I’ve been thinking about the Overdrive/Amazon announcement that will bring the Kindle into the device fold for library eBook lending and I have to say it raises concerns for me. In addition to the questions raised by Bobbi Newman, Jason Griffey, and Sarah Houghton-Jan (all very sharp queries), I think libraries are poorly positioned for [...]
Entries from April 21st, 2011
Amazon’s missed opportunity
April 21st, 2011 · 1 Comment · opinion
The Kindle finally got library support yesterday. This was an ability that Amazon could have had at launch, except (for some reason known only to them) they didn’t want it. As I was thinking about Amazon’s decisions to limit what the Kindle could do, I was reminded about an upgrade Amazon could have had if [...]
Tags:Amazon·missed·opportunity
Ads in eBooks Are a Good Thing. Deal with It.
April 20th, 2011 · 11 Comments · opinion
Amazon is introducing an advertising component to the Kindle platform. I love it. Kudos to Jeff Bezos & Co. for their forward thinking on this initiative. I’m talking about the less expensive ($114) device currently known as “Kindle with Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers.” (It’s not the sexiest name but it certainly describes the product! [...]
Information vs Entertainment
April 20th, 2011 · 7 Comments · opinion
So I was going to do a second post on my review of the Wired app, but it didn’t jell. I kept wanting to write a post that reflected on the meta-context of information vs entertainment as a topic and didn’t just nitpick on the details of Wired. You see, it wasn’t until I really [...]
Tags:entertainment·information·vs
Kindle Lessons Learned After a Year Away
April 19th, 2011 · 8 Comments · opinion
I’m glad I jumped back into the Kindle market. My wifi-only Kindle is getting almost as much use as my iPad. I recently wrote a post about lessons learned the first year with that device. I figured I ought to do something similar covering lessons learned after a year away from the Kindle:
Piracy will bring about the end of Western Civilization
April 19th, 2011 · 6 Comments · opinion
So a friend tipped me to this story on piracy that was on front page of Metro, a free UK daily newspaper. Normally I would read it, laugh at the inaccuracies, and go on with my life. But I decided to rebut this one. It should only take me a half hour or so, and [...]
Tags:about·bring·civilization·end·of·piracy·the·western·will
The Wired iPad app could use some work
April 18th, 2011 · 2 Comments · software reviews
So Wired are giving away the May issue of their iPad edition for free, and I finally have an iPad. I immediately downloaded it – well, “immediately” is a bit of a stretch; it was 380MB and took 20 minutes to download. I’ve had a number of requests on twitter that I review this app, [...]
Sometimes it’s not you – It’s the app
April 18th, 2011 · 1 Comment · software reviews
I’ve been getting the free Android app from Amazon ever since the Appstore opened, and that’s how I got the app I’m reviewing today. PewPew is the first app I’ve ever had that made use of a multi-touch screen (like the one on my gTablet). Unfortunately, it’s really not all that well designed. I’m writing [...]
Gatekeeping: Necessary or Not in the eBook Era?
April 18th, 2011 · 16 Comments · opinion
I think there is a marketplace confusion regarding the value of gatekeeping vs. nongatekeeping. Problem 1 is that nongatekept authors whose ebooks sell well fail to distinguish between books sold and books read. This is an important distinction. Using myself as an example, I am willing to read an author’s description of their ebook and spend a [...]
Viewsonic gTablet gets an update
April 16th, 2011 · 9 Comments · hardware news
So the best $300 tablet on the market got an update today. The update is available as an OTA download, so turn on the tablet and you should be prompted to download and install the update. It added a number of improvements: Adobe Flash support External docking station support USB keyboard and mouse support International [...]
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