The Sony Reader (an ebook revolution?)

[ISiddiqui]

Now to date, ebooks have sucked. They've been fairly large, and made of LCD screens which don't really work that well in direct sunlight and the reading surface isn't as easy on the eyes as paper.

Sony's new Reader seems to have solved the problems:

http://products.sel.sony.com/pa/PRS...r_features.html

Looks like an actual page (and has no flicker due to the new e-ink technology) and works very well in sunlight. Nice size as well.

At first glance, the Reader is too expensive for most (who is really going to spend $300 [estimated price] or so on an ebook reader?), but the prices should come down (I'd get one for $150 or so) and I think the LCD-like reading surface that can handle direct sunlight well is pretty cool!

Some pics:






Though, also, cheaper ebooks would be a good thing. Right now they are about 80%-90% of paper books. For that price, I'd go paper, but perhaps we'd have the costs driven down... and of course there are plenty of classics which are free use now.

Some more pics:

[Drake]

Nice. I'm looking forward to the day when you buy one reader and download all of your college textbooks and can store them on one device.

[Drake]

dola...

Anybody else remember Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age? I want a book like that one.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Drake

Nice. I'm looking forward to the day when you buy one reader and download all of your college textbooks and can store them on one device.

Hopefully you aren't in college now, because it won't come out until well after you've left .

Though eventually, it'll have to happen. I'd imagine by that point an eBook like this one will be cheap enough for everyone to have one.

[Drake]

I've already been out of college for ten years.

Of course, once you digitize textbooks so they can be share-able, expect the prices to quadruple.

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by Drake

I've already been out of college for ten years.

Of course, once you digitize textbooks so they can be share-able, expect the prices to quadruple.

You can always go back. I just graduated in September. And by the way, when did you become an "assmaster". How many post do you need to get that?

[Drake]

Originally Posted by Antmeister71

And by the way, when did you become an "assmaster". How many post do you need to get that?

I know the right people. I'd tell you more, but Ryan made me sign a non-disclosure agreement.

I still have nightmares about kilts.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Drake

I've already been out of college for ten years.

Of course, once you digitize textbooks so they can be share-able, expect the prices to quadruple.

Glad to hear it .

As the iPod and iTunes experiment has shown us that digitized media won't necessarily cause increases in prices.

[Drake]

I'd like to think so, but the economy of book sales (especially textbooks) is so much smaller than it is for music, I worry that the iTunes model wouldn't apply.

[ISiddiqui]

True, but allowing textbook authors not to spend so much on the actual paper books will, most likely, allow more competition into the field.

[Drake]

Ah, good point. I hadn't thought about that.

Also, since I'm an old fogey, I also neglected that my wife (who's a nursing student currently) only had to buy half of the textbooks I did while in college. Most of her profs have been really cool about using free web tools & references in lieu of textbooks just to do what they can to reduce the financial burden on students. The whole idea of a $150 textbook may very well be obsolete in the next ten years.

[ISiddiqui]

Depends on the subject. I don't think law schools textbooks will fall by this for a long while (well maybe the paper variety). Many profs seem like they'd much rather write series of law review articles because of the tediousness of going through cases to get a casebook written up.

[sterlingice]

This would be fun for reading books, but for studying, I need the book in hand.

SI

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Drake

Nice. I'm looking forward to the day when you buy one reader and download all of your college textbooks and can store them on one device.

agreed.

[Vince]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

This would be fun for reading books, but for studying, I need the book in hand.

SI

Really? God I hated studying out of a book. I much preferred studying my notes -- it was just like being back in lecture. I can't imagine using something like this reader thing would be all that much different than using an actual textbook.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Vince

Really? God I hated studying out of a book. I much preferred studying my notes -- it was just like being back in lecture. I can't imagine using something like this reader thing would be all that much different than using an actual textbook.

Actually, that's true, I studied more out of my notes than anything. But having to read out of a book versus reading an ebook- there's just something about having something tangible to turn pages with that "feels" like studying to me. Plus, the staring at print vs staring at ebook thing. Tho, having it word searchable would be nice, too

SI

[Drake]

If there was a functionality to add virtual sticky notes/annotation and highlighting to the text, that would be pretty cool, too.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Drake

I'd like to think so, but the economy of book sales (especially textbooks) is so much smaller than it is for music, I worry that the iTunes model wouldn't apply.

I agree. If anything, the market for textbooks has been so absurdly overblown for years and years due to structural monopolies, and the target audience coincides so neatly with the demographic that cares less about intellectual property rights than any other before it, I think the whole system of textbook pricing and profits is a house of cards.


I also think that the whole e-book thing remains a solution in search of a problem. This seems like a neat gadget, but I don't see how it represents a meaningful improvement over paperback books for general reading purposes.

[ISiddiqui]

weight... especially for hardcovers.

[Daimyo]

Part of the problem for text books is that the people making the purchasing decision (the profs) are not the ones who have to actually make the purchase (the students). There is no real incentive to make a cost effective choice on the part of the prof and thus no real incentive on the part of the manufactures to price the products competitively. I guess in some ways that makes it sort of analagous to health care where you also see weird pricing decisions...

[Daimyo]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I also think that the whole e-book thing remains a solution in search of a problem. This seems like a neat gadget, but I don't see how it represents a meaningful improvement over paperback books for general reading purposes.

Definately.... by nature most books are already extremely portable and its not like music where there is a need or desire to have every book you own with you at all times. So why pay $300 or $200 or $100 for a device like this that doesn't really buy you any extra portability or utility when you can just carry around an actual book? Even at $100 the cost per ebook would have to be several dollars cheaper per book or you'd have to read a whole lot to justify the upfront cost, especially considering that the durability has to be pretty poor on that device.

[Drake]

I agree, which is why I can think of this sort of thing being perfect for textbooks, but not much else.

Now, merge this kind of screen resolution/presentation with a PDA + the ability to annotate and whatnot, and you've got a great product for businessfolk who need to travel and take reams of docs/specs/quotes along with them.

[ISiddiqui]

Well look at the Gutenburg Project and other resources for public use texts. Far more worth it to have something like this to read it on than a .txt file on a laptop or PDA. And buying those books will cost you. Though it may be too expensive as it is, it is the first release.

[Mac Howard]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I also think that the whole e-book thing remains a solution in search of a problem. This seems like a neat gadget, but I don't see how it represents a meaningful improvement over paperback books for general reading purposes.

To a certain degree but there are aspects of the ebook that could make it worthwhile if they're taken advantage of. Off the top of my head:

1) a collection of books in one "paperback" package (not sure of the capacity but presumably hundreds of books). I'm a slow reader and usually have 4 or 5 books on the go at a time and having access to all at any one time wherever I am would be an advantage.

2) the cost through on-line distribution has the potential to plummet. It won't, of course, because the retail trade will refuse to stock books that are available at a much cheaper price on the net and so publishers and authors will be held to ransom. But the potential is there for considerable reductions in price (>say 60%)

3) not sure if the ebook itself can do this but there is clearly the opportunity for enhancement of books with sound, graphics and video. Just as 19th centrury books were enhanced with illustrations (presumably too expensive these days) then there's the opportunity for authors to use more than just text to get across their story and create a more entertaining package.

The success of the cd/dvd encyclopedia could be repeated with a suitably able ebook and for much the same reasons - more in the package, cheaper and enhanced.

I would agree that most people are quite happy with the book as it currently stands and their natural conservatism will work against the ebook until they see sufficient advantage in changing. Merely reproducing what the book already gives them will win few over. But just as analogue TV is now giving way to digital tv (a better quality picture was never enough) I think the ebook, if not this one, will eventually replace the book. But it will take considerable time.

[clintl]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

Definately.... by nature most books are already extremely portable and its not like music where there is a need or desire to have every book you own with you at all times. So why pay $300 or $200 or $100 for a device like this that doesn't really buy you any extra portability or utility when you can just carry around an actual book? Even at $100 the cost per ebook would have to be several dollars cheaper per book or you'd have to read a whole lot to justify the upfront cost, especially considering that the durability has to be pretty poor on that device.

Exactly. When I was in business school, I did a project looking at e-books with another person for an e-commerce course. We concluded that while economically, the e-book readers at the time would be competitive for the textbook and maybe specialty business market, the price of the readers would have to be under $50 to compete with print books for the consumer market. This is a while back, but I don't think anything has changed with respect to the economics since then, and we're still not there.

[Bonegavel]

Sony will screw this up like betamax because, unlike the Playstation consoles, they don't control the producers of the material (authors/publishers).

This is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist, IMHO. I don't think that the style they are pushing here is going to work. What they really need to do is create the eBook to be something like 500 blank ePages where you load a book onto the pages to be like a book we are all familiar with.

I am on a tablet PC right now and this is fairly close to an ebook (albeit the ppi isn't as good) and I hate reading long pdf's or whatnot on this sterile flat screen. For reading, to me there is nothing like the real thing and I don't think the single screen eBook types are going to cut it.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Bonegavel

I am on a tablet PC right now and this is fairly close to an ebook (albeit the ppi isn't as good) and I hate reading long pdf's or whatnot on this sterile flat screen. For reading, to me there is nothing like the real thing

Isn't that why e-ink was created? To make reading on these surfaces like the 'real thing', without the flicker that makes it annoying to read long things on LCDs.

[Bonegavel]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Isn't that why e-ink was created? To make reading on these surfaces like the 'real thing', without the flicker that makes it annoying to read long things on LCDs.

Yes, the resolution of the average monitor is around 100 ppi (pixels per inch) and paper is something like 200-300 which is why reading on the PC for long periods of time is painful for most folks.

From e-inks site, their product does 170ppi, which isn't paper quality but is almost double of the normal monitor.

[kcchief19]

While I tend to agree with Quik's asssessment that e-book is a solution searching for a problem, I think the pricing structure will forever hold the format back.

Presented with the choice of spending $300 for a reader or $6 for a paperback, I think most consumers will choose the paperback. The payback return is miniscule. Even if you could get an e-book paperback for $3 versus $6 for a traditional paperback, you'd have to buy 100 e-books before you even reached a break-even point. Considering that's not possible, right now you're paying a premium for a technology that doesn't appear to be superior to what it's replacing.

I don't think traditional publishers have much interest in seeing e-book thrive. I think they are too married to the current economic model and have no interest in switching to e-books. I think the only way to make the model work right would be to sell the readers at a loss and make money on the e-books, but that would leave prices for e-books comparable to their print counterparts. I don't think most consumers see the benefit. The only area I think e-book could thrive is in the self-publishing market, but that is such a niche market that I don't you'd make much money selling a self-published e-book.

I think even the text book market is dicey. The textbook market is a misnomer -- this has to be one of the most regulated and controlled markets we have. Outside some professors who would certainly favor the idea of an e-book if it allowed them to make money using their own works, I think a large segment of the academic community would steer away from self-published text books. If the could figure out a way around the upfront bite, I think the more intriguing market would be for high school textbooks -- there's a certain level of collegiateness among public school teachers that makes me think that if they could come up with a model that would get readers provided to them for little or no initial investment, they could come up with e-textbooks that would work like a charm. Textbooks are a tremendous cost for school districts, and they are something that can't be updated easily at all. I think there is a market there, but of course somebody will have to foot the bill.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

While I tend to agree with Quik's asssessment that e-book is a solution searching for a problem, I think the pricing structure will forever hold the format back.

While I see your point, i think you overlook the "cool" factor, which drives a lot of these markets well beyond rationality. If a gadget has a certain appeal, people will be willing to pay a premium for it, even if it does not make practical sense to do so. That's why I think something like this still has some shot, even if it only bears real gains for people in very select niches (and nobody above has really suggested otherwise, as nearly as I can tell).

I don't think you have to get the technology and pricing to the point where it's actually cheaper to own the e-reader gadget plus the 100 books you want. I just think it needs to be reasonably comfortable and practical to actually use it for real reading purposes... at that point, there are plenty of people in the "disposable income" crowd who would be perfectly happy to make a costly invesment in a gadget, if for no other purpose than saying "look at this neat gadget I have."

[QuikSand]

And the idea of the textbook martet being on a precipice has almost nothing to do with this sort of technology -- it's just a matter of time until we start seeing computer-based sharing of material from that madium, too -- wouldn't you think? (Maybe it's already being done) Sure, it violates copyright laws, but I think it's fairly clear that this isn't an overwhelming impediment. At some point, I suspect you'll start to see the full content of widely-used textbooks just appear on file-sharing sites, for wide distribution. If someone can figure out how to make a buck off this, then it will happen even sooner.

Making big profit off the control of who gets information is a fleeting exercise in this technological environment.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

At some point, I suspect you'll start to see the full content of widely-used textbooks just appear on file-sharing sites, for wide distribution.

It's already out there if you know where to look or how to look for it. Everything is out there if you know how to look for it.

[Bonegavel]

Anyone buy one of these yet?

[albionmoonlight]

Is there a name for when you read a thread, only to get to the end and realize that it is over a year old?