[axel77]

1) Book readers like books, whereas music fans never had much affection for CDs. Vinyl yes, CDs no. They are too small for interesting cover art and legible lyrics, the cases break easily, and despite all promises to the contrary, they are extremely easy to break and scratch. Books have remained consistently lovable for several hundred years now. For readers, a wall lined with books is as attractive as any art we could afford to put up there.

This is a logical fallacy. Many readers read primary 'texts'. Not 'books'. If it was about books paperback editions wouldn't be sucessfull as they are, and people would only buy hardcovers, because they are much more beautiful in the wall lines of books. I consider people claimed the same at the start of the gutenberg area, that handwritten books were much nicer than printed books. What one considers beautiful is a personal thing, I really also like a harddisk full of books a lot, i know I """own""" (under at least 3 quatation marks) them, and can consult them everytime I want. Its just like people who are collecting say movies... Do they like the casings so much on their wall, or do they just love to just have access to a lot of movies...?

2) E-book readers have a couple of disadvantages, when compared to mp3 players. The first is that, when we bought our iPods, we already owned the music to put on it; none of us own e-books, however. The second is that so far, Apple is uninterested in designing an e-book reader, which means that they don’t look very cool.

a) When I rethink the copyright issues, at least when it came to the wishes of the publisher do we really had the right to rip the cds, or did we just do it? If yes, don't we have the same ownage rights to books we buyed already to scan them for our ereaders?

b) This is just a redicolous argument, as apple would be the only developer able to make things look cool.

3) We don’t buy many books – seven per person per year, a couple of which, we must assume, are presents for other people. Three paperbacks bought in a three-for-two offer – expenditure, fourteen pounds approx – will do most of us for months. The advantages of the Iliad and the Kindle – that you can take vast numbers of books away with you – are of no interest to the average book-buyer.

How many CDs did we buy per person per year? I mean pre-mp3 to have a fair comparison.

4) Book-lovers are always late adaptors, and generally suspicious of new technology.

The area of Book-lovers is a great field. I doubt there is a much different early/late adaptor distribution than any other random pick out of society. Yes there are this 'hardcore addicts' that will really stick to book no matter what eReader/Books are available. But wasn't it on the music the same? The real hardcore music crazy are still sticking to vinyl and tube amplifiers and especially detest anything mp3. They just can't live with even the thought that any electronic encoder/decoder could have stolen them a single bit of music information.

I have seen the switch to mp3/ipod world myself (as most here have) and I can say especially the 'big music fans were the most critical about this mp3s. What happened nevertheless?

5) The new capabilities of the iPod will make it harder to sell books anyway. How much reading has been done historically, simply because there is no television available on a bus or a train or a sun-lounger? But that’s no longer true. You could watch a whole series of the Sopranos by the pool on your iPod touchscreen, if you want. Reading is going to take a hit from this.

First there are different areas for reading. the Ipod sure does not take any from the academic reading market. Also think for example of Rowling, books made her richer than most (if not all female) sing stars. And what is this supposed to proof, with a good eBook reader I can read whole series of books by the pool, if I want. Listening is going to take a hit from this.