Having said that I was going to try to post more regularly, I immediately disappear for two and a half weeks. This was for the best of reasons – the birth of our first child. So I’m now easing myself back into work, and thought a short post might be in order.

Obviously there has been huge coverage of the new ebook reader from Amazon, but a couple of things in particular caught my eye.

 

Firstly, Richard Wallis at Panlibus wonders "how long before the first librarian is presented with one along with the request to check out the library’s copy of Harry Potter on to it?". As I note in my comment to this post, a review on Amazon already mentions the inability to read ebooks from the library as a ‘bad’ point (in a very positive review)

 

"I expected to be able to download ebooks from my local library (for free) and read them on my Kindle"

 

Secondly, Karen Schneider posts Kindle doesn’t light my fire. What is interesting about this post is what is missing. Karen complains about several things relating to the Kindle, but the reading experience isn’t one of them. Once you stop complaining about how rubbish the reader is, and start complaining about cost of content, and how you get stuff on the device, then isn’t this a huge leap forward?

 

I agree with Karen that at first look there are some oddities – charging for reading blogs? Who’d pay to read this rubbish? (But of course, you are – reading this has cost you a minute slice of your monthly/annual broadband charge or equivalent)

 

I’m not convinced that Amazon is onto a winner charging for accessing content rather than for using the data connection, but it’s interesting to see a different approach, and for books and similar content I can see some potential here – it’s as you creep into other areas of functionality such as reading blogs, or looking up stuff on wikipedia that the model looks slightly weaker.

Despite Karen’s criticisms, I’d leap at the chance to try one. Slightly ironically considering this is an e-book reader, I’m more interested in reading the paper on it than I am books – if I could get my daily paper (yes, ok, I admit it’s the Guardian) then I’d save huge amounts of paper (anyone done an analysis of ecofriendliness of the Kindle vs a daily paper yet?) – I’d want to be able to do the crossword as well I guess.

I read another comment (can’t track it down now) noting that unlike the situation with music, where existing CD collections could be converted for use with the iPod (and other players), this isn’t true with an ebook reader. Although this is true, it is probably also the case that you re-read less than you re-listen (or atleast, this is true for me).

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, has talked about the ‘iPod’ moment for newspapers, and although this may not be it (based on the pictures, the Kindle is no looker), it feels closer. Even if the Kindle is not the iPod for ebooks, I hope that it gets a UK release (unlike the Sony Libre), and I get to play with one soon.

Having said that I was going to try to post more regularly, I immediately disappear for two and a half weeks. This was for the best of reasons – the birth of our first child. So I’m now easing myself back into work, and thought a short post might be in order.

Obviously there has been huge coverage of the new ebook reader from Amazon, but a couple of things in particular caught my eye.

 

Firstly, Richard Wallis at Panlibus wonders "how long before the first librarian is presented with one along with the request to check out the library’s copy of Harry Potter on to it?". As I note in my comment to this post, a review on Amazon already mentions the inability to read ebooks from the library as a ‘bad’ point (in a very positive review)

 

"I expected to be able to download ebooks from my local library (for free) and read them on my Kindle"

 

Secondly, Karen Schneider posts Kindle doesn’t light my fire. What is interesting about this post is what is missing. Karen complains about several things relating to the Kindle, but the reading experience isn’t one of them. Once you stop complaining about how rubbish the reader is, and start complaining about cost of content, and how you get stuff on the device, then isn’t this a huge leap forward?

 

I agree with Karen that at first look there are some oddities – charging for reading blogs? Who’d pay to read this rubbish? (But of course, you are – reading this has cost you a minute slice of your monthly/annual broadband charge or equivalent)

 

I’m not convinced that Amazon is onto a winner charging for accessing content rather than for using the data connection, but it’s interesting to see a different approach, and for books and similar content I can see some potential here – it’s as you creep into other areas of functionality such as reading blogs, or looking up stuff on wikipedia that the model looks slightly weaker.

Despite Karen’s criticisms, I’d leap at the chance to try one. Slightly ironically considering this is an e-book reader, I’m more interested in reading the paper on it than I am books – if I could get my daily paper (yes, ok, I admit it’s the Guardian) then I’d save huge amounts of paper (anyone done an analysis of ecofriendliness of the Kindle vs a daily paper yet?) – I’d want to be able to do the crossword as well I guess.

I read another comment (can’t track it down now) noting that unlike the situation with music, where existing CD collections could be converted for use with the iPod (and other players), this isn’t true with an ebook reader. Although this is true, it is probably also the case that you re-read less than you re-listen (or atleast, this is true for me).

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, has talked about the ‘iPod’ moment for newspapers, and although this may not be it (based on the pictures, the Kindle is no looker), it feels closer. Even if the Kindle is not the iPod for ebooks, I hope that it gets a UK release (unlike the Sony Libre), and I get to play with one soon.