Playboy's look at the Future... Sony Reader

[SciFiReader]

For all of you who get Playboy for the articles, the August 2007 issue I just recieved listed the Sony Reader as an example of a device that fortells what books will look like in the future. Thye highlight its design and use of E-ink. It was a short blurb within the whole article, but who would have thought that owning a Reader who make us old guys so macho.

[TadW]

Let's see... Sony Reader and Playboy magazine. What am I missing? Exactly. Color E Ink!

[joblack]

Black and White give you a lot of more imagination .. hehe.

[Nate the great]

The nice thing about the Sony Reader is that it fits in a large ziploc bag...

[josegdavila]

Recently bought a Sony Reader. This is the best community I have found for Ebooks information.
Thanks

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by josegdavila

Recently bought a Sony Reader. This is the best community I have found for Ebooks information.
Thanks

Welcome josegdavila! Glad you are enjoying your reader and the forum.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

The nice thing about the Sony Reader is that it fits in a large ziploc bag...

Now that is disgusting!

[Andanzas]

Originally Posted by josegdavila

Recently bought a Sony Reader. This is the best community I have found for Ebooks information.
Thanks

What made you say that precisely in a thread about Playboy?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Now that is disgusting!

Yes.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Now, when Playboy announces that they'll be releasing their periodicals for the Sony... that'll be news! But I'm sure they'll hold out for a color e-ink device. Then it'll be a race to see which soft-porn or YM/YW's magazine gets to the e-ink scene first.

It has been a prediction of mine that the availability of a popular YM or YW periodical for color e-ink devices... especially a mag that features pictures of celebrities and/or racy pictures, combined with a device that allows them to be "clipped" and saved in memory... will kick off a buying spree for the devices among their readers, possibly beating online newspapers as the "killer app" that gets everyone to start buying the readers. (Although I might expect that move from a mag like Stuff or FHM first, Playboy would certainly be a good candidate for it... they've only got 50 years' worth of articles and pictures waiting to be rediscovered.)

And once the readers were in more hands, you'd see e-book sales increase markedly, finally kicking off that market, too.

[yvanleterrible]

You've touched on to something there. If some company really want's to see readers succeed, they'll allow porn to be available to them. And then only a tiny step towards spam!

Yuck!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

You've touched on to something there. If some company really want's to see readers succeed, they'll allow porn to be available to them.

I didn't want to say that outright, but A. You're right, and B. That would be the quickest way to have the devices generally condemned by the public. Better for it to be soft-porn in addition to other YM or YW content, but not exclusively. Besides, advertisers would support a new ad venue, and they'll follow the YM and YW periodicals right into the reader, thereby co-supporting e-reading.

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

And then only a tiny step towards spam!

As a subscription service, there may be ads... but I doubt they'll qualify as spam, since they'll be connected to their periodicals, and as such, they'll be responsible for them to some extent. They shouldn't be so bad. Mind you, the quality of the ads depends on the magazine, so if you subscribe to Playboy, the ads will be good quality... if you subscribe to Shorty's Hot Celeb Panty Shots, the ad quality probably won't be so hot...

[yvanleterrible]

Yes but the step from static to animated porn is tiny and technology is there already. Animated eink is not far off.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

The porn industry tends to be quick (pun intended!) to jump onto (pun also intended!) new technology and use it for all it's worth (pun... oh, you get it ). I'm sure e-book readers will see their share of porn e-magazines, maybe with embedded movie files, etc, etc.

All I'm hoping is that the legit magazines hit first... because if not, e-readers will immediately garner a rep for being good for nothing but sleazy content, they will subsequently be banned from many public venues and institutions (including schools), and legit publishers will shy away from them. And none of us want that.

At least, if a magazine like Stuff gets there first, sure it has racy content, but no outright porn... mostly it's considered harmless for anything but crude humor, and selling men's toys. Celeb magazines would be better, less soft-porn, and good for selling high-priced TV and movie content, makeup goods, and fashion.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

All I'm hoping is that the legit magazines hit first... because if not, e-readers will immediately garner a rep for being good for nothing but sleazy content, they will subsequently be banned from many public venues and institutions (including schools), and legit publishers will shy away from them. And none of us want that.

As I recall it was the lack of porn on Betamax which was a contributary factor in VHS winning the "video format war", even though Betamax had a clear edge in terms of picture quality. You have to give the punters what they want!