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Unfortunately, the onus for promoting e-books really should lie with the publishers and authors... and they are exactly the ones who are keeping silent. Sure, Sony can promote its reader, or for that matter, so can iRex, Mobipocket, eReader, MS Reader, etc, but what's the point if no one knows what an e-book is?
We're caught in a vicious circle: The publishers won't promote e-books until the public demands it, and the public won't demand what it doesn't know about. The only way to bust out of this circle is for groups like MobileRead to keep preaching, helping, hacking, and demonstrating, until they reach a critical mass that breaks out into the mainstream. Or, to fit my earlier analogy, groups like MobileRead have to keep gathering enough weight of members and supporters to lean against the wall of e-book ignorance... and when the wall finally comes down, the largest and most important point of friction will be gone.
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