[Web4lib] Amazon's Kindle e-book reader

[Andrew Mutch]

Rich, 

The problem with your analogy is that the e-book reader is a problem in search of a solution. You made the point yourself:

"If the device serves a purpose, people will adopt it, and they will use it."

So what purposes does an e-book reader serve that isn't fulfilled by the good old fashioned book? Is it cheaper? No. Is it more portable? For the vast majority of titles - No. Is it sturdier? No. Is it easier to read? No. Is it longer lasting? No. Does it have a longer "battery" life? Of course not and no electronic device is likely ever to match the book in this regard in the short or long-term. 

E-book readers keep coming up short both as technology and as a business model because they are trying to replace a product that works with one that doesn't work as well. We all know that the best product doesn't always win out. But outside of technophiles who want to digitize their entire libraries and carry them around with them wherever they go, how many users in the consumer market will this appeal to? I'm not going to say that there's no place for something like the Kindle Reader. But as it has been, I think it's a very niche product. 

In an earlier comment, someone alluded to the fact that if it was Amazon who produced this, it must have been thoroughly researched. But after seeing several generations of these products and their inherent shortcomings, I'm convinced that whatever market research has been done, it hasn't included very much with the people who come into our libraries every day and check out the books that we buy for our collections. Amazon might know best the people who buy books but I'm not sure that they know best the people who read books. If Amazon or the next e-book manufacturer spent 3 months watching and talking to patrons at public libraries large and small, I think they would come to some very different conclusions about what readers want from an e-book reader. 

Lest anyone think I'm anti e-book reader, I'm not. I think there is a place for them but I think the people who have been making them, and this includes Amazon's Kindle Reader, are pretty clueless about the best application of this technology. Grace Agnew touched on one application that seems a no-brainer for e-books - college (and high school) textbooks. Bob Rasmussen touched on another one - the interactive story book. Many public libraries offer such titles on their children's computers where a child can have a popular children's story read to them, or read along with it or interact with the characters in various ways. This is the perfect combination of book and technology where the e-reader can really deliver what the printed book does not - sound, motion and interactivity. Load up a full color reader with sound and basic interface controls and a dozen children's titles and you could have a holiday hit on your hand. But the e-book manufacturers aren't interested in such ni!
che markets. They have their eyes on the big dollars that would come with convincing the James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell readers to set aside their hardcovers and paperbacks and settle back for an e-read (just as long as the battery stayed charge). Until they start to understand who reads what and why they do, I think we'll be destined to a line of "next great things" that will become relics sitting gathering dust in the basement (anyone interested in a REB1100? Hardly ever used)

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI



---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:17:39 -0500
>From: "Richard Wiggins" <richard.wiggins at gmail.com>  
>Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Amazon's Kindle e-book reader  
>To: "Roy Tennant" <tennantr at oclc.org>
>Cc: web4lib <web4lib at webjunction.org>
>
>Roy,
>
>You are kind, and I am not a gentleman, at least not in this regard.  I held
>that arrow in my quiver.  :-)
>
>And of course the jury remains out on Google Books and the various
>digitization projects that unfolded since our first debate on the subject
>of digitizing all the books in a major library -- back in 2001 believe it or
>not.
>
>Steve Levy, who wrote the Newsweek piece discussed in this thread, was on
>NPR's "Day to Day" and with another guest, a man of letters whose name I did
>not catch.  Levy dominated.  Our friend of letters sailed forth with the
>dangers of the hyperlink and how it had ruined reading in the land, and
>begged for someone to defend the citadel of the book.  He called himself a
>Luddite.  He was.
>
>Levy made a simple point.  Computers are 50 years old.  They used to fill
>rooms (and I add, they didn't have GUIs).  Within 50 years, e-books will be
>a dominant form of reading books.  Whether that's embodied in a specialized
>device or a tablet PC of some sort, isn't the point.  The only question is
>when, not whether.
>
>Levy pointed out that as an author of 6 books, he wants his readers'
>undivided attention.  But whether he achieves that depends on his words, not
>on the medium.
>
>As for Leo's argument as to whether special-purpose devices have a place in
>this world, good grief, isn't that settled by now?  This year I bought a
>combo blender / food processor.  It's a competent blender and weak as food
>processor.  Multi-purpose devices are seldom the choice for all purposes.
>Cell phone cameras serve social networking needs, not fine photography
>desires.
>
>This month I was in Barcelona with three cameras: a 1 megapixel cell phone
>camera, and two Canon cameras at about the same megapixel rating, an SD-1000
>that is smaller than a pack of cigarettes, and an EOS Rebel XT that is a
>digital SLR.
>
>Guess what?  I didn't use the cell camera, because the results are too low
>quality.  I left the SLR in the hotel safe, because it's too big to carry
>around.  I took over 500 photos with the pocket camera, which has the same
>image processor as its cousin D-SLR, and good enough glass for the purpose.
>If the device serves a purpose, people will adopt it, and they will use it.
>
>
>Here's the analogy.  A PDA or iPhone is too small to comfortably read
>books.  A laptop is too heavy and too slow to boot and too general purpose
>to serve as a pure reading machine.  I won't ever read a book on an iPhone
>screen, and youir laptop is slow to boot into your reader app.  Yes, Leo,
>color matters, and could be a killer.  Yes, maybe the Kindle is a niche
>device.  But it could be a large niche, and it could pave the way to the
>real killer e-book readers.
>
>/rich
>
>PS -- Roy, my photos from Barcelona are at:
>http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2086582725
>
>This is the soon to be late and lamented Sony Imagestation site, shutting
>down in 73 days due to lack of a business model.  Please feel free to rebut
>my arguments, or my photos, as you wish.  :-)