Poll: Will Sony help the e-book market to grow?

[Brian]

Here's something interesting that goes along with this debate: Take a look at these searches at Technorati.com for the terms ebooks , e-books, and "ebook OR ebooks OR e-book OR e-books then note the small graphs on the left that show mentions by day for the past 30 days. There appears to be quite a spike for the term "ebooks" over the last few days that coincide with the Sony Reader announcement at CES. I'm trying to figure out a possible reason for the spike on 12/20 for both "e-books" and "ebooks", any ideas?? I wonder if the noticable spikes in the terms "ebooks" and "ebook OR ebooks OR e-book OR e-books" around the end of December and over the last few days are due to the original story by BusinessWeek on the 29th about Sony's plans and the subsequent announcement at CES?

As time goes on and the Reader, Jinke Hanlin and iRex Iliad are released and people are buying e-books for these devices, I wonder if the mean(?) for mentions per day of for e-books will go up significantly (my statistics is rusty, so please forgive me). The mean mentions by day (MMBD) for "ebooks" appears to be between 75-100 mentions per day while the MMBD for "e-books" appears to be around 40-50 per day. The MMBD for "ebook OR ebooks OR e-book OR e-books" appears to be around 400 or so. All of these figures are based on the number of sites and links Technorati tracks, currently at 24.6 million sites and 1.9 billion links.

This is all just anecdotal evidence, but these numbers could be used as a baseline to measure the popularity of these terms over time.

Anyone with a background in statistics that can crunch the numbers and track these trends? Is there any other source of more complete data that could be used? (Edit: Found!)

[Bob Russell]

The spike on 12/20 may be due to the free book promotion from ereader...
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5562

[Brian]

Originally Posted by BobR

The spike on 12/20 may be due to the free book promotion from ereader...
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5562

Could be Bob..

I just found a great tool to track trends at blogpulse.com.

"E-book" buzz (ebook|ebooks|e-book|e-books) See attached thumbnail #1.

It looks like the buzz created by the Sony Reader might have benefited the iRex Iliad as well. See attached thumbnail #2

Let's see how much the "buzz" picks up as the Sony Reader hits the market. Whether or not the buzz will translate into e-book market growth will remain to be seen...

[OT] It looks like the Sony Reader announcement is the best think to come along for e ink in quite a while! See thumbnail #3.

The e-book market will grow very well if the Sony can be hacked. These guys continually offer products they wouldn't buy themselves.

Most of us have years worth of content, and simply need a device. Provided there is a way to transcode that content, the first Sony/iRex/Hanlin style e-ink device that we can stuff the content into will be a winner.

If only they would stop trying to profiteer from old content: HEY! SONY! - the horse has bolted with freeware txt fiction from 1750, stop trying to make money from it!

The iRex with a content subsidy is the best chance IMO. News/blog content delivered wirelessly to the device on the way out the door to the morning commute is very achievable and very compelling.

Many early adopters, with the reassurance that their current e-book content will work in the device, would I think be prepared to subscribe to an Audible-like news service to knock a bit off the iRex list price.

Many others will work their way up to paying the higher price anyway. <--- This is probably me. It will take me a couple of weeks to justify it to myself, but a steady diet of online reviews feeding my geek envy will soon get it done.

Originally Posted by Laurens

Maybe people are unfairly slamming Sony for making e-books so expensive. Aren't the publishers setting the prices?

As I recall from much earlier eBook initiatives, the publishers DID set the prices. It was why various eBook sellers had to offer books at full price while the hardcover version of the same book was able to be discounted the very day it came out. That was a bite in the butt for the eBook trend.

Besides, I think that people have been making a big deal out of the JPG with the "supposed price" of the eBook. How sure can we be that it's not just a "concept" photo? I'm trying to remember where I read it, but I thought that the Connect store would be discounting eBooks in the 15%-25% range.

In any case, I'll wait and see.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Besides, I think that people have been making a big deal out of the JPG with the "supposed price" of the eBook. How sure can we be that it's not just a "concept" photo? I'm trying to remember where I read it, but I thought that the Connect store would be discounting eBooks in the 15%-25% range. In any case, I'll wait and see.

You find more on the Connect store here.