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Why I won’t be buying ebooks for a while

When I finished my last ebook the other day, i went to my bookshelf. Mainly it was to save a little money, I read fast when I read fiction, so I was consuming about 2-3 books a month, not a cheap hobby.

So I picked up a trusty paperback I’ve read 3 times previous but not recently (the last 4 years or s0).

I had forgotten how nice a book feels. No I’m not suddenly an anti paper luddite, but real books are nice, the feel of paper (in this books case) the degrading spine (mass market paperbacks sadly aren’t designed to last) requiring kid gloves to read it, etc.

But that nostalgia aside, i’m still a big proponent of eBooks, but I’m reconsidering my opinion that they’ve ‘arrived’

Not only does Amazon cow towing to McMillan bother me, but in general the trend of Amazon and the publishers.

I had hoped after what? 2 years of Kindle sales, stats like every Kindle owner on average buys 2.7 or something more books than non Kindle owning Amazon users, etc. That the publishers would get onboard the clue train.

But that doesn’t seem to have happened.

My take on the iPad – Might as well join in

Despite what my more fervent fanboi friends think, I don’t hate the iPad.

As the organizer of a conference for iPhone developers, I can’t wait to see what they do with the iPad. I can’t wait for panels on the differences, etc.

This post isn’t about that. This post is about me as a techy, power user consumer. The exact person the iPad isn’t for.

Alex Payne captures my thoughts on this really well. From a Flex Developer standpoint (Yeah that’s right hater, Flash!) I think Doug sums it up well.

I’m not gonna lie I let the rumor mill wind my expectations up more than I should have.

What makes the Kindle awesome, isn’t Amazon.

It’s funny I was reading Joe Wikert’s post on the death of the Kindle, when Amazon released it’s long, long, long awaited firmware update 2.3, adding a few, but not enough of the things Joe mentions being conspicuously missing from the Kindle.

Joe has some really good points, and sadly, 2.3 doesn’t negate many if any at all.

Then I got to thinking, what makes me still recommend my Kindle? It’s not the Kindle itself, it’s only a little bit Amazon itself, though I do almost all my buying on amazon, and really like the whispernet service.

it’s the incredible third party ecosystem that has grown around the Kindle to make it a truly kick ass device.

eBooks unprofitable at 9.99? I call Shenanigans

I came across this on Tele-Read, and had to voice my irritation.

Not only do I think it’s BS that a $9.99 eBook isn’t profitable I think it’s outrageous that Steve Haber sucks for thinking consumers are a bunch of idiots that don’t understand profit margins.

Perhaps $9.99 isn’t profitable for Sony (Why is sony profiting at all on eBook sales?) because Sony is a huge bloated company with (I’d guess) more middle management than it needs. Profit margins have to be high for bloated inefficient companies to survive. That’s not the consumers fault, or the competition.

It’s an ebook, very little work goes into it’s creation, distribution, etc beyond the initial writing/editing process. Unless publishers are so backwards they’re still mailing manuscripts around in big envelopes, the work is already digital. Translate to ePub, and that’s it.

WTF, you can’t make money on $9.99 when you’re doing nothing more than taking the finished digital work, and converting to ePub? Really? eBook sales should be icing. You’re already marketing the book (or should be), already pitching it to brick and mortors, etc. the eBook is the “Oh yeah it’s also available on your eReader”

How the Library can survive and Thrive.

Tom and I were in LA for Adobe MAX a few weeks ago. On our last day before heading to LAX, we walked around the LA Public Library. It’s a cool ass building, I gotta say. Massive pillars, cool art, immense open space. I hadn’t been in a library in a long time, it’s nice to be surrounded by books, and people who like them.

As always we started talking about technology, and in particular eBooks, and eReaders, and how the library of tomorrow won’t look like the one we were walking through.

Here’s the idea we came up with, looking at the crowd of people in the library.

Offer a Kindle (or a Nook, or whatever) to each library member. Of course they’d need to be subsidized somehow, and you could probably get away with charging something super small, $20 maybe? Just to put a value on it to holders. It’s Library property, so you could also enforce some “Lose it, buy it” deal, and give the $20 back if it’s returned in working order. Otherwise it’s a lifetime deal like a library card.

Trade in my Kindle for a nook?

I’m defintiely a Kindle fanboy. I’ve never owned another eReader, nor thought a netbook or even notebook was a remotely viable alternative to an eReader, heck even an iPhone/iTouch, isn’t up to the job IMO.

And now I’m torn.

The Nook (Gizmodo Review), looks incredible. Up until now, the other eReaders, looked F-ugly, performed poorly, cost too much, etc. But B&N seems to have hit a home run. I’ll admit, I haven’t seen one in person, yet. If half the write ups are accurate though, this device has true Kindle killer potential.

I’ve also made no bones about the things I think Amazon is doing wrong; DRM, proprietary format, pricing, etc. Can the Nook, counter enough of them to win me over?

The nook, certainly looks like a great alternative to the Kindle. So much so, I’m really debating my allegiance to Jeff and Co.

Events, fun and why i do them

360|MAX

Adobe MAX is the annual “geek out” for those of us doing anything with Adobe technologies. It’s a huge event, costs a metric buttload, and is usually pretty over the top. It’s also hugely fun, and a great way to see folks who don’t come out for other events typically. It’s also nice to attend an event that I’m not organizing, or at least not organizing much of.

360|Conferences does an unconference at MAX, to bring some community to the event. It’s always a good time, we get some great speakers to give us some time and share what they know. It was really cool this time that we had some more interesting topics; Arduino/Flex interaction, How a rock band uses Flex/AIR and even iPhone in their performances, etc.

It was a good time.

Next time, we’ll limit talks to 30 minutes. It’s about double the sessions, but I think 30 minutes is a good time slot, we can get more great topics going.

The funnest part of my job (If I can call it that) is doing different types of events. They’re not just always the same event over and over. Even 360|Flex and 360|iDev, while super similar, and based on the same ideals, are vastly different. Then throw in Ignite, 360|FlexPress, and hopefully a Festival of Books, and it’s just a great time bringing people together!

Sony Ditching Proprietary eBook Format! Huzza!

I’m really glad there’s some consolidation shaking out (finally). I’m really shocked it was Sony of all company’s that backed down on proprietary. I mean, it’s Sony, I don’t think they’ve ever released hardware that didn’t have an accompanying proprietary memory stick, or file format. ATRAC anyone?

This is big. ePub is a great format, i’ve not complaints about it. I’d love to see Amazon put their pipe down long enough to see the forest for the trees. The Kindle is (sadly because I own one) approaching flash in the pan status. Amazon’s own practices are going to marginalize it as a device.

Did Sony beat Amazon to the desktop?

A while back I wrote that the killing stroke in the eBook reader marketshare war wouldn’t be the reader device any more than the iPod was in the eMusic war. It’ll be the desktop software that powers such devices. I won’t re-hash my thoughts on that, read them here. but according to Mobilereads, Sony might [...]

My Friend wrote a book, buy it.

Last week I was at a book reading/signing for a new friend in Denver, Ron Lewis.

His book ‘Stick it to the Man: How to Skirt the Law, Scam Your Enemies , and Screw Big, Fat, Stupid, Lazy Corporations…for Fun and Profit!’ launched last week, and the party was at a the Barnes & Noble downtown.

Ron is a great guy, truly interested in meeting people and doing what he can to help them succeed. When I first met Ron, I was blown away by his genuineness, he proposed we meet for coffee and was not just looking for one more person to talk about his book to. We talked about 360|Conferences, my Kindle (which I brought with him and showed him).

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