Is the end near for Mobipocket?

[ondabeach]

Amazon can stick the kindle..... well you know where!

The writing has been on the wall for a long time, in fact ever since the epub format was launched. Industry standard formats don't take off overnight but they are essential and benefit everyone (except maybe the big publishers... boo hoo for them). It took MP3 a while to kill off all other music formats but now they can be played on everything but the electric toaster.

Having a non-proprietory format such as ePUB for not only eBooks but all forms of ePublications is absolutely essential and was always inevitible. The fact that Amazon wasn't the first to jump on the band wagon with epub shows their short sightedness but also belies their monopolistic and greedy attitude. They are sh*t scared of ePUBS and they should be.

ePulishing is going through what the music industry went through... exactly! And yet the Amazon's and the large publishing houses have stuck their heads in the sand and told themselves that it can't happen to them... hah! Did you know that there are very few recognised musical artists that are tied to label, sure they still do deals for the CD's to be produced and promoted but they own the rights to their music and can sell it on itunes, their own website or a street corner if they want.

Non-DRM ePUBs and authors like Steve Jordan are the future of eBooks.
There will come a day, and a lot sooner than you might think, that you will be able to buy Stephen King's or J.K.Rowling's latest ebook for $2.50 and at that kind of price 99.9% of people will do the right thing and pay for it and they'll be able to read it on whatever device or software they like.... just like MP3s.

Do I feel sorry for people who have bought a kindle... absolutely, are people going to be disadvantaged by amazons decisions.... absolutely, they, unfortunately are casualties of war.

Proprietory formats are EVIL.... DRM is EVIL.... anyone who tells you otherwise is only trying to protcect their huge middle man profits.

IMHO

[RWood]

Originally Posted by tsgreer

I just got an email that mentioned that Amazon DTP (their self-publisher wing) will no longer accept public domain titles. Here is the text of the email:

Subject: Alert from Amazon DTP

Dear Publisher,

We’re working on a policy and procedure change to fix a customer experience problem caused by multiple copies of public domain titles being uploaded by a multitude of publishers. For an example of this problem, do a search on “Pride and Prejudice” in the Kindle Store. The current situation is very confusing for customers as it makes it difficult to decide which “Pride and Prejudice” to choose. As a result, at this time we are not accepting additional public domain titles through DTP.
Thank you

It would seem that some small private publishers are cleaning the texts of the public domain books, correcting errors from the transcriptions, fixing the quotes, etc. that the others (Amazon included) leave in the e-book. Then they have the gall to price these corrected PD e-books reasonably. How dare they.

An example would be the Father Brown Omnibus from Timeless Classics.

[zacheryjensen]

Originally Posted by RWood

It would seem that some small private publishers are cleaning the texts of the public domain books, correcting errors from the transcriptions, fixing the quotes, etc. that the others (Amazon included) leave in the e-book. Then they have the gall to price these corrected PD e-books reasonably. How dare they.

An example would be the Father Brown Omnibus from Timeless Classics.

Another reason to consider purchasing a public domain work, and in my opinion the most important reason, is translation! Years ago I tried to read The Divine Comedy from project gutenberg and I found it horribly banal, poorly written cruft. I figured it must've just been a matter of me not being interested in that sort of subject matter. Years later, however, someone brought it up, I made my complaints, and they asked what translator... I had no idea. I didn't even consider it. Now I have a copy from Penguin classics, and it's far more enjoyable. The differences aren't that vast if you make a comparison, but it seems to be a matter of the translator's grasp of my language that makes the biggest difference.

That said, I realize that translations of public domain works are not public domain unless explicitly made to be so. I just hope that Amazon's new rules don't prevent translation quality competition for translated PD works.

[Sweetpea]

Just more drm-stripping and conversions to mobipocket for me. I like the mobipocket reader a lot and will use it until my WinCE based devices die.

[EowynCarter]

That was done long ago, with that decition not to allow other drm was taken.

It coudn't end any other way.... I've seen that comming the day i learned about bookeen switching to ePub, and the reasons behind the no mobi support. Americans are taking the worse of it. Unless amazon switch to ePub (we can dream right !) , it will end with sony using ePub, amazon using mobi. Ouch !

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

That was done long ago, with that decition not to allow other drm was taken.

It coudn't end any other way.... I've seen that comming the day i learned about bookeen switching to ePub, and the reasons behind the no mobi support. Americans are taking the worse of it. Unless amazon switch to ePub (we can dream right !) , it will end with sony using ePub, amazon using mobi. Ouch !

You mean, every device using epub and amazon using mobipocket and nothing but mobipocket

[krischik]

Originally Posted by ondabeach

It took MP3 a while to kill off all other music formats but now they can be played on everything but the electric toaster.

Actually Apple sells MP4 in there iTunes store.

Martin

[Hadrien]

Same thing will happen to the eReader format. It'll be replaced with EPUB using eReader's DRM.

[nelsonescorcio]

No surprise.
It was pretty clear that Amazon decided to kill, in the medium term, the mobi format when they choose not to (formally) use it with the Kindle. They just wanted the tecnologie.

So now it is (almost) over.

We all better start counting the books we have that, in the near future, won't be read in any device at all.

Early adopters are frequently victims of the system (i.e. choices made regarding commercial interests and not consumers interests).

Regards
Nelson

[=X=]

Am I the only one who feels the OP is jumping the gun here. To shut down a web subscription for publishers does not really translated to a dying format. I just think Amazon wants more control as to who joins the Mobilepocket distribution channel.

=X=

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Same thing will happen to the eReader format. It'll be replaced with EPUB using eReader's DRM.

It is likely that B&N will release an eReader application that will read both formats but yes, in the long run I think the format will die. It was targeted and too small a device.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by =X=

Am I the only one who feels the OP is jumping the gun here. To shut down a web subscription for publishers does not really translated to a dying format. I just think Amazon wants more control as to who joins the Mobilepocket distribution channel.

=X=

No, you're not. The dutch article says remarkably little, and I assumed that they had additional info from another source. Given the coincident timing with Amazon Kindle's announcement that they wouldn't be allowing 'PD submissions' anymore, it might just as well be something else. Still, I doubt it will encourage publishers to go to mobipocket.com and email them when all they see is that they can no longer register with them, only with the Kindle store (meaning they will only be selling to kindle users).

[thechansen]

Originally Posted by krischik

Actually Apple sells MP4 in there iTunes store.

Martin

And to further that argument AAC, while keeping the same audio quality at a lower file size and being a format that Apple championed, is gaining ground in other MP3 players. Zune/Xbox, PSP/PS3/Walkmans, Nokia phones, Android phones, the DSi/Wii, H264 MPEG4 video that broadcaster use, and more have all adopted AAC. I would like to think that MP3 is on the outs.

But this whole DRM/Kindle store debacle is exactly a reason I went with the Sony reader family.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by thechansen

And to further that argument AAC, while keeping the same audio quality at a lower file size and being a format that Apple championed, is gaining ground in other MP3 players. Zune/Xbox, PSP/PS3/Walkmans, Nokia phones, Android phones, the DSi/Wii, H264 MPEG4 video that broadcaster use, and more have all adopted AAC. I would like to think that MP3 is on the outs.

But this whole DRM/Kindle store debacle is exactly a reason I went with the Sony reader family.

.. That's really because AAC is part of a lot of low-bandwidth mpeg4 implementations. Hasn't really got anything to do with format superiority, as the quality is not noticeably different between mp3 and aac.

[krischik]

Originally Posted by thechansen

And to further that argument AAC, while keeping the same audio quality at a lower file size and being a format that Apple championed, is gaining ground in other MP3 players. Zune/Xbox, PSP/PS3/Walkmans, Nokia phones, Android phones, the DSi/Wii, H264 MPEG4 video that broadcaster use, and more have all adopted AAC. I would like to think that MP3 is on the outs.

You forgot the Sony PRS-505. The most lousy audio player I have seen but it does pay AAC. Note that I called it MP4 to emphasis that it is not an Apple only format - but I guess ACC is the accurate name.

Martin