Re: Re: Amazon Kindle

Hello everyone. I'm new but had to comment on this one.

Elizabeth, check out the iPod Touch, it's an iPhone without the cell phone and the monthly bill.

Potential Issues:
1. It's a backlight screen instead of eInk. Advantage: personal preference. 
 
 2. Touch is $100 cheaper (for 8GB of storage) or the same price for 16GB of storage. Advantage: Touch.
 
 3. Touch is limited to free wifi instead of the full cell phone based net for the Amazon reader. Advantage: Kindle.
 
 4. The Kindle is only a reader, the Touch is an iPod and an ebook reader. Advantage: Touch.
 
 5. The latest Touch software update allows for viewing pdfs by tilting the touch (for widescreen). Advantage: Touch.
 
 6. Touch has a full browser so you don't have to pay to subscribe to blogs that are free. You can go to Gutenberg yourself and download and read their books. Advantage: Touch.
 
 7. Touch can't read some of the ebook formats, but with third-party applications around the corner (February) you can bet that will change quickly. Advantage: Touch.
 
 8. Look at a picture of the Kindle. Now look at the iPod Touch. Advantage: Touch.
 
 All-in-all the Touch is a much better deal than the next several generations of the Kindle. Hell, you can use any ipod with a screen to read text files, google: ipod text files.

Elizabeth Burton <[email protected]> wrote:                               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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