Kobo research team is asking for feedback on Reddit

[elinkser]

Originally Posted by Quoth

2) No assurance of privacy

If Kobo wanted to know what users wanted, it would be better to have an open-ended, public question,

This exercise sounds more like what the marketing folks are trained to want: how to extract previously inaccessible value from sideloading users.

Corporate:We're losing revenue stream by not having data on sideloading users,
Let's conduct a private survey asking if users want more software.

User: MORE free software? Sure, why not?

Corporate: Our private studies show users want more software.
(Prepares to accumulate more marketing data and ad revenue.)

[Quoth]

maybe.

But ultimately they need to only make profit from selling the ereaders without any subscription and regard bookstore as icing or the Kobo ereaders will join the Sony PRS series.

They are not going to turn ereaders into iThings and Androids making Apple & Google money from the store services. Amazon is trying that with Fire and Scribe. and with over 90 % of English Language ebook market, yet users only want free sync.

They have Kobo plus and audiobooks already. The audiobooks won't sell ereaders and can hardly compete to Amazon's Audible and neither has much value for ereaders.

They need to play to strength, the decent ereader, and regard the bookshop as icing.

If they think the survey is telling them to offer paid services they will be wrong.

[Gone]

Took the survey. Thanks for the info!

[Gone]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

I learned something about already available tooling by others as Bionic Reading. Never would have known that.

Yeah, well, could be cool, but I won't pay a subscription just to read "better".

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by Claude_C

Yeah, well, could be cool, but I won't pay a subscription just to read "better".

Nor do I. But at least now I know somebody did made a business case out of it.

[rcentros]

Thanks for the link. For what Kobo could add (and if you had a magic wand what would you change) I mentioned a Send-to-Kobo via email feature and built in ADE (like PocketBook).

EDIT: I didn't use the word "PocketBook" in the survey.

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I answered the Bionic Reading question with a have tried it and it's awful. It is awful and Kobo need to know this. I do not want it in the firmware. Bionic Reading does not work.

I don't like it so I don't want to be available to anyone who does is the most JSWolf Comment ever.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Thanks for the link. For what Kobo could add (and if you had a magic wand what would you change) I mentioned a Send-to-Kobo via email feature

That's what I suggested also, with the emphasis on documents available across all my Kobo devices and in my Kobo account.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by issybird

That's what I suggested also, with the emphasis on documents available across all my Kobo devices and in my Kobo account.

I can see that IF they implement syncing of sideloaded content, that eMail to device would be a logical addition.

[twowheels]

My "magic wand" answer was a 5" reader with adjustable warm lighting and page turn buttons similar to those on the Kindle 3 (Keyboard).

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by twowheels

My "magic wand" answer was a 5" reader with adjustable warm lighting and page turn buttons similar to those on the Kindle 3 (Keyboard).

You mean like the D-pad on the original Kobo and Kobo WiFi models?

[pickyaxe]

the fact that Kobo did not do a survey here gives me the impression that they're very out of touch of who their userbase is - a few minutes of due diligence would have allowed them to find this place. was davidfor really the only Kobo-affiliated person here?

that along with some of the questions in the survey really doesn't inspire much confidence.

[Quoth]

Here is probably not representative of the majority of Kobo users?

[PennyDred]

They knew we would find it though..! But the typical Reddit user wouldn't necessarily come here. My main 'magic wand' request was better battery-life and an official SD card slot on the Elipsa sized readers. Given that they're not waterproof anyway.
In the longer term, I'd love to see something modular, like the Fairphone.

[John F]

I forgot to mention it in the survey, so could someone mention a (open) remote page turning device.