The Digital Reader

A Link! A Link! My kingdom for a Link!E-books: Royalties vs. respect

With competition between electronics makers taking off for the fledging e-reader market, which is expected to hit 14 million units in the United States alone this year, the book publishing industry is being rapidly redefined.

E-Reader Owners Like Social Media

This probably comes as a surprise to no one, but it’s worth noting just the same: people who own e-readers are much more likely to participate in social networks, according to the latest Survey of the American consumer from GfK MRI.

E-Textbooks to iPads: Do Teenagers Use Them?

In February I happened across Josh Quittner’s story “The Future of Reading” in Fortune magazine and thought students in my high school journalism and English classes would enjoy it since they are concerned about the future of journalism. I sensed that his article would be controversial—given his perspective that reading tablets are likely to revive print journalism’s content—but I didn’t anticipate the heated debates we would have about the impact of these emerging digital platforms or the intensity of our discussions about the future of e-textbooks, journalism, and reading in general.

Gannett Holds Off On Charging for USAT iPad App—For Now

During Gannett’s last earnings call, CEO Craig Dubow said the company would introduce a subscription model for its USA Today iPad app just after July 4. Of course, Dubow made that statement about two weeks after the iPad’s release, before Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) said it had sold 2 million of them. It was also said without the hindsight that the USAT app would be downloaded over 500,000 times—and that the ad inventory for the app, which is estimated at $50 CPMs, would be sold out as well. But now, the company says its plans on a subscription model are not so definite.

X-rated eBook readers use computers for their kicks

A survey carried out by Xcite Books, one of the UK’s leading publishers of erotica, found that 63 per cent of their digital customers read their purchases on PCs and laptops, 10 per cent print them out to read them and only 16 per cent use a specialist eBook or Kindle reader.