io9 
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San Francisco, 3:15 PM
Sat Dec 5
18 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/12/09
People don't "get" authors? What, do people not go to school anymore? What is there not to get? Does going into a movie store erase all knowledge of other kinds of categorization?
And this talk of e-readers being a dead-end is bullshit, too. Spoken like someone who has never actually used an e-ink device.
The Nintendo DS store would be a neat idea... if that isn't exactly what Amazon was trying to do with the Kindle. Right now, the Kindle is an e-book device, but gadget conversion will eventually turn it into a device that will have other functions. When that happens, it will access the Amazon Store for other things in addition to e-books. It'll probably pull it off better than the DS, too.
09/13/09
If I have a phone or DS, I can also do other things with it right now, for less than the cost of a Kindle.
09/13/09
09/11/09
09/11/09
09/12/09
our family's massive collection of boxed paperbacks make fantastic insulation to keep the heat out of our 3rd floor apt.
plus they can be lent at at will.
give me an ebook i can lend with the same ease & we'll be there.
09/11/09
Really? I think that he might be underestimating his audience.
09/11/09
09/11/09
09/11/09
If Asus comes out with their net book tablet for a good price, I'd buy that for a dollar
09/11/09
The only downside: the screens are tiny--I'm too used to reading whole pages of a book, I don't think I could constrain myself to the screens on the DS.
I'm really hoping for the best of both print and e-books: the print on demand kiosk. I went searching for the Metatropolis anthology recently, and it seems to be unavailable in Canada, so far. But if I could bypass the shipping, buy the e-book and send the file to a machine to print the book while I wait (or so I could pick it up in say half an hour)... well, somebody would have just made a sale.
09/11/09
i like the notion of something like the DS as an ebook reader in principle, but as it currently stands, i don't think it's terribly viable. the screen is too small for one and for another, backlit screens are simply not gonna cut it in the long term.
but it does kinda point at where ebooks should go in the future -- multipurpose convergence devices.
personally, i don't really see the (current) kindle as the highway to the future, but simply a mechanism by which amazon can gin up support for ebooks to pave the way for the future. if that sort of formula holds true, expect the future kindle-type devices to get besot with featuritis (appstore, games, more robust mp3 playback, etc) and gradually evolve into something along the lines of a iphone/ipod touch (or we can just wait until spring and see what the apple tablet is like.)
right now, ebooks are a market waiting to be exploited, but i suspect if we get 2678 different ebook standards and competing devices, it'll quickly implode.
09/11/09
This is someone from the money group. This is how I want my e-books. I want a standard format that all devices from portable e-book devices to desktop computers support.
i want the right to resell my e-book purchase when I am done with it. I buy stuff, I don't buy the rights to stuff period. Being able to resell your ebook purchases will encourage a healthy used market in the industry that has been a proven market in the physical book industry for several hundred years.
I want a ebook reader, but I'm not willing to pay $400 for one, no way in hell. And quite frankly I don't want an author to have the right to take a book out of print where it can no longer be published. Once its put up for sale, then its for sale.
Ideally a tablet computer would make a great ebook reader and I intend to purchase a tablet computer when I find one that suits my personal needs. This is what I will be reading ebooks on, not little cellphone screens. if its not the size of a good hardback book then I don't really want it. I don't want 10 devices to do 10 different things, I want one device that does all 10 things and does them well at a reasonable price, ie less than $700
09/11/09
Someone buys it full-price, they enjoy it, make a little money/trade with the used book store, the book store makes a little money selling it to me, I read it, sell it on, repeat... and the author both gets that first-sale money and exposure to people who wouldn't have paid full price.
Trade paper is my least-favorite format -- it's as big as hardback, but doesn't last as long. It's more expensive and takes up more space than MMPB, but isn't any higher quality.
It does suck that there aren't SF books in the grocery stores like when I was a kid, but trade paper isn't the answer to anything.
09/12/09
On the flip side, I haven't wised up to this when I get rid of my own obsolete technical books. Typically they end up being donated to the local library's used book sale. Of course, some enterprising person may ultimately resell them right back on Amazon. It's a form of recycling that works for me.
04/13/09
04/13/09
It's 90% video games, 8% dave matthews and 2% coldplay. Video games are 100% main stream already.