Kobo Touch $129

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by dmikov

Well I imagine that most popular books on B&N and Amazon store, kinda indicative at what most people read and hint it is not technical books.

What makes you think that? Amazon has about 38k computer books (that's what my Kindle 3 lists when shopping)

Just to give you an idea, romance are about 48k and mistery 37k. There are no statistics about how many sold by type but computer books, even poetry, have a big market. Sites have a top ten but they don't provide their sales number.

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

Proof that people most read novels on their readers?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/digital-text

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks/bestsellers.asp

http://kobobooks.com/top50.html

Oh wait, I'm sure ALL of these companies are actually selling tons of poetry books and technical manuals, and keeping it a secret.

eP

So? ...

There is a huge computer market out there. One of the reason why they also have the Kindle DXG model. The point is that landscape mode is a useful feature certainly needed by an important market.

Most people are right handed. Are you going to isolate those when designing a reader? Its basically the same ...

[elemenoP]

Originally Posted by jocampo

Do you have any statistics with external links to support that? I mean, that most people reads novels.

The above was the reason for my post. There is NO DOUBT that most people read novels on ereaders. As for how big the market for technical books is, and what features should be supported in ereaders in accordance with that, I don't know.

eP

[MorganM]

I watched a few video reviews of the Kobo Touch on youtube not long ago and it looks nice but the screen response is a bit sluggish. Dunno if I will be interested in buying one now...

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by MorganM

I watched a few video reviews of the Kobo Touch on youtube not long ago and it looks nice but the screen response is a bit sluggish. Dunno if I will be interested in buying one now...

I'd wait for reviews of production devices when they start shipping. From what I've read the ones in videos from BEA are beta devices they were still tweaking things on.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

The above was the reason for my post. There is NO DOUBT that most people read novels on ereaders. As for how big the market for technical books is, and what features should be supported in ereaders in accordance with that, I don't know.

eP

I would imagine that technical ebooks sell proportionately about as well as they do in print. I purchase a lot of them myself, but only a couple of these have been from Amazon: not when I can get multi-format licenses by purchasing direct from O'Reilly (often for less $).

The problem with ereaders and computer books is not so much the small screen, which I find tolerable, but the lack of nimble navigation features. They are great for linear reading but not so much for reference-type books - too slow to jump around.

[Cyberman tM]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

You're an anonymous entity on the internet. Do you think I really care what you have to say?

Not really, no. But I care about what I say. I don't like it if my bad temper gets the better (or worse) of me.

Originally Posted by dmikov

Well I imagine that most popular books on B&N and Amazon store, kinda indicative at what most people read and hint it is not technical books.

These aren't the only places to buy books. Recently, I only bought books at O'Reilly - i.e. technical books.

I don't know how many technical books Amazon and B&N have, but I would guess that many (most?) who shop for technical books would use a specialty store, like the aforementioned O'Reilly.
I know I'd go to the source, if possible. (And of course if they'd sell to me. Once I was trying to buy novel directly at the publishers site. They wouldn't sell it to me, but Kobo did. Weird.)

[edit]BTW, why would landscape be of interest only to technical books anyway? (Old?) PDFs often read better in landscape. Or huge fonts.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

Once I was trying to buy novel directly at the publishers site. They wouldn't sell it to me, but Kobo did. Weird.

Sometimes the publisher's just not set up to take international transactions directly (while Kobo is), so while they're willing to 3rd party sell a book to you, they just don't want to handle having to tweak with their payment system to accommodate people outside their own area.

Which can be a shame, since sometimes it would be nice to support a publisher more directly by ensuring they get a bigger cut of the sale price.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I tried it on my Kindle and didn't like it. I prefer portrait and doubt I'll ever try landscape again.

That might be because the presence of the keyboard and the paging buttons placement make holding and using Kindles in landscape mode awkward. Presumably the symmetry and balance of the Kobo Touch would eliminate the awkwardness. I know that the Pocketbook 360 feels great with one or two hands, paging buttons on left, right, or bottom. Landscape reading is just as comfortable on the PB 360 as portrait. I don't see why it shouldn't be the same on the Kobo.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Most people don't read that type of material on their ereaders - they read novels; and for that, landscape isn't needed.

The novel "A Visit from the Goon Squad" has a chapter written in powerpointless. I haven't seen it, so I don't know if that chapter is landscape.

Anyway, you might as well conclude that any given book is not read by most people, so no books are needed.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by jocampo

Then I will remove it from my wish list. Same thing with Nook Touch. I do not understand why they refuse to implement landscape on epub.

fbreader does landscape, and there is an fbreader for android, so maybe someone has or will get it running on the Nook(s).

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

They're all valid requests.

Now how long have people been asking B&N to implement landscape in the Nook? and how long has B&N ignored those requests? and how long will it be before those making these requests realize that B&N just doesn't care?

I finally gave up on B&N when the Nook Touch came out -- although they're still my go-to source for books -- but there are still lots of people hoping B&N will start listening to us. I'm too cynical, perhaps.

[tomsem]

Just curious: does NookColor have landscape for reading (either ePub or PDF)? The reports I've seen say the reading options for it and the new Nook are 'the same', just wondering if that is the case.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

There is room for 2 or 3 or perhaps 4 ebook platforms worldwide and, at this point, Kobo certainly appears to be playing a strong, not a weak, hand as was implied.

Originally Posted by CommonReader

And this extremely bold claim is based on what, exactly?

Which part did you find "extremely bold"? There is room for 2 to 4 e-book platforms worldwide? Or Kobo appears to be playing a strong hand?

The post you quoted from made the case for each of those. However, here's a recap of the logic: Amazon and Kobo are "worldwide" on hardware and ebook sales; B&N is confined to the US; Sony's intention in the ereader/ebook space is extremely unclear as they've essentially sat on the sidelines for the past two aside from updating the screen and touch technology last fall (both excellent updates). Kobo didn't exist a year ago, now it is "widely" available.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by Fbone

But my last statement still stands. The ebook/ereader industry is a difficult one for non-Amazon companies.

In addition, what will happen when the digital book market levels off? These companies and/or divisions will need to be profitable soon while we're experiencing rapid growth. I'm not positive they can afford to introduce new ereaders every 12-18 months.

I too would like to see 4 or more platforms worldwide. Who has a strong or weak hand I don't know. Companies with a lot of cash and/or higher net incomes will fair better (and still be around) a year or two from now.

Yup agreed: Amazon, as far as ebooks goes, is the 800 Gorilla. But so far that's just driving innovation and segment seeking by competitors.

I believe ereaders are already "maturing": the low end is sorting out what the minimum requirements are -- including price! There's going to continue to be competition here and long-standing usefulness of a player that is kinda sorta like a Kindle 3 / Nook Touch (low price, b&w, extended charge, always on wifi, shared bookmarks, dictionary, cloud integration). But the "new" models are more likely to come in the higher price range -- adding colour, video, larger screens, college level annotation features, etc.

I'm not sure more than 4 platforms are possible long term but outside of English, that's easier to think about: Arabic, Mandarin and other non-western font languages could easily see "niche" players emerge that are larger than the "2 to 4 possible platforms" I was referring to.

I'm inclined to believe the players in market a year or so from now will be those which continue to deliver a great reading and customer experience and not necessarily those with the deepest pockets.