Quote:
Originally Posted by Anak
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Many ereader devices (brands) are not available in North America (compared to Europe). Kobo seems totally focused on the North American market (mainly Canada). Kobo seems to be blind for devices that are not released on the North American market, which have similar features (post on Facebook, Twitter; font options) or additional (show/hide header and footer bars; enable/disable ligatures) and don't use two rendering engines only to create a difference between a kepub or regular epub. There device specific features are implemented on the device itself, where Kobo implemented them in its proprietary kepub format and (may) lead to undesired results. Or results that can not be guaranteed due to the chosen solution.
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Anak, you might want to look at the April interview on Digital Book World with Kobo CEO, Mike Serbinis.
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013...nal-expansion/
Quote:
JG: How many countries are you in now?
MS: We sell our ebooks in 190 countries, which pretty much means every country. We sell the devices in more than a dozen. There’s about a dozen countries where we have full-blown Kobo territory partners [Fnac in France, for instance] and there are some other countries that we sell the devices in general.
JG: Can you give me an indication of international growth plans for Kobo in 2013 and 2014?
MS: We’re in 12 countries today with territory partners and we’re selling in about 24. I expect to almost double that next year. [sic, they are talking devices here]
In 2015? I don’t see the number doubling again. You start to get diminishing returns entering smaller markets. The number of countries will probably grow by another 50% in 2014. Some of the countries we have our eye on this year have a billion people in them. While they count for “one” in this conversation, they actually count for ten-to-twenty from a scale and difficulty standpoint. They’re multi-lingual, there are many states.
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Weighing in on the issue of being critical or positive, I don't think you have to choose. I try to write critical posts without rancor, positive posts about things I like, workarounds for things I dislike, and posts that are hopeful about the future. That reflects my general approach to life--my personality. Some folks like it, some do not. One of my workarounds on MR is putting people on ignore. I bet I am on the ignore list of others.