David Rothman
Founder, Teleread.org
Sure, Oprah loves the Kindle, Amazon’s gizmo for reading electronic books, even if it looks a bit like a Soviet-made adding machine. And a second model probably will be on the way—in fact, perhaps two. We just might see an econo-Kindle and a large-screened version for students. Forbes is so excited about the current Kindle, now sold out, that it’s even run an item headlined “Why Amazon doesn’t need Kindle 2.0.” Ugh, Jeff Bezos, you might want to avoid the smugness Forbes is encouraging. Here’s why:
• Sony plans to release a new model that will let people effortlessly download e-books without messing with a connection with a desktop or laptop. And Sony’s wireless will work with a bunch of bookstores, not just the house one. Sony’s current e-readers can already display books in the new ePub standard. And unlike the Kindle, they also let you read e-books in the PDF format even when they use Adobe’s digital rights management (DRM). Result? You can fire up a Sony Reader to enjoy books from many public libraries, which undoubtedly will be growing their e-book collections in ’09.
• Plastic Logic, started in the UK, intends to release a big-screen, drop-proof reader the size of 8.5”x11” paper. PL is said to be busy making deals with a number of content providers. And at least in the past, the scuttlebutt has been that the company will strive for a price close to the Kindle’s current $359.
• Just as I predicted at the Tools of Change conference in early 2008, cell phones are gaining traction as e-readers, and this should continue in ’09. Programs such as Stanza and eReader run on the iPhone, and these two can even display compatible DRMed e-books. If some industry observers are right, far more people are reading e-books on phones than on Kindles. Google has come out with its own operating system, Android, for cellphones. And these phones will be able to display e-books, including those using ePub, which the IDPF developed with major publishers involved.
• The Kindle is hobbled with Amazon’s proprietary DRM. Although Adobe and some other members of the IDPF want a DRM standard for e-books, future-minded publishers such as Pan Macmillan will probably continue moving in the other direction and try to avoid “protection.” DRM actually penalizes law-abiding consumers by making it more difficult to enjoy an e-book on all their devices. Technology may well change too quickly for an “interoperable” DRM standard to work out. Beyond that, DRM expenses jack up the price of e-books—already too high compared to paper. Ironically, Amazon itself has laudably started a store for DRM-less music. Here’s hoping that in ’09 it will do the same for the e-books for the Kindle and other machines. Won’t some Kindle owners also want to enjoy their e-books on iPhones and Android models?
• Yet another rival for book-lovers’ money will be econo-notebooks from Acer, Asus, and other vendors. Screens are larger than the Kindle’s. What’s more, the notebooks are full-fledged computers fit for many uses.
No, the Kindle isn’t going away—I hope not!—and I suspect that ’09 sales will dwarf the common estimates of 250,000+ unit sales in 2008. It’s just that 250,000 is a pittance by consumer tech standards, and technology and competitors will not be standing still for Amazon in 2009.
Rothman has been writing about e-books since the early 1990s. He is the author of seven books, most recently The Soloman Scandals.
