How Come Amazon Is More Popular Than Kobo?

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Barbara1955

Hummm about 6 Different PW ALL Died with in a Year. I Didn't do anything but READ on them!

I've had only a single PW die and that was after years of use. Something wrong with your distributor that caused them to be damaged since I feel confident you weren't flinging them against a wall. Your kobo is no more sturdy than a PW, after all.

[HotblackDesiato]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Your kobo is no more sturdy than a PW, after all.

Never used a Kobo, but that rings true to me. I have relatives who vehemently dislike Pepsi and refuse to drink it but profess their love for Coke. Pretty sure there's something else going on there.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Kobo devices are fine, but Amazon wins on all the rest of the issues that pertain to buying and organizing your books. I never dealt with Kobo customer service, but Amazon has always been top flight for me.

I'm having some difficulty with your assessment of the 'organizing your books' win for Amazon.

Are you seriously claiming that Amazon's management of things like

• Collections,
• series,
• author lists,
• read vs not read vs currently reading,
• book synopsis on device,
• book cover thumbnails,
• book cover as screensaver

on a Kindle is better than what can be achieved on a Kobo using Calibre?

[Deskisamess]

I use Calibre, but not for seriously organizing my books. I've never gotten that much into the program. I use it to format shift, and have started to organize my books, but struggle a bit with understanding all the details. Keeping my books in Calibre, keeping it synced with Calibre Companion, and being able to easily search them is enough for my needs.

I also don't organize my books with the detail many users do. The collection options on my Oasis are enough for me.

Adding...low techie users would most likely find Calibre to be too difficult imo. I have enough tech savvy to be able to figure it out...but don't want to. It's not that important for me. I back it up, and that's about it.

[Barbara1955]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I've had only a single PW die and that was after years of use. Something wrong with your distributor that caused them to be damaged since I feel confident you weren't flinging them against a wall. Your kobo is no more sturdy than a PW, after all.

Good for you! I not the only one that had the PW Freeze up on... Got to amazon threads & Look it up!

[Barbara1955]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

I use Calibre, but not for seriously organizing my books. I've never gotten that much into the program. I use it to format shift, and have started to organize my books, but struggle a bit with understanding all the details. Keeping my books in Calibre, keeping it synced with Calibre Companion, and being able to easily search them is enough for my needs.

I also don't organize my books with the detail many users do. The collection options on my Oasis are enough for me.

Adding...low techie users would most likely find Calibre to be too difficult imo. I have enough tech savvy to be able to figure it out...but don't want to. It's not that important for me. I back it up, and that's about it.

Back up is fine until the Back up device crashes.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by Barbara1955

Back up is fine until the Back up device crashes.

[ps67]

I don't know why but before to buy my Kindle I didn't even know the existence of Kobo but I was informed about the existence of Kindle. I bought a PW because of Amazon seemed to have the larger store*. Only when I explicitly researched about reader I knew Kobo. I bought KA1 because of the 7.8"

*actually in Italy difference are only for those that publish directly with Amazon, I am not sure if also Kobo do this, publishers sell in almost all platforms, kindle, kobo and others like IBS, bookrepublic etc. The most important publishers sell also in their own store.

[HLS]

Well kobo was not in the USA till this past few months

[John F]

Originally Posted by kcladyz

Well kobo was not in the USA till this past few months

Well they were, than they kinda/sorta weren't, and now they are again.

[mathil]

Originally Posted by ps67

I don't know why but before to buy my Kindle I didn't even know the existence of Kobo but I was informed about the existence of Kindle. I bought a PW because of Amazon seemed to have the larger store*. Only when I explicitly researched about reader I knew Kobo. I bought KA1 because of the 7.8"

*actually in Italy difference are only for those that publish directly with Amazon, I am not sure if also Kobo do this, publishers sell in almost all platforms, kindle, kobo and others like IBS, bookrepublic etc. The most important publishers sell also in their own store.

It seems weird that you'd never even heard about Kobo, they've had stands in literally every Feltrinelli and Mondadori store for the past 6 years, and in most retail electronics stores. Feltrinelli and Mondadori don't even have their own ebook store, in fact -- they redirect you to Kobo because they have a partnership with them. I believe you, don't get me wrong, it just sounds really weird to me.
It's absolutely true that there's no advantage in choosing the Amazon store over Kobo/IBS/BookRepublic, as ebook prices are set by the publishers here. There's also the issue of libraries lending ebooks only in EPUB format.

[BadBilly]

Well, Amazon really pushed e-readers in a big way when they introduced the Kindle. As they were already a huge book retailer, they had the relationships to get the content that was needed to make buying such a device worthwhile to a reader. Anyone who visited Amazon from anywhere in the world saw ads for Kindles, increasing awareness even in markets where it was not available. As the Kindle took off, there were often media stories about ebook reading, often drawing from US sources, that strongly featured Kindles.

Furthermore, most countries did not have a domestic Amazon store and therefore had to put up with currency exchange, shipping, and customs fees when buying from Amazon, so buying a Kindle or other physical objects was not always a good deal. Buying e-books also had currency exchange to consider. Now, more countries have an Amazon store, so that is not so much of an issue.

Kobo was a response to the Kindle involving several brick-and-mortar booksellers. As you may have noticed, that is a business that is in trouble. So, not only did they not have as much clout as Amazon in getting content from publishers and getting the discounts, they didn't have the huge cashflow that Amazon has. This cashflow allowed Amazon to not care about making money on the readers and not care too much about making money on the books.

Amazon made it very easy for people in the USA to get the books they purchase onto their devices, something Kobo could not do.

Now, outside the USA, the story is something different. Kobo has good market presence in Canada (a primary investor in the company was Canada's near-monopoly book retailer) and in other countries where large book sellers were partnered with it.

Kobo also has an advantage outside the USA because most public libraries in those countries only lend out ebooks in epub format. In Canada, for example, Kindles are for people who want to buy every book they read. Kobos (and my beloved Sony T1) are for people who want to borrow library books.

Kobos also allow one to sideload a bunch of public domain books from Project Gutenberg and the MobileRead library for free. There may be Kindle formatted versions of those works, but, if you're only going to have one device for books you buy, books you borrow, and books you download from public domain sites, you'll want a Kobo (or my beloved Sony T1).

Here in Canada, for example, Amazon's Kindle is still well-known and we now have our own store here, so buying from Amazon is easier. You do see some Kindles here. Like Apple products, they are popular with people who have lots of money to spend and are technically clueless. It very easily parts them from their money and gives them their books. Gotta hand it to them on that.

As we see in some comments here, Amazon is counting on its walled-garden to keep people who have spent big on mobi format books from switching (though it's not that hard to do).

So, that's my assessment of how Amazon got a lot of mindshare in the USA: being early, being ubiquitous, by making it very easy to buy their product.

Now, if you ask me which is better, I'd say it depends on what you want from your reader and reading experience. Kindle has some tempting hardware, but I won't by it as it doesn't work with my public library and I'd have to convert all my epubs. Also, I don't buy a lot of books. Between public library and public domain, I do pretty well. My Sony PRS-T1 still works fine, I have a nice case with light, plays audio, and has an SD-card slot. I also love the multiple dictionaries for foreign languages (French to English, Italian to English, German to English). They're helpful. Unfortunately, Sony is long-gone from the market because they had an undistinguished store, had to make money on their readers, and didn't have a strong retail presence anywhere that I know of (maybe Japan). If I were replacing my reader with something currently on the market, I'd probably go for a Kobo Forma. Love physical page buttons.

[Sarmat89]

Because Kobo products are junk and their shop is quite poor.

[Shad Plante]

I can’t ever remember seeing Kobo devices much except at Borders near the end and at niche bookstores. I don’t think they have ever tried that hard to penetrate the US market. With Nook in such a downhill state, it might be a good time for them to try. I wonder if they might try to pick up what is left of the Nook.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by BadBilly

Kobo was a response to the Kindle involving several brick-and-mortar booksellers. As you may have noticed, that is a business that is in trouble. So, not only did they not have as much clout as Amazon in getting content from publishers and getting the discounts, they didn't have the huge cashflow that Amazon has. This cashflow allowed Amazon to not care about making money on the readers and not care too much about making money on the books.

Amazon made it very easy for people in the USA to get the books they purchase onto their devices, something Kobo could not do.

Now, outside the USA, the story is something different. Kobo has good market presence in Canada (a primary investor in the company was Canada's near-monopoly book retailer) and in other countries where large book sellers were partnered with it.

Kobo also has an advantage outside the USA because most public libraries in those countries only lend out ebooks in epub format. In Canada, for example, Kindles are for people who want to buy every book they read. Kobos (and my beloved Sony T1) are for people who want to borrow library books.

A couple of minor nits. Kobo was not a response by several brick and mortar retailers--Kobo was Chapters/Indigo's creation as Shortcovers and was later spun off and still later purchased by Japan's Rakuten. As for the good market presence in Canada? Kobo was (and still is) headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. When I was looking at a replacement for my original ereader, the Kobo I choose was priced a lot cheaper than the Kindle equivalent though Amazon did drop their ereader prices very soon after the Kobo went on sale. In May, 2010, the Kobo cost me $149 Cdn vs. $259 US ($271.92 Cdn) I would have had to pay for a Kindle. If I'd waited till June, 2010, I could have purchased the Kindle for $189 US.