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Originally Posted by taming
A few years ago there were a slew of eINK devices that had no formal connection to the actual selling of eBooks. They cost around $400. Most of the are now gone. There is no way that any reader can be competitive at the currently acceptable price point without a heavy reliance on selling books and making money that way.
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I strongly disagree, one look at all the electronic gadgets over the years, they ALL drop in price as the years go by and newer gadgets come out. A truly good device, that works well and outshines both in performance hardware wise and software (firmware) will sell better than it's competition. Kobo has a pretty good device hardware wise but they really need to work on the firmware (see my last comment on beta testing). Word of mouth can make or break a company. Selling books is only a bonus to these companies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by taming
...I think it is disingenuous to expect an affordable device while at the same time expecting the selling aspect to be hidden away. I am happy that there are no ads on my home screen and I am glad that the home screen has a clean look. Nothing forces me to click on any of the home screen links that take me into the commercial part of the device.
If there are eInk readers out there that do not offend you by integrating selling into the reader experience, then buy one of those.
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We did, that's why Kobo makes a Kobo with Ads on it, you get that one at a discounted price... Funny I don't remember buying that device. You know how many books I have bought that were shown on my KT? NONE. Know how many books I have bought from Kobo, using their discounts and just browsing their store... 105 books if my count is right. Looking at my library that includes previews of books, I have 43 PAGES of books (that's 422 books total) I am interested in buying. Only a handful of those were Kobo recommendations. Advertisements on the KT had absolutely nothing to do with my decisions to preview or buy any of those books. And you know what if I ONLY buy those books and didn't add any more, even at $5 a book, that's over $2000. So you tell me, what would be the better bet for them to get me to buy just those books? Advertisement on the KT that I despise? Or better promotions through email and/or their site which I do look at and use? BTW, minus the 105 books I already bought = 317 books I am currently interested in, at $7.99 (which is still low, most books sell for 8.99-9.99) that's $2532 before taxes. Pretty hefty chunk of my wallet. But if I'm happy with a company, I don't mind spending the money... if I'm unhappy... well I do indeed go elsewhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by taming
In the meantime, this is a commercial product and it is not Build a Bear. We do not each get to redesign the user experience to meet our individual preferences. And while you consider this, also remember that Kobo listened to a huge number of people who hated the short list and asked for "real" bookshelves. They also hated the carousel, which held the hidden links to the store functions.
I am sure that Kobo is paying attention to posts from folks who have different opinions about this. I am also pretty sure that if changes are going to be made based on these comments, they will not be the first changes we see. I'd much rather have them work on the issues like funky sideloaded fonts and slow ePUB page changes, myself.
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Well I sure hope they are taking notes on this. I really really like my KT as an eReader. It's truly a great product but we seriously need Kobo to really take a hard look at where they are going with this product. They need to make a much bigger seperation between the ereader itself and their marketing. Marketing should be kept to their website, emails and the Kobo Desktop software. Perhaps shifting their advertising to the area where the Browser resides. Make the browser homepage the Kobo default one. Never used the browser so maybe it already is. Limit the advertising to ONE Link/Menu. Make it inconspicous.
And seriously, I don't want to stomp on anyones toes but get some more and better beta testers. Most of the bugs found within the first few hours of the firmware update should have been caught in the beta testing. I know not all of the bugs can be caught during a beta test but this was ridiculous.