Well, I bought the book and have read about 30% of it. Clearly Jason Merkoski has a compelling story to tell. He is an evangelist for ereading and although he loves kindle and is proud of his role in making it happen, he also seems to appreciate what Apple and B&N have done to move the industry forward and improve on the digital reading experience.
The book is engaging, even though there is a whole lot of showmanship and bravado in his writing. I, very briefly, used his first end of chapter link to open up the interactive features through Twitter (instead of Facebook, which was also a choice). It turned my Twitter account into a marketing channel for his book, so I discontinued the "app".
a quote:
Quote:
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It's hard to love Amazon, though. Not the way we love Apple or a bookstore. At best, you respect Amazon for its obsession to detail, for its cheap prices, and how it achieves the promised arrival dates its products. You may not love Amazon, but you trust it as a brand...."
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He spends a lot of time writing about the future and what that might look like if we change how we read into a more social experience. He even makes a pass at explaining the neurobiology of reading. Interesting stuff, even if I am not nearly as excited about making reading more social as he is.
It's an enjoyable and provocative read, but I think that someone a little more removed from the process would probably write a somewhat different, and maybe more balanced, account. It is definitely his personal take on the events he described and their meaning.