Re: ebook reader market share report

On 12/11/2012 11:40 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> On Tuesday, 11th December 2012 at 22:31:32 (GMT -0800), James Adcock wrote:
>
>> http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/devices/article/54705-kindle-share-of-e-book-reading-at-55.html
>
>> Note that this report says that only 6% of readers use their computers
>> to read ebooks. Another 6% use an iPhone or a smart phone.
>
>
> This is a good example why Mark Twain was right when he said that
> there are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.

And this report is a good example of why this is true, and why knowing 
the methodology and raw data is A Good Thing.

For example, the summary at bowker.com also states that "The ... 
Bowker-powered survey shows that tablets have risen by about 25 percent 
over the past year as the first choice for respondents’ e-reading 
device, while dedicated e-readers have fallen by the same amount."

Wow, that must mean that Kindle's share has actually fallen substantially.

Well, not actually. The Kindle Fire is grouped with "tablets" and not 
"dedicated e-readers." And neither the Bowker summary nor the PW rehash 
gives actual absolute numbers. It may be that non-Apple/Amazon/B&N 
tablets are also growing in popularity, but their percentages of the 
whole are skewed by the Amazon marketing juggernaut. And the preferred 
file format for these various devices has been totally ignored.

Most interesting to me was the fact that Bowker bases their conclusions 
on "what is currently happening with e-book ‘Power Buyers.’ Their e-book 
purchasing and e-reader preferences have proven to be reliable 
predictors of market trends,” said Angela Bole, BISG’s Deputy Executive 
Director. In other words, Bowker has not attempted to capture device 
popularity, or capability, but only the preferences of those people who 
/buy/ e-books--and who buy lots of them (people who I often derisively 
label as "having more money than brains").

I can't remember the last time I /bought/ an e-book--it was probably 
about as long ago as I read anything downloaded from Project Gutenberg. 
I read e-books voraciously, but if I can't check it out from my library 
I just don't read it. There are plenty of other things competing for my 
attention.

This is, I think, consistent with Project Gutenberg data favoring the 
ePub format to the .mobi format; people who buy commercial e-books from 
major online retailers are not the same people who are downloading 
e-texts from PG. Different demographics, different levels of 
sophistication, different conclusions.



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