Washington Post, what should I see but a full page ad for the new Barnes & Noble ebook store. The ad explains how easy it is to buy their ebooks, which can then be read on PCs, Macs, iPhones, and Blackberries. Each device was shown in full color— naturally, none of them was a Kindle— and $9.99 is listed as the price for "bestsellers."
Then when I checked the NY Times online, they had an article about how the new Sony eReaders will support only EPub format. These will not be DRM-free EPub files, mind you. Sony is changing their DRM software, but not doing away with the idea. Further, the article says that Sony plans to launch a third new eReader by the end of the year, in addition to the two launching very soon, and that this third eReader will have wireless (no mention whether it will be wifi or 3G or both).
So, Sony is clearly nor rolling over and playing dead. Kindle may have jumped ahead on popularity, but Amazon has made a few mistakes, and it looks like Sony is loading both barrels and is coming out shooting. Likewise, Barnes & Noble is not ready to yield ground to Amazon, either.
By selling both the eReader and the ebooks, Amazon has two sets of competitors gunning for it. And the eReader side is getting crowded already. I wonder if the ebook side will heat up, too?
This morning when I opened today's Style section of the
Then when I checked the NY Times online, they had an article about how the new Sony eReaders will support only EPub format. These will not be DRM-free EPub files, mind you. Sony is changing their DRM software, but not doing away with the idea. Further, the article says that Sony plans to launch a third new eReader by the end of the year, in addition to the two launching very soon, and that this third eReader will have wireless (no mention whether it will be wifi or 3G or both).
So, Sony is clearly nor rolling over and playing dead. Kindle may have jumped ahead on popularity, but Amazon has made a few mistakes, and it looks like Sony is loading both barrels and is coming out shooting. Likewise, Barnes & Noble is not ready to yield ground to Amazon, either.
By selling both the eReader and the ebooks, Amazon has two sets of competitors gunning for it. And the eReader side is getting crowded already. I wonder if the ebook side will heat up, too?
Comments
Plus, if you could see the table full of books I have at home right now since returning from RWA. It's obscene.
Anyway, I was so impressed with your kindle. The problem is I don't want to be tied to Amazon.com and people seem to find converting pdfs to kindle format to be a pain...
Wikipedia has a good list of eReaders:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_e-book_readers
but i think it is missing some of the very latest, like the Cybook Opus.
Personally, I'll have nothing to do with Amazon. I don't like the company one little bit.