Has Sony lost the e-book battle against Amazon?

[grimo1re]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Yes, it's been used. For what it's worth, the Kindle is the victim of moronic promoters in that respect... they don't know how to take a good picture. Not only have I seen a good picture of the Kindle, but I've seen it up-close, and it's not nearly as fugly as it seems in Amazon's promotional material. Take a look at the pic below.

And despite that, and the fact that there was no store to see one before you bought one, its promotion has kicked Sony's a$$.

Ah! I got one :-)

Sorry, despite the file name, I'm still not entirely convinced. I'd love to see one in real life though and feel it. Feel is just about as important methinks. Anyway, I was only half serious, it's not really all that ugly...

[grimo1re]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, marketing has nothing to do with beta vs. VHS. What one the battle was that porn came out on VHS first (or was it more porn came out on VHS?). But anyway, VHS won because of porn.

So, Sony needs to embrace the porn market! I like it

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by TadW

I think the form of the device is irrelevant. It's even irrelevant if Sony manages to bring out a new device with similar connectivity like the Kindle. Key to success is the store. Why do you think Apple has put so much focus on their iTunes stores? App Store has already been responsible for 60 million downloads! This is where the big money comes from, not from the selling of hardware.

To succeed, Sony would have to come up with a one stop shop that even tops Amazon - something, given Amazon's long history and experience in online book retailing, I find impossible to do. Hence Sony's days in the e-book biz are numbered... unless, perhaps, if they concentrated on the hardware and became exclusive hardware supplier to Amazon, they could still stand a chance...

I think this is truly key for the mass market. Most of us on this forum are willing to play around and de-drm for personal use and convert formats for our reader of choice. For the mass market this will not work.

For broad adoption it needs to be push button easy and that is exactly what amazon has done. Couple that with the large available content in one easy to use location and you have the best chance at reaching a broad market. Hopefully 2.0 will address some of the hardware issues and improve on the software a bit. I currently hate their book formats and would like the flexibility of adjusting margins, line spacing and fonts. Speeding things up a bit would be nice as well.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Chuckwade87

I would really like to be able to view comics and stuff like that on the Kindle but havent figured it out yet. Can you view comics and the like on the Sony?

If your comics are in CBZ format, there are several utilities around that will convert those to PDF optimized to the 6" screen. Check the iLiad forum for some examples.

[pdurrant]

The iTunes Store is currently selling over 2.5 billion music tracks per year. (They announce 4 billion sold on Feb 27 and 5 billion on July 19)

Let's round the cost to $1/track, so the current sales rate gives apple gross income of $2.5 billion per year. The music publishers take 70%. That leaves 30% to apple, which is $750 million per year gross profit from the iTunes Store

In the quarter ending June 28, Apple sold over 11 million iPods with gross revenue of $1.57 billion. Of course, the Christmas quarter is the big one, not this one. Let's say current annual revenues of $7 billion from iPod sales. Apple's gross margin is currently well over 30%, but let's take 30%, as iPods are probably lower-margins than high-end Macs.

So that's $2.1 billion per year gross profit from iPods, nearly three times the gross profit of the iTunes Store.

Note also that from that $750 million has to come the direct costs of the store - servers, bandwidth, and cc processing fees - which are considerable when many purchases are just a few dollars.

For Apple, the profit still comes mostly from the hardware (iPods) not the iTunes Store.

Paul

Originally Posted by TadW

I think the form of the device is irrelevant. It's even irrelevant if Sony manages to bring out a new device with similar connectivity like the Kindle. Key to success is the store. Why do you think Apple has put so much focus on their iTunes stores? App Store has already been responsible for 60 million downloads! This is where the big money comes from, not from the selling of hardware.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Chuckwade87

I would really like to be able to view comics and stuff like that on the Kindle but haven't figured it out yet. Can you view comics and the like on the Sony?

As far as graphics go, the Sony does a better job at that then the Kindle. The 505 has 8 native shades vs. the Kindle's 4. And (not 100% sure) if the screen grabs from the Kindle are any indication, the 505 may do a better job dithering.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm not talking about a laptop. I'm taking the 505 and Kindle and making a 6" eink device that would be better then either of them. And having the optional detachable keyboard would work even better then what the Kindle has now. When you don't need it, it makes the device smaller and lighter.

Jon, the point I was trying to make -- and obviously I failed -- is that what you want will make the difference between a tablet/handheld PC and the ebook device the e-ink screen. Essentially, the ebook device will become just another computer. One of the things I, at least, like about the Sony and dislike about the Kindle is that with the Sony I feel like I am really reading for pleasure; with the Kindle I feel like I have simply moved my office from one room to another, no longer pleasure but a continuation of work.

Maybe its because I'm old, but the idea of always being connected doesn't appeal to me one bit. I want my cell phone to be just a telephone, not a reading device or an Internet access device. I want to be able to get away from the work world, not carry it around with me.

Would I object to a WiFi connection? Not if it was touch screen and limited. What I don't want is something that doesn't let me break from my computer work. Again, I don't want to be connected or be able to be connected 24/7.

One other thought. Even if it has a detachable keyboard, you would have to haul a keyboard around with you to make use of the WiFi connection. If you have a touch screen, why bother with a keyboard at all?

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by TadW

I think the form of the device is irrelevant. It's even irrelevant if Sony manages to bring out a new device with similar connectivity like the Kindle. Key to success is the store. . . .

The store is important but I do not think it is the overall ultimate decider. Amazon has about 20% of the total book market, which leaves 80% for non-Amazon stores. The other problem I have with your conclusion is that it assumes that shopping at Amazon is what everyone wants and is willing to do. I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I haven't bought anything at Amazon in nearly 2 years and on those rare occasions when I have bought something there, it was reluctantly. I much prefer to shop elsewhere, preferring Barnes & Noble for pbooks.

I haven't bought many ebooks yet (too many freebies that I'm going through) but when I do shop for ebooks, I shop at Baen, Fictionwise, and other non-Amazon retailers.

In a way, Amazon has forced the decision even if I wanted to buy ebooks at Amazon. Unless I am willing to buy a Kindle, I can't access Amazon ebooks (excluding Mobipocket, of course).

But even more important to me is that under no circumstance do I want Amazon to become a true monopoly. The beauty of the book industry is that it is so diverse and no single retailer or publisher can dictate what everyone can read. Should Amazon push Sony out of the ebook business (hardware, not book sales), it will then be able to push out the other competitors, too, leaving no choice but Kindle.

With no choice but Kindle, Amazon will have the leverage to force publishers to its terms, or, even more likely, push authors to publish only with Amazon on Amazon's terms. That will damage the free market of ideas significantly. One cannot rely on Bezos and his successors being benevolent dictators.

[Kingston]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, marketing has nothing to do with beta vs. VHS. What one the battle was that porn came out on VHS first (or was it more porn came out on VHS?). But anyway, VHS won because of porn.

I was an early adopter of Betamax and bought one in 1978 when they cost $1200!!

What really turned me to VHS was that VHS was the first to offer electonic tuners. This may seem caveman-like, but until around 1981 the tuners were analog knobs which had to be turned manually. You could set the Betamax to timeshift record, but you were limited to the one channel the tuner was tuned to before leaving the house.

An early RCA VHS offered electronic tuning, so it would switch channels while the user was away. This seems self-evident now, but in 1981 it was revolutionary, and cause many to switch (me included).

Sony offered this feature, but it was almost 2 years later, and the tide had turned.

Bottom line though....VHS was set up to record 2 hours at standard speed. Beta was set up to record one. So Beta had to make thinner and thinner tapes to keep up with VHS recording lengths...and the thinner tapes were unstable and tended to break or 'print through'.

VHS kept beating Beta to the market with features that the public wanted: longer recording times, channel switching, electronic marking on the tape for new recordings, and a host of others. Poor Beta could just not keep up.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by acidzebra

They are like the freaking borg, I tell you. Boorgle.

Have you read Cory Doctrow's " Scroogled! Great story terrible ending.

=X=

[jakewastaken]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

As far as graphics go, the Sony does a better job at that then the Kindle. The 505 has 8 native shades vs. the Kindle's 4. And (not 100% sure) if the screen grabs from the Kindle are any indication, the 505 may do a better job dithering.

I just began converting a bunch of comics to try out the other day. I'm blown away at how well this works on the 505. Manga (and I've never even gotten into it before yesterday) looks amazing on it too. I almost feel guilty abandoning my gigantic pile of books waiting to be read, but now that I've seen comics on the Sony reader I'm finding it hard to turn back

[HarryT]

You'll get better results reducing the image to 8 grey scales in a decent graphics package (I use PaintShop Pro, but there are many others available) than letting the Sony do it itself.

[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You'll get better results reducing the image to 8 grey scales in a decent graphics package (I use PaintShop Pro, but there are many others available) than letting the Sony do it itself.

I find FangornUK's comiclrf script does a bang-up job of converting comics and such - and fully automated. Manga and other high-contrast works with decent-sized lettering (Frank Miller, for instance) look amazing.

And seriously, with a total storage capacity of over 10 Gb (1x8Gb Memory stick + 1x2Gb SD) and a piss-poor large library management system on the reader, what else am I going to do with all that space?

[jakewastaken]

Originally Posted by acidzebra

I find FangornUK's comiclrf script does a bang-up job of converting comics and such - and fully automated. Manga and other high-contrast works with decent-sized lettering (Frank Miller, for instance) look amazing.

And seriously, with a total storage capacity of over 10 Gb (1x8Gb Memory stick + 1x2Gb SD) and a piss-poor large library management system on the reader, what else am I going to do with all that space?

I got paranoid about leaving the sd card in (battery consumption) so I need to finally admit defeat and snag a memory stick too. I started fully shutting down the unit the same day I stopped leaving the sd card in (it was blank). What I'd like to know is whether or not the sd card drain (with books/comics and also blank) is negligible or a genuine concern. This is a little out of place for this question, sorry. Would you recommend the memorystick, acidzebra?

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by grimo1re

So, Sony needs to embrace the porn market! I like it

LOL! But really, I think a huge market for reading devices could be romance & erotica. There are plenty of people who don't particularly want to tote around books like these in public. Porn on VHS helped fill the same sort of need: privacy.