Barnes and Noble confirms COLOR e-book reader for Spring 2010 [INCORRECT]

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

What a shame. B&N has an opportunity to really give Amazon a run for its money.

I tend to disagree, mostly because B&N seems to be scrambling a bit with its ebook efforts -- much in the same way they fumbled with the move to online book sales, at a time when Amazon really nailed the online experience.

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

I can see so many ways to sell this product. First......set up a dedicated booth. Have it manned full time. Use a projector to run non stop video showing the product behind the booth to grab interest. Train your employees to sell the item by being friendly and catching peoples eyes.... etc

• Amazon has run away with the market without an in-store presence at all.
• Sony has lost ground while having this supposed in-store presence advantage.
• Physical bookstores are getting killed anyway, i.e. as time goes on, if the trend continues, there will be fewer and fewer physical points-of-sale anyway.
• As more ebooks are sold, fewer paper books will be sold, thus accelerating the above trend.
• At this point, "Kindle" is on the verge of becoming an eponym. Anyone selling a B&N Reader will have to deal with that.

I'm sure that B&N will be around for awhile, but I really cannot see them capturing a majority of the ebook market, even if they manage to come up with a better device. I just don't have a ton of confidence in their ability to execute well with disruptive tech.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I tend to disagree, mostly because B&N seems to be scrambling a bit with its ebook efforts -- much in the same way they fumbled with the move to online book sales, at a time when Amazon really nailed the online experience.



• Amazon has run away with the market without an in-store presence at all.
• Sony has lost ground while having this supposed in-store presence advantage.
• Physical bookstores are getting killed anyway, i.e. as time goes on, if the trend continues, there will be fewer and fewer physical points-of-sale anyway.
• As more ebooks are sold, fewer paper books will be sold, thus accelerating the above trend.
• At this point, "Kindle" is on the verge of becoming an eponym. Anyone selling a B&N Reader will have to deal with that.

I'm sure that B&N will be around for awhile, but I really cannot see them capturing a majority of the ebook market, even if they manage to come up with a better device. I just don't have a ton of confidence in their ability to execute well with disruptive tech.

What you say is true. But a concerted effort by Barnes and Noble could change that. IF they really went after the market.

Just think. The people who go into store are readers. The target audience is there. What sold you on on your K2? The presentation? Just think if there was one ongoing in person at every store. Aargh.......the possiblities are enormous.

But, it depends on the enthusiasm/knowledge of the sales clerks, AND the ability of Barnes and Noble to see far enough into the future to invest time and money.

Sheesh. All this from a die hard Kindle1 fan.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

Reality check please. By and far the most popular eBook reading device right now is the iPhone.

No, Windows PC

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Crowl

Another way of looking at them is that they are not being overloaded with pointless extra features to the detriment of their core functionality which for an ebook reader would be reading comfort, screen clarity and battery life.

Using your example, say adding video to a dslr had harmed the quality of still pictures then it would have been an idiotic addition to such a device and in the same manner some features will be fine to add to ereaders and others will be stupid to add even if they work just fine on other classes of device.

Same argument the DSLR folks made...even though video function, gps tagging, voice notes, etc. don't reduce the quality of the experience. The only remaining legs to stand on are nostalgia and "wasted R&D money" arguments.

Same applies to ebook devices. They can do a lot more with the current infrastructure without detriment. They simply fail to offer those features right now. Some people have convinced themselves that it's for the benefit of their expensive justification-demanding purchases, and have irrationally applied that defensive silliness to the future.

A Swiss army knife analogy doesn't apply unless you mean physically altering the device in extreme ways. The devices as they are today are pretty awfully designed already...it's hard to make them much worse on the ergonomics front in both software and hardware. Companies are probably not going to add a corkscrew and crappy spring pliers to their ebook readers. There are many, many functions that are currently missing from ebook readers that could unobtrusively be added, but are not.

Ebook devices are not premium high-quality gadgets in any way. They are thoroughly mediocre and limited. They're not specialized. They're a crappy technological step that makes use of the crippled display technology in the cheapest possible ways. When e-ink is usurped or upgraded to handle something more than low-quality text, its features will diversify since it's gotta be marketable in a dynamic market that isn't as interested in sci-fi, fantasy, and romance novels as the ebook device community currently is.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

Reality check please. By and far the most popular eBook reading device right now is the iPhone.

<blink> Prove it.

(You may well be right, but what evidence supports that conclusion?)

Frankly it's a small minority of consumers who care so much about reading that they will spend hundreds of dollars on a dedicated device.

That "small minority of consumers" is a large enough market to keep Amazon, Sony. and several other manufacturers busy trying to supply and dominate it...
______
Dennis

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

<blink> Prove it.

(You may well be right, but what evidence supports that conclusion?)


That "small minority of consumers" is a large enough market to keep Amazon, Sony. and several other manufacturers busy trying to supply and dominate it...

Took a few years for the market to gain any ground too...I know quite a few folks who were surprised at the popularity of ebook readers today because they figured they died off almost a decade ago (which they sort of did). Most likely, companies are either looking for easy margins (which doesn't seem likely if e-ink/pvi is ripping everyone off), or they're looking for future commodity devices that will overtake phones and perhaps some computer markets for casual media consumption (until folding/rolling screens are mastered, phones have a display constraint that is largely remedied in an ebook reader-sized device).

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by zacheryjensen

Reality check please. By and far the most popular eBook reading device right now is the iPhone.

More people having downloaded a free client is not the same thing at all.

Frankly it's a small minority of consumers who care so much about reading that they will spend hundreds of dollars on a dedicated device. Most active readers still only spend a small part of their spare time reading.

The market is being limited by the current prices, but to come to the conclusion that this will lead to the only device people will want being an even more expensive multifunction device seems to be rather short sighted.

If you look at the surveys carried out, certain price levels attract a lot more people and pushing down the price of basic readers will help convert more paper book readers a lot easier than higher priced multifunction devices.


[quote
At this point for those so worried about added features somehow harming their eBook reader device experience... well maybe you should go buy an extra reader of your preference today so you won't have to worry about the lack of them on the market in a few years?[/QUOTE]

Try reading what people are saying, they object to feature bloat when its to the detriment of core functionality not to adding features.

[brecklundin]

$50 basic reading devices and $200-$300 more larger PDA like open OS devices...how can that be bad for the mfg's as well as the book sellers AND consumers?

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

<blink> Prove it.

(You may well be right, but what evidence supports that conclusion?)


That "small minority of consumers" is a large enough market to keep Amazon, Sony. and several other manufacturers busy trying to supply and dominate it...
______
Dennis

Well the forrester research on all eBook readers is non-free, but excerpts quoted across several popular ebook related sites (such as teleread) estimate a total sales of all dedicated eBook devices at 3 million for the year 2009.

That said, a few months old active users using ebook data point from flurry shows the iPhone at over 2.5 million and growing fast.

Of course numbers like this are hard to understand because frankly people could download an app and never use it, or could buy a kindle and let it gather dust. Plus, Amazon, most likely the most successful dedicated device seller, will not release sales numbers.

So take it as you wish. I also read statistics from another source, In-Stat showing in 2008 the entire dedicated reader market only reached 1 million units so that supports, with phenomenal growth, the 3 million unit mark for 2009. Considering there are already over 38 million iPhones, not counting iPod Touch, in the hands of consumers, even a paultry 10% reading books on them would decimate the entire dedicated device market. But, the point was about individual comparisons which means all dedicated devices have to take a slice of that 3 million. So based on various stats, you'd have to have an ebook reader doing more than 2.5 million units of the 3 million this year to even hold a candle to readers on the iPhone.

Anyway I don't think it's that big of a deal, and anyone with a realistic gaze on the market should understand that dedicated readers, though more popular now have certainly not exceeded alternative eReading choices. The real point here is that it's hard to have a meaningful conversation about the future of a device that's extremely niche, and is outsold by even the least successful devices in other markets, like the Zune selling as many units on its own in 2008 as the entire ebook reader market (1 million). It's clear we're nowhere near mass market acceptance of the products and until we are, there's no telling for certain what average consumers will actually want.

This 3 million units going out in '09 could be nearly entirely purchased by zealous standalone reader fans. Then, after an imaginary popularity explosion in '10, say 30 million units sell, and 27 million are bought by average consumers, and every single one of them complains about the lack of video or something. That's going to matter a lot more than any complaints on the mobile read forums about feature creep