app" for hardware readers. A subscription to a monthly periodical, delivered to you automatically, with lots of color images of your favorite subject, and possibly the ability to save individual photos, articles and links in a "scrapbook" folder, could be a very popular commodity.
Think of the collections of magazines and snipped material that young people would love to be able to carry around with them, all the time, to read or share with others. (Think of the more "adult" material that could be downloaded privately and stored for future--ahem--perusal.) Think of a hardware device that would make the saving of entire mags, or clips and photos,
stoopid easy, and present it on a good quality color screen.
I can imagine keeping my entire collection of a particular magazine with me (instead of in boxes in my basement), with folders of supporting articles or snippets that relate to a particular subject. That, to me, would be the
MP3 of print, and a reason to buy a hardware reader and take it with me pretty-much everywhere.
And if such a hardware reader became available that could do those things, it could also be used for b/w books and newspapers (actually, more and more newspapers are going full color every day). So, although the e-magazines would be the main draw, they'd bring e-books along with them.