Re: Re: Amazon Kindle

ASIN is just the way Amazon inventories--the "SIN" stands for  
"standard identification number." It's no different from the stock  
numbers any retailer assigns to inventory for purposes of efficiency.  
It's a lot easier to keep track of inventory using a standard coding  
system than to do so using the thousands of ISBNs currently in use.

The Kindle format is a variant of standard HTML. I give it a week  
before some enterprising geek has a program available to do direct  
conversions. But, as Sandy said, all you need offer is unecrypted Mobi.

Let's give the behemoth credit for knowing how to run a business. I'm  
quite sure Amazon had people monitoring the ebook community for long  
months, and they aren't stupid enough to ignore the fact that most of  
the avid ebook readers hate a machine that won't let them load their  
own stuff. The offer they have to convert for people for a dime is, I  
suspect, mainly aimed at the technologically challenged who don't want  
to handle it themselves.

I also suspect they have stats that indicate Mobi is a preferred  
format for those who read on PDAs. Ergo, they designed the Kindle so  
it will accept unencrypted Mobi AND MADE THE SOFTWARE TO CONVERT FILES  
THERETO FREE. Keep in mind that up till last spring you had to buy the  
Mobi translator program. It was Amazon that made the PROFESSIONAL  
level of the software free.

The encryption part is a necessity if they hope to have the mainstream  
publishers come on board. It's no different than what Apple had to do  
to persuade the major recording companies to sign up for iTunes. And  
note that several have declined to continue with iTunes for the very  
same reason Penguin et al. refuse to deal with the Kindle program-- 
they want to charge more money.

So far, the only mistake Amazon made was designing the thing so you  
basically have to have it in the cover to read without accidentally  
turning pages. I suspect some design maven told them they should do it  
that way so non-ebook readers would have a more book-like experience.  
Unfortunately, that designer must not have read the research data.

Well, and not having a backlit screen--but the opinion is divided on  
that anyway. There are those who demand it and those who find it hard  
to read on. And there's no question the E-ink resolution beats the  
other options hands down.

Personally, I'll wait for the next generation, where I'd imagine most  
if not all of the major criticisms of the overall design will have  
been addressed and where they may even have managed to come up with a  
color screen. Hopefully, they'll also do an iPhone and lower the  
price. But as readers go, I don't see that much not to like, and as a  
publisher I foresee this as being a way to persuade a fair share of  
the "I hate ebook" holdouts to change their tune.

L
Elizabeth Burton, Executive Editor
Zumaya Publications LLC
http://www.zumayapublications.com
Opening doors to the creative mind

On Nov 27, 2007, at 2:11 AM, Kent S. Larsen II wrote:

Amazon is using a proprietary identifier for ebooks (ASIN)



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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