E-books one of the biggest technology flops? - Page 2

RWood · 04-04-2007, 02:13 PM

When I voted in their poll I noted that only 1% had selected the eBook option. This means that most people do not regard it as a major (or rather the major) flop. Some of the items were groundbreaking such as the Apple Message Pad, most were efforts to buck a trend that was already moving in another direction. eBooks is the direction and the only things holding it back are a lack of standardization and publishers still stuck in the early 20th century -- copyright laws in place but buggy whips still in wide use.

igorsk · 04-04-2007, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

I went to Baen again this week to try to find something to buy to support them, and since I'm not really into military SF, I'm out of luck. Oddly enough, everything they offer that I want is in the "free library."

And to be honest, even if I wanted to mess around with DRM, there's still very little out there (on the legal market) that I'm interested in buying.

Baen has quite a few fantasy books. And not all of their SF is military.

yvanleterrible · 04-04-2007, 03:40 PM

Something that has to be pointed out is that no reader so far is at the price tipping point for success yet. No model is sold worldwide also.

The promised flexible plastic models will surely help attain this 'Graal'.

We're living this period with anxiety and some journalists feel they have to jump the gun and kill it in the egg at that process. Or is it the 'talk of me in good or talk of me in bad but talk of me' marketing scheme.

How many people know about the existence of ebook readers and how many about eink? The knowlege about ebooks is just starting to be spread.

NatCh · 04-04-2007, 03:53 PM

The second most common question I get about my Reader (after, "what is that?") is, "where do you get books?"

radleyp · 04-04-2007, 05:39 PM

I simply don't understand comments like that, and they sound to me like nothing so much as a way to justify buying the Sony reader in the first place. The typical reader reads books in copyright every day. I am part of a book club, and over the past 2 years, we have read 18 books: all of them were in copyright, i.e. not free. I, for one, will not change my reading habits to suit a gadget, however appealing. No ereader will ever get anywhere until the DRM problem is resolved, because only a very few will spend several hundred dollars on a device that can load only a particular encoding. Last week I ran into someone who had bought the Sony reader and returned it because, though in the software business, he found it annoying to have to download books at all. This is the kind of objection that will have to be dealt with.

NatCh · 04-04-2007, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by radleyp

he found it annoying to have to download books at all.

That's the sort of comment I find incomprehensible.

nekokami · 04-04-2007, 07:47 PM

The comment I get most often is, "can you transfer your notes to some other system afterward?" People usually see me taking notes on my iLiad. I read less in public (or people don't feel as free to interrupt me, perhaps.)

Perhaps radleyp's acquaintance didn't like the particular Sony Connect download interface. That wouldn't be the first complaint I've heard about it.

NatCh · 04-04-2007, 11:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

Perhaps radleyp's acquaintance didn't like the particular Sony Connect download interface. That wouldn't be the first complaint I've heard about it.

Well, that I wouldn't have any trouble understanding!

Nightwing · 04-05-2007, 02:12 AM

I date back to the 70's. If he considers the eBook a flop. What does he think of computers? Esp the PC WinTel boxes? Those were garbage! 4 color screen? Costly? limited or non existing software. One program running at one time. Mac, Atari ST, Amiga were superior to the lonely DOS box. Under his thinking computer's esp a Wintel box is a major flop.

Finally the screens and battery life have gotten to the point of usability on eBooks. And its only going to get better.

Azayzel · 04-05-2007, 08:26 AM

Grrr... the irony of the situation is that they'll be eating their words shortly and will probably say they never made that statement. I remember when the Palms first came out, it took a few years to catch on (with alot of innovation), but now they (the PDA concept) are mainstream and ultimately being being merged with the latest PIM's; i.e., cellphones.

grimo1re · 04-05-2007, 09:32 AM

Yeah, saw the article this morning. What I found funny was the comment about formats. Aren't there also heaps of video formats? graphics formats? Is digital video considered a flop because of that? They're just wankers, wanted to write a critical article, a nice little list, and this is all he could come up with...oohhh puhleaaase.

Jorgen · 04-05-2007, 09:49 AM

No, ebooks are the biggest publisher flop. The prices are too high and many publishers want DRM protection. The high prices invite piracy for obvious reasons; DRM likewise as it prevents you from moving from one reader/device to another.

Format? Who would care if they got rid of DRM. There would soon be plenty of web-sites that would convert them from one format to another. Or they would be sold in good old HTML.

Steven Lyle Jordan · 04-05-2007, 10:02 AM

I agree... publisher resistance is the only thing that has held e-books back. Their resistance has led to ridiculously high prices, DRM, non-supported devices and formats, advising major authors not to publish e-formats, and writing contracts making it a financial burden on the authors to e-publish.

But despite the resistance of the industry itself, e-books are still growing and developing. That's not a flop, that's a rags-to-riches success story in the making. The little guy that Big Business just can't keep down. The Cinderella story. Which is why that article just wasn't well thought out in the first place (unless it was just written for controversy's sake).

grimo1re · 04-05-2007, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Which is why that article just wasn't well thought out in the first place (unless it was just written for controversy's sake).

Yes, I think it was written for controversy's sake.

radleyp · 04-05-2007, 11:04 AM

I wanted to buy the Sony reader, but too many of the books I was looking to read were simply not Sony readable, nor were newspapers, magazines, etc... Two of the books I just read were not available in any eformat. So, for me this remains the obstacle, which could be solved another way, by having a reader that was more than just a reader, but that's another device altogether. So I'll just muddle along until the "right" device comes along (will it ever?).

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04-04-2007, 02:13 PM	#16
RWood Technogeezer Posts: 7,233 Karma: 1601464 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Virginia, USA Device: Sony PRS-500	When I voted in their poll I noted that only 1% had selected the eBook option. This means that most people do not regard it as a major (or rather the major) flop. Some of the items were groundbreaking such as the Apple Message Pad, most were efforts to buck a trend that was already moving in another direction. eBooks is the direction and the only things holding it back are a lack of standardization and publishers still stuck in the early 20th century -- copyright laws in place but buggy whips still in wide use.

04-04-2007, 03:40 PM	#18
yvanleterrible Reborn Paper User Posts: 8,616 Karma: 15446734 Join Date: May 2006 Location: Que Nada Device: iPhone8, iPad Air	Something that has to be pointed out is that no reader so far is at the price tipping point for success yet. No model is sold worldwide also. The promised flexible plastic models will surely help attain this 'Graal'. We're living this period with anxiety and some journalists feel they have to jump the gun and kill it in the egg at that process. Or is it the 'talk of me in good or talk of me in bad but talk of me' marketing scheme. How many people know about the existence of ebook readers and how many about eink? The knowlege about ebooks is just starting to be spread.

04-04-2007, 03:53 PM	#19
NatCh Gizmologist Posts: 11,615 Karma: 929550 Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Republic of Texas Embassy at Jackson, TN Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3	The second most common question I get about my Reader (after, "what is that?") is, "where do you get books?"

04-04-2007, 05:39 PM	#20
radleyp Evangelist Posts: 499 Karma: 20623 Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: North Salem & NYC, NY Device: Kindle Global, iphone4, ipad	I simply don't understand comments like that, and they sound to me like nothing so much as a way to justify buying the Sony reader in the first place. The typical reader reads books in copyright every day. I am part of a book club, and over the past 2 years, we have read 18 books: all of them were in copyright, i.e. not free. I, for one, will not change my reading habits to suit a gadget, however appealing. No ereader will ever get anywhere until the DRM problem is resolved, because only a very few will spend several hundred dollars on a device that can load only a particular encoding. Last week I ran into someone who had bought the Sony reader and returned it because, though in the software business, he found it annoying to have to download books at all. This is the kind of objection that will have to be dealt with.

04-04-2007, 07:47 PM	#22
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	The comment I get most often is, "can you transfer your notes to some other system afterward?" People usually see me taking notes on my iLiad. I read less in public (or people don't feel as free to interrupt me, perhaps.) Perhaps radleyp's acquaintance didn't like the particular Sony Connect download interface. That wouldn't be the first complaint I've heard about it.

04-05-2007, 02:12 AM	#24
Nightwing Addict Posts: 303 Karma: 541 Join Date: Oct 2006 Device: Cowon A2 Dell x3i, Sony Reader & Eee PC!	I date back to the 70's. If he considers the eBook a flop. What does he think of computers? Esp the PC WinTel boxes? Those were garbage! 4 color screen? Costly? limited or non existing software. One program running at one time. Mac, Atari ST, Amiga were superior to the lonely DOS box. Under his thinking computer's esp a Wintel box is a major flop. Finally the screens and battery life have gotten to the point of usability on eBooks. And its only going to get better.

04-05-2007, 08:26 AM	#25
Azayzel Cache Ninja! Posts: 643 Karma: 1002300 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Tokyo, Japan Device: PRS-500, HTC Shift, iPod Touch, iPaq 4150, TC1100, Panasonic WordsGear	Grrr... the irony of the situation is that they'll be eating their words shortly and will probably say they never made that statement. I remember when the Palms first came out, it took a few years to catch on (with alot of innovation), but now they (the PDA concept) are mainstream and ultimately being being merged with the latest PIM's; i.e., cellphones.

04-05-2007, 09:32 AM	#26
grimo1re Geekette Posts: 435 Karma: 3335 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: NSW, Australia Device: Sony Reader PRS500, PocketBook 360	Yeah, saw the article this morning. What I found funny was the comment about formats. Aren't there also heaps of video formats? graphics formats? Is digital video considered a flop because of that? They're just wankers, wanted to write a critical article, a nice little list, and this is all he could come up with...oohhh puhleaaase.

04-05-2007, 09:49 AM	#27
Jorgen Connoisseur Posts: 74 Karma: 84 Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Spain Device: Sony prs-650, iPod, BEBOOK Mini, Nokia n810, iPaq	No, ebooks are the biggest publisher flop. The prices are too high and many publishers want DRM protection. The high prices invite piracy for obvious reasons; DRM likewise as it prevents you from moving from one reader/device to another. Format? Who would care if they got rid of DRM. There would soon be plenty of web-sites that would convert them from one format to another. Or they would be sold in good old HTML.

04-05-2007, 10:02 AM	#28
Steven Lyle Jordan Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,478 Karma: 5171130 Join Date: Jan 2006 Device: none	I agree... publisher resistance is the only thing that has held e-books back. Their resistance has led to ridiculously high prices, DRM, non-supported devices and formats, advising major authors not to publish e-formats, and writing contracts making it a financial burden on the authors to e-publish. But despite the resistance of the industry itself, e-books are still growing and developing. That's not a flop, that's a rags-to-riches success story in the making. The little guy that Big Business just can't keep down. The Cinderella story. Which is why that article just wasn't well thought out in the first place (unless it was just written for controversy's sake).

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04-05-2007, 11:04 AM	#30
radleyp Evangelist Posts: 499 Karma: 20623 Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: North Salem & NYC, NY Device: Kindle Global, iphone4, ipad	I wanted to buy the Sony reader, but too many of the books I was looking to read were simply not Sony readable, nor were newspapers, magazines, etc... Two of the books I just read were not available in any eformat. So, for me this remains the obstacle, which could be solved another way, by having a reader that was more than just a reader, but that's another device altogether. So I'll just muddle along until the "right" device comes along (will it ever?).