Price-Fixing Germany Laughs At eBooks

Warum E-Reader das Buch nicht verdrängen werden

Why e-book reader will not displace — Google machine English

The people are not electronics markets queuing to sign up for hundreds of euros digital scoreboard book to buy. Consequently, they will not begin in droves illegal digital copies of books from the network to download – this fate threatens the maximum Hörverlag. But even the sales of audio book downloads in the first half of 2008 at twelve percent.

There are a few crucial differences between the books and records, which many observers fear the loud change from view seem to have lost. The most important is: books were quite good so far without players from. Unlike music and movies: Since these as consumer goods for domestic use, there are people also been prepared for the machines to pay. Since steam gramophone and radio is recognized at home who wants to listen to music, either singing or even money for consumer spending.

MP3 Player applies the same principle: With the Walkman was the end of the seventies the concept of a portable music player statussymboltauglichen introduced. Then came the iPod and even offered the opportunity to fairly simple way to bring all the songs that we already had purchased and paid for – by his CDs into the computer files and pushed it made. Digital secondary exploitation.

While that is true — no instant insertion of printed books into an eBook reader — he hasn’t peeked into the DarkNet, where there are thousands and thousands and thousands of titles already available. What helps Germany is that, well, these books are in English, not German.

More whistling past the graveyard coming up:

E-reader have the advantage of a historic habit not. And you can not digitize its collection of books and then finally all the titles in the holiday go, you’ve always wanted to read times. What a pity, because the times would really add value.

E-readers are the potential customers above all: an investment. Expensive devices that perform a function without which we could live well so far. It is dangerous for the printed book only if from mobile phones or mini-notebook truly portable multi-media players have become, foldable, with week-long battery life and superior display. If reading books is a waste product, more convenient bonus benefit of a device that you already have. Only then will also be pirate copies, subscriptions and book models flatrates-seriously need to be discussed.

The benefits of Kindle and Co. currently consists primarily is that they save space – with the appropriate memory card aufgebohrt can such a small device notepad entire libraries travel ready. But who needs it? Who would pay for it? Especially as e-books of the book price will be subject.

Emphasis added by me.

This guy is an eejit.

But who needs it? Who would pay for it?

These are the same damned stupid questions that were posed before Apple popularized the personal computer!

History — and stupidity — both repeat themselves here. A double FAIL!

And here’s a bonus sneer thrown in:

Especially as e-books of the book price will be subject.

In other words, as I already covered in this post, by law in Germany eBooks must sell for the same price as the printed book. How backward is that?!

But wait! There’s more Stupid to come!

Students under the circumstances – for readers in turn have the disadvantage that, in electronic books or passages of paint still sides with adhesive labels can tick Chen. For all other worth a maximum as a thing for the holidays – but on the beach are also e-reader back out of place, while books of sand, sea and ice cream uncomplaining endure.

Did he really write that? Did he really use the ability to put sticky notes on paper as a strike against eBooks?

Yes, he did!

Talk about grasping at straws!

And then he drags out the sand and the surf of the beach. With the added bonus of an eBook reader being a tempting target for theft.

Hey, dope, people bring expensive cellphones to a beach too. And expensive camcorders! And expensive digital cameras! Why shouldn’t they bring an eBook reader too?

At least he didn’t drag out the two big guns of Stupid: “curling up with a book” and “reading in the bath.”

Next!

Sony Reader: Several Videos

See this post at the WordPress blog.

Sony’s Reader Revolution: YouTube Channel

Oh yeah, there’s a YouTube channel.

Not very good distribution of this information by Sony! The video views have not been high. Perhaps this post will help.

ReaderRevolution
Joined: September 22, 2008
Last Sign In: 1 hour ago
Videos Watched: 69
Subscribers: 8
Channel Views: 973

My name is Dave and I’ve teamed up with Sony to help promote literacy. Starting October 1st, I’ll be living in a 2’9″ x 17’2″ storefront night and day – for 30 days.

During that time, I’ll read as many books as I possibly can on the Sony Reader Digital Book. For every page turned Sony will provide an eBook classics library to a school.

I guess you could say it’s ironic that they chose me. I grew up with Attention Deficit Disorder and Dyslexia, but somehow along the way I built a name for myself as both a speed reader and a memory wiz. I notched my second world record for memory by memorizing 59 decks of playing cards, recalling them one card at a time, over a period of 8 hours.

Check back here in the coming days since my team will be updating this site with videos and information.

Here he is at Day fifteen(!) — the mid-point of the campaign.

Day 15: Reader Revolution

Hmmm … I better start planning what day I want to sit in the window for one of his breaks.

Yes, I will reveal my physical incarnation to the Internets!!

Sony Reader PRS-700: Another Video

Leave it to IDG to do a good report — even though the abominable Kindle is tacked on like a bad hemorrhoid at the end.

1006-sony-reader

Sony Reader PRS-700 Video

Teleread also ran this but there are three points that need to be cleared up:

Sony 700 Reader begins new chapter

The information presented in the overlay text is incorrect:

– it does not have 20MB internal memory
– it is not “Internet enabled”
– it does not have a 800Mhz Celeron-class CPU

This is sloppy reporting.

Those specs are the minimum requirements for the desktop PC that the Sony Reader connects to. Click on the Specifications tab here.

How eBooks Can Succeed

What Publishing Can Learn From Music

Still, there is no indication that books are going away, or are any less useful, needed or wanted now than they were 200 years ago. Books are still essential. People still love them.

More whistling past the graveyard. Go back to 1980. The same would have been said of newspapers or magazines. I haven’t bought a newspaper in at least ten years. I haven’t bought a magazine in five years.

And I would stop buying print except I know writers whose work has just come out that I must read, and it isn’t in e yet. But for all intents and purposes, I have stopped buying print, wanting everything in eBook form now.

He has Five Lessons Publishing Should Learn from Music.

I’ll just rip-off cite one of them:

1. An iPod for Books Will Change Everything

The Internet, Napster, and Bit Torrents have all shaken up the music business, but it was the iPod that put the final nail in the coffin of the old business models: radio doesn’t matter anymore, and barely anyone can remember what a CD is for. All of a sudden, the world is full of people who want to fill up their little white devices with music. In the book business, we’ve yet to see an iconic, affordable e-reader that people love. When we do, the game will change. Kindle Two apparently shows promise. The new Sony Reader is getting lots of good reviews. And Stanza, the new e-book app for the iPhone, makes Apple’s handheld the most popular e-book reader in the world. What’s more, Stanza has converted many e-book skeptics I know personally. Question for publishers: do you want to be where the readers are? Then find out where they are, and go there.

Emphasis added by me.

Because I keep wanting the Sony Reader to be the iPod of Books, because I want someone at Sony to consider the lesson of Henry Ford and his Model-T, and because I want Amazon’s nascent monopoly — and its outrageous screw-the-writer 65-35 split! — kicked to the curb.

Go read the other four lessons.

— Via Twitter from stanza_reader