Just Give Me The Right eReader?

Technology doesn't stand still and today’s desirable device soon becomes tomorrow’s yard sale or land fill.

When the first eink readers appeared they were novel, functional and expensive. They promised much and helped kick start the ebook movement. We now take them for granted, but they were always very limited in their scope and monochrome in the offer. We often referred to them as the ‘lookie likie’ devices, which  all offered the same experience, the same technology’, all promised to be the next biggest player, but all looked the same. We soon saw the casualties, as one after another they hit the wall and their technology started to follow eight track and cassettes and became history. Forget the recent claims made by IHS iSuppli of reader decline, what remains today are, the Kindle, Nook and Kobo and are becoming less a desirable present,  but more of an  unwanted one.

The tablet changed many people’s perception of mobile computing and playing media on the move. The iPad became the must have device and although many competitors appeared, few could compete with the Apple offer. However, as with all technology the serious competitors are now muscling in on the market and starting to redefine the tablet from their own perspective and in doing so offer real alternatives. Samsung clearly offer convergence from the smartphone through the tablet, ultra book, laptop to the TV, their pen technology is a clear winner and they continue to grow across all devices.  Microsoft have thrown the hat in the ring with Windows 8 and RT plus Surface. It is questionable whether Surface, as it stands today, will attract enough with its limited offer. However, Windows 8 is the key component and if as expected and by being pre installed and performing, it starts to dominate the ultra book and laptop market, it could strongly influence the smartphone and tablet markets and become a serious third player.

They are wild cards out there and Amazon’s holistic offer and Fire is a serious contender. They may appear to be ‘cheap and cheerful’ tablet, but by locking in purchasing benefits to the devices they will remain a contender. However, it is harder to see Nook and Kobo in the same league and playing catch up may be a step to far and maybe this is where they fall out. Nook and Microsoft could re-emerge, but it is hard to see how that will happen in the short term and today is about short term plays.

The real markets to watch are at either end of the mobile platform not in the middle. The Ultra book offered so much, but was upstaged in yesterday’s beauty contest by the bikini clad iPad. The ultra books were over priced, still wedded to the laptop form and burdened with legacy operating systems. However, we are starting to see real changes here with the emergence of hybrid convertibles – an ultra book with full office and PC strength, which flips into a tablet. The Surface was a perfect form, but unfortunately limited itself to the tablet internals. Samsung and others are close to delivering the answer and when it happens and at the right price then the market will change and business not consumers will drive that change. There are enough players out there to fix the price issue and that need to create the right device to ensure their own survival.

At  the other end of the sandwich we have the smartphone, which is no longer a mobile but a computer in the pocket. The Samsung Note II is a classic forerunner for what must happen next – the convergence of the mini tablet and the smartphone. Apple must have one in prototype and finally drop this nonsensical division between two devices, where the only real difference is the ability to make phone calls! The real challenge is getting that something extra inside the box. Voice appears to be a given and Apple have the lead there, whilst Samsung’s pen is both incredible to use and they have the lead there. We see these being the two contenders today and because they play on all the device platforms, they well positioned and are the clear favourites to succeed in the short term.

However, the other emerging driver is the cloud and the opportunities to de clutter the device of everything but the basics. Those ebook readers that boasted they could store thousands of books are fast becoming dinosaurs living in a forgotten time and saying the wrong message. We are now moving to  an on demand 24 x 7 with access to everything and subscription services replace outright purchases for what is an access licence after all. These change not only how we consume media, interact, purchase services but the devices themselves.

Finally, we have the ‘Ray Hammond’ mobile server that we wrote about earlier this month. The smartglasses are almost here, the intuitive gesture detection is still in the labs, the Bluetooth and wi fi connectivity is here. It’s now more about the packaging and creating consumer demand that will be the challenge.

Sacha Baron-Cohen in accepting his Lifetime Comedy Award this week, did so as his character Ali G. He took a humorous retrospective look at the changes since he last played Ali G some ten years ago, ‘there was no iPhone, no iphone 2, no iphone 3, no iphone 4, no iphone 5 and I wonder what is next?’

Perhaps its time for a step change in 2013?      

Alex eReader Joins The Scrap Heap

CES 2010 was the springboard for ereaders with many new devices coming to the market. It was clear that there would be casualties and that one eink reader looked and was priced very similar to another. Last year we saw Plastic Logic QUE ProReader stumble along with the REX family and we now have Spring Design’s Alex eReader biting the dust.

The Alex reader caught many people’s attention due to it having dual screens and a little wrangle with Barnes and Noble over who came first. The Android-powered dual-screen device had both a 6-inch eInk display and 3.5-inch capacitive LCD touchscreen.

Why it and others failed is down to a thousand and one reasons not least of which is that consumers tend to minimise their risk and basically create and back winners not also rans. A device by itself is just a lone device going nowhere. A device that is part of a broader ecosystem and who that is tied to a platform offer such as Amazon and Kobo make sense. Also we have to acknowledge that not many local offers will survive unless they are effectively operating in a huge ‘local’ market such as Barnes and Noble.

So who is next to fall on their sword and do we care? The market is getting stronger but that doesn’t mean that it can accommodate more ‘lookie likies’ it just means its getting stronger.

India Has its Own eBook Reader

EC Media has launched "Wink", which they claim as "India's first e-book reader".

We have to recognise Indian is not only the powerhouse of digital publishing today and itself is starting to embrace its output. We may think of India as third world but in many ways it is now casting that aside and generating wealth which EC Media is trying to capture through the Wink which can be picked up from a local Croma, a major Indian electronics retail chain. They claim over 200,000 titles as well as newspapers, magazines and journals. The Wink is specially designed for the Indians as it can support content in more than 15 Indian languages and They claim that they will soon support all Indian languages on the Wink. Books will generally sell for 50 to 75% of the cost of a paperback.

The Wink XTS model will have a 6” eInk screen, 2GB memory and has an SD expansion card slot, a miniUSB port lie, has a QWERTY keyboard and supports MP3. The XTS model on display supports Wi-Fi and will cost some $230, while the X3G model supports Wi-Fi and 3G and will cost some $320.

The point is that both China, where most ebooks are made and India where the west does its digitisation, have the ability to do it themselves. Maybe we should look at the history other electronics and manufacturing industries, such as cars and where the power now lies. Books may not be different.

eReader From The Drugstore

This week we were asked why the bookstores were being effectively bypassed digitally and what we thought about slumbering giants like Sony. One of our answers was that we thought that ebook readers need to be sold in electrical stores, supermarkets and be available through stores in general. If they remain for sale over the Internet and through chains and a few stores then the result is obvious and is clearly happening today.



Step up US drugstore CVS who is getting its very own $100 smartbook and $180 e-reader. The devices aren’t the best of technology but are available from what is your neighbourhood drugstore. The Sylvania netbook runs on Windows CE and the LookBook e-reader has a 7”, 512MB of storage space, a full keyboard and will have access to Kobo's e-book store, but doesn’t have eInk but a colour LCD screen. It is pre loaded with the usual 150 free ebooks. So CVS may be tempted to throw one in their basket along with the toiletries and medicine.

We think this particular offer is not realistically priced to walk off the shelf just yet.

Irex The First of Many eReader Casualties?

IREX Technologies BV developed the first eInk way back in 2004 and spun itself from Royal Philips Electronics a year later. It has championed eInk ereaders and ebooks but over the last three years has been overshadowed and out manoeuvred by all the new ‘lookie likies’. The biggest issue was that they made even eInk look dull and their pricing was always at the top end of the market. We now read of their demise into administration in the Netherlands. It never ceases to amaze us what the folk at Philips invent and fail to deliver themselves.

We predicted that there would be eInk casualties as the market was saturated, with too many identical or near identical readers and supply clearly greater than the demand. The price was clearly too high and when colour arrived it wasn’t eInk but Apple that supplied the obvious.

Meanwhile Seth Godin predicts a “paperback” e-reader, a cheap Kindle which would could make e-books affordable for all. Godin suggest $50 is the right price, or as any retailer will tell you $49,99. At that price we would agree Amazon would be on a winner and if the can subsidise it correctly provide a price point that many of its competitors could not live with. We even may buy one! It is a position we believe that eInk readers have to adopt to survive. Unfortunately many are just manufacturers and only supply the reader, they don’t get ebook sales revenues, are not locked as value added suppliers into sectors such as education. So once the device is sold that’s it no more money!

Perhaps this cheap Kindle reader is the position Amazon aims to adopt to fight Apple. It certainly makes more sense than trying to compete with eInk colour in a battle that will not be won on poor substitute technology.

As for iRex and the iliad readers they will not be alone for long.

Let There Be Light

There are pros and cons to all technology and what many view as a big plus often is seen by others as a downside. Today we now see attachments for eInk readers that compensate for its perceived greatest strength its lack of a back-light. We can see clearly in the sun, on the beach, on the street and under the full glare of the sun but we can’t see that well in a dark environment.

So for between 20 to 30 this can be fixed with a simple light or even a torch held between the teeth! Whatever you use remember to pack it in the travel case!

Just What I Don't Want This Christmas!

Another unwanted Christmas present comes in the form of a new eBook reader that looks remarkably old and clunky and reminds us of…

The Aigo EB6301 is a 6-inch eInk ‘Lookie likie’ doesn’t have WIFI, support ePub and comes at an announced high price of 2499 yuan ( $366 USD).

Certainly one we would want to return if given this Christmas.

Another eBook 'Lookie Likie'

Now we suggest you decide what is different apart from the name? We bet you can even give the specification of these devices without looking them up. Give you some clues:

screen size?
memory?
Formats supported?
Price?

Don't know then click here

Spring Design Show That Two is Better Than One E-Reader

Spring Design has announced an e-reader called Alex, which some believe may be the long awaited Barnes & Noble device. Alex has a 6″ e-ink display and a 3.5″ color touch screen – yes two screens in one device and runs Android OS with full-blown Web browsing. So it combines the internet and multimedia with the grayscale world of eInk.
This could prove the ideal compromise for many in sectors such as professional, educational, children’s books and entertainment where eInk isn’t good enough. It also could make books jump out of the constraints of the current jacket and become multimedia. Alex even offers Link Notes™, which enables the user to make their own multimedia links.

Are we at last starting to see the end of the beginning of ebook readers and the start of the real dawn of digital?

Asus May Have a Few New Tricks For eBooks

The ereader market is becoming more crowded. Asus, the manufacturer of the successful Eee line of netbooks, announced on Thursday that the company will be entering the ereader market. Jerry Shen, company president for Asus, said that the company is planning to introduce an eBook Reader under its Eee Brand family by year end.It is not alone in going after this market with close competitor MSI is also planning to them. The Eee brand stands for budget-friendly products. Remember these are the team that shock the notebook and low end pc market and have driven up their market share against some big players.

We are reminded of an article we wrote in march this year which we have repeated below. Now that would be exciting if it were to happen!!



Back in 2008 Back in October 2008 ASUS and Intel launched WEPC.com. The sites slogan was you dream it, Asus Builds it, Intel Inside and it was all about getting people to share their ideas on a community designed PC. Now they want people to give them more thoughts on a Multiple Screen and Touch Interface. You can vote, comment and dream in much more detail about the Dream PC.

Last week they had a little poll from; Extend, Projection, Dual, Dual Touch, Modular Displays and tablets. So it’s no surprise the displays won the day. An extendable screen that is tiny when compact but grows when required.

This is how Asus describe the concept:
The dual panel offers a flexible working space in which users can adapt to suit their prevailing usage scenarios, for example adjusting the size of the virtual touchpad and keyboard. Through hand gestures, handwriting recognition, and multitouch, users are presented with a control surface that is both flexible and intuitive. Users can use the dual-panel concept in a myriad of usage scenarios, for example as a conventional notebook with multitouch screens, a virtual keyboard and touchpad; a multimedia hub, in which both dual panels could combine to form a larger display for widescreen entertainment; or an E-book mode in which users can hold the dual panel concept notebook just like they would a conventional book while flipping pages through intuitive gestures or by touch. These concepts aim to bring convenience to the user through technological innovations and user-centric design.

It Would Be Funny If It Didn't Spend Public Funds

It appears the phrase ‘Double Dutch’ is back, as we read that Amsterdam is one of 20 cities participating in a pilot aimed at replacing all paper documents with electronic ones. Does this mean that they will be issued with netbooks, iPhones or laptop tablets? No, Binnenlands Bestuur reports, that council members are already being issued with an e-reader, and that after the 2010 election, all council members in the participating municipalities will get one.

We know the strong ties that Holland has to eInk, but at a reported cost of around 700 euro this hardly looks a smart move. The readers will obviously be grey, have no wifi and still need to be attached to a PC to move documents and have limited capability compared with a host of cheaper options. So we can safely say a complete waste of their taxpayers’ money and obviously driven by a misguided bureaucrat who didn’t realise the restrictions of these devices or doesn't understand the word hype.

eInk and PVI Crearte One Vertical eInk Company

E Ink, the company that invented the e-paper displays on all the lookey likie ereaders such as the Kindle, Bebook, Hanlin, IRex and Sony and many more, has been acquired by Tiawanese Prime View International, which makes e-paper displays for the majority of the ereaders. The price is claimed to be some $215 million.

PVI acquired the e-paper business of Philips Electronics in 2005 and partnered with E Ink to provide ereader displays for the likes of the Kindle and Sony Reader. PVI also invested in flexible displays and has acquired a majority stakeholding in Hydis Technologies in Korea, who supply the transistor backplanes used in e-paper. The new combination creates a single company dedicated to electronic paper that will potentially speed up development.

E Ink and Prime View (PVI) were already partners and the goal is now to combine forces and expand capacity and e-paper improvements and push developments such as the long overdue colour and flexible displays.

Another Day Another Kindle

We have been away on business whilst the Kindle 3 hit the market. The device was as expected and the reaction and pitch has been interesting to catch up on after the event:

Digital Demographics
Bowker, at a BISG's ‘Making Information Pay’ conference revealed demographic information that claimed that older readers are the biggest buyers of ebooks. The statement caused many industry thinkers to start to ponder about the attraction of large print, weight, ease of handling and much more perceptions. The reality is that older buyers are those that buy books full stop; they have more time, disposable income and much more. Is it surprising they are the ones buying ebooks – No? Some would say that it’s obvious that the grey market is the one with the largest opportunity and its somewhat condescending to find it a surprise.

Newsprint and magazines are going to go Kindle.
Newspapers may be going downhill but that doesn’t mean that the wave of large screen eInk devices have the answer. We now have PC news sites, smartphone apps and the ereader device. We know that Murdoch wants one, Hearst wants one and we assume the public want one, but the operative word may be one not three or four.
One important digital newspaper issue is how do readers want the news presented? Do they want it in alerts tuned to their personal preferences? Do they want it to look and feel like a paper, after all it has taken many years to perfect the user experience? Do they want it in summary with detail on request? Do they want ads or ads free? Do they want a fully interactive experience and animated experience or merely a captured textural one splattered with the odd greyscale image? Do they want colour?

Once we have addressed the format then there is the price or subscription issue? Then there is the issue about geography and getting the news delivered locally wherever you are in the world. We could go on...

Making the ereader bigger so it looks like a newspaper may not be the answer.

Textbooks are going to be Kindlebooks
Students are going to embrace the new Kindle. The logic appears to be that textbooks are too expensive so ebooks will take the market. So we expect the students to carry around a laptop or netbook, a Kindle and a smartphone? As we walk around the streets of Amsterdam this weekend we wonder who has smoked the most weed? Students require more than ebooks and they already have laptops and smartphones so why would they spend on a device that will give them nothing they don’t have today? Cheaper books have to be offset against the device cost. Students have to live and study with an open, connected campus world and will that fit with fortress Amazon? Princeton and other campus may adopt the device to drive their paperless dream but why not simply adopt a netbook and offer the student’s real choice. Some may say that its easy to create a news splash but living up to the logic can be hard.

Finally, the Kindle DX is priced at whopping $489, a higher price point than a Netbook.

Standards
The Kindle does not handle epub and the standard’s world will continue to argue that this the biggest weakness. We agree that an open standard is the best way but we also recognise the power and openness of Adobe’s other protected format Adobe eBook based on PDF. It may not offer everything that epub offers, but is supported by the same DRM services, ereader devices and is cheaper to produce. Amazon’s propriety format is either their Achilles heel or their trump card and until we see what others do over the summer, we believe that it remains difficult call for the independent.

Finally, we are disappointed that Amazon chooses to change the name as we were looking forward to reaching the K9 version in the future, but more on the DX brand later….

eBook Reader Line Up

So as most ebook readers promise to get bigger the new BeBook e-book reader plans to get smaller. The new machine will be the same as before only it will now have a 5” display screen and be priced at $200 or less. The price will certainly be more attractive but by the screen size they automatically reduce the cost so its yet another eink reader albeit smaller.

As BeBook is manufactured by Chinese company Tianjin Jinke Electronics, who own the Hanlin ereader brand, the mini BeBook will also be available as the Hanlin v5 Reader.

So who are the eInk and ebook reading devices out there today?


Amazon has its Kindle 2 which is rumored to become larger later this year and maybe even make it past the Whispernet and into Europe. Amazon also have the iphone Kindle app and have just acquired Lexcycle’s Stanza application platform. They also own Mobibook.






Sony has the PRS505 and the PRS700 which could break free from the umbilical cord to Adobe’s Digital Editions and maybe even go wireless this year. Although it renders Adobe eBooks as well as epub and that old Sony format its current strength is its current exclusive tie to Adobe DRM through Adept and ACS4 and their current UK exclusive with Waterstones. Today it is still the epub reader with DRM.




iRex has the iLiad Book Edition with an 8.1” screen with built in Wi-Fi capability with an option for external ethernet networking, but is expensive and remains outside of the Adobe world today and is heavily reliant on Mobibook.




Samsung is to launch its touch-screen Papyrus. Samsung is expected to make Papyrus available in Korea this summer, with a later launch date in the US and UK.





Fuijisu have the FLEPia is the first e-book reader to support colour via a 8” display, comes with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support and a touchscreen with a stylus. It is only available in Japan today, with plans to come to both the US and UK. The big issue is the price, a whopping $1,000.





Plastic logic. The reader is expected to measure 8.5 by 11 inches, be thinner than its competitors and today has a look that is fresh and could appeal. It will support Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe PDFs, newspapers, periodicals and books and a wireless capability. However, only an elephant has a longer gesticulation period!

If Apple were to launch their rumoured iTouch as a multi media netbook without a keypad then the PL tablet could die before it makes it onto the street. It could be a classic case of a premature launch.



Hanilin, Jinke, Bebook, Pixelar same box different badge and has been covered already.










Foxit eSlick Reader is a 6” display but is lighter both in its weight and its price than its competitors. However it has limited file support and a clumsy USB umbilical cord to the PC for downloading files. Some may say it’s a cheap man’s ereader.





Brother with its very expensive SV-100B document reader planned to launch in Japan this summer.







Onyx International, China has announced its Boox ereader is not available today but Onyx are looking for OEM customers for their touchscreen for their 6, 8 or 9.7 inch touch screen sizes. It claims to do everything but is still to seen.



This list is growing with many stalling or failing and rumours of a Barnes and Noble reader, a Murdoch Newscorp one, a Hearst one etc. This is without the iPhone and mobile apps, online readers and of course the ultimate reader - the book.

Groundhog Day - The Pixelar eReader

Can you name this ebook reader? Well it looks familiar, and not unlike so many so we were intrigued to see if was any different.



The review from slashgear of Pixelar E-Reader was the usual long list of features, files supported and eink technology and the usual price tag £229.99 / $324. So it isn’t going to shift the volumes and market and remains like the others sitting on the shelf

Follett Announce a New Educational Reader

We have seen the recent emergence of more digital formats and readers some of which are mere pretenders and others confusing noise. Today we read news that is potentially important because of who has developed it and their position in their market. Follett, has revenues in excess of $2.3 billion and provides universities, libraries and schools and school districts in the US and increasingly globally with a wide range of educational tools and services, touching millions of students ranging from adults to grade school children. Follett is truly an educational force.

A new Follett Digital Reader has been developed specifically to meet the needs of K-12 eBook users and will be released on 9th February. During February the focus will be to get the reader installed on computers and at the beginning of March automatically they will migrate the entire existing digital download collections to the FDR format. The reader only effects downloaded ebooks with the existing online collections remain as current.

Follett downloaded eBooks currently are protected using Adobe’s ACS3 DRM and are opened with Adobe® Reader® or Adobe Digital Editions®. Adobe products are now migrating to ACS4 DRM and are planned to cut over in March. The new Follett Digital Reader replaces Adobe DRM and reader products, which Follett believe limits their dependence on Adobe, gives them the ability to develop and introduce additional functionality and importantly enables them to meet the specific needs of their significant K-12 and Public library customer base.

The new reader currently will only read Follett ebooks and works with Adobe Flash 9.0 and 10 and Microsoft.Net and runs on PC and Mac platforms. To read more visit
http://www.follettebooks.com/readersupport/index.html

We believe that this move is significant and is real news. Together with others, Follet are now taking control of their digital business and channel. The move to Flash is both understandable and some would say a wise move as it offers much moving forwar. The battleground would now appear to be between those who believe ebooks should be downloaded and read on a portable dedicated devices and those who who still belive the online and download PC and laptop world works and potentially have their options open with mobile platforms. The concern is that we have yet another format and what this means further down the digital road.

Compare ebooks

A simple and comparison on the eink players.

Click here

It's interesting to read and although basic raises many questions.

Pity they only reviewed eink ebook readers as these may only have a short life as we know them today

Another ebook reader

Coming across another ebook reader should stimulate us to look hard at it and listen to the market’s reaction to it and ponder whether it will make the difference. There is many ereaders littering the market and all claiming to be different and the ‘must buy’ to the new ebook market. So coming across yet another eink model makes us wonder how they think they are different.

Do any have the iconic design of an Apple? Do any offer the technology at a price that is truly a no brainer? Do any offer access content that is different from the others? Do any of them have that marketing position or relationship that makes it a category killer?

The game is to guess which one this is:
• Supports ebook formats from pdf, mobi, lit, epub, doc, html, txt, prc, fb2, jpg files to over 300.000 of *free* rss newsfeeds.
• Fully PC and MAC compatible
• Unique paperlike display, read even in bright sunlight based on eink
• Longlife battery, one charge will last 7.000 pageturns
• Accomodates your entire bookcase up to a 1,000 books
• Use it anywhere: at home, vacation, study, work, travel
• Use it to read: books, studybooks, papers, news, catalogs, workdocuments, reference guides/book, ebooks, training papers, any document
• Plays MP3 files and audiobooks
• It features a 6-inch reflective screen, a SD card slot, 512MB of internal storage and a USB connector. The BEBOOK's dimensions are 184mm (length) x 120mm (width) x 10mm (height) and it weighs just 220 gr including the battery.
• £229 with free leather case

The truth is its just another eink reader with more or less the same features as the rest but has a different badge. The one thing we noticed was that it listed around 22,000 titles in its catalogue. Mostly the usual publics domain suspects plus some interesting other language titles: ‘Afrikaans (3) Breton (1) Bulgarian (6) Catalan (20) Cebuano (1) Chinese (293) Czech (2) Danish (19) Dutch (344) English (21020) Esperanto (44) Finnish (432) French (1195) Frisian (1) Friulano (4) Galician (1) Gascon (1) German (511) Greek (6) Hebrew (3) Hungarian (7) Icelandic (6) Iloko (2) Interlingua (1) Irish (4) Italian (144) Japanese (2) Latin (37) Middle English (3) Nahuatl (1) Napoletano-Calabrese (1) Norwegian (10) Polish (3) Portuguese (234) Romanian (1) Russian (3) Serbian (4) Spanish (159) Swedish (39) Tagalog (51) Welsh (10)’

The answer is another Dutch product called BEBOOK.

What links the Kindle, Sony, Iliad, Plastic Logic, Fujitsu, and Bebook is eink and also the concept of a portable storage and reading device. Is eink the key to the Holy Grail or is it a technology looking for a home? There are new screen technologies being developed and adopted by other converging media and communications sectors that aim to compete, so will it succeed?

The online world will challenge the current download logic and in doing so also negate the often messy and cumbersome DRM handshakes. The rent to read and cloud computing model will question the need to build local storage devices for books that are often only read one at a time and once. The mobile convergence and netbook developments will question the one dimensional device and just as Blackberry had to these devices will have to widen their functionality. The world is no longer greyscale and is animated. Finally, ask any person on the street what gadget or electronic device they would spend £229 on and the odds would be slim on an ebook reader. The price point is way out.

Is Winter upon us?

We are constantly reminded by every headline and news broadcast that we are in a credit crunch or as we used to refer to it a recession. This makes everyone think twice about that extra purchase, that non necessity that gadget. Against this background we are all trying to move the digital agenda forward.

Today we read in Ars Technica that the winner of the HD DVD war is experiencing a dip. According to the latest data from Nielsen VideoScan Blu-ray's market share fell to 8% during the week ending on September 14, whilst the regular old DVD enjoyed 92%. A drop of 13.39% from the previous week, whilst DVD numbers marginally rose by0.15%. This poor performance falls well short of the 50% market share expected by Sony for the end of this year and is despite the unit price falling below $200.

These unexpected shifts in the economy and consumer confidence are hard to predict and require strong nerves. If we think of the ebook market it can’t be good for the current ereaders. Even though actual sales are still not published and many sales and early adopters are from within publishing and the news it makes the Christmas rush look very unlikely.

The good news is that the UK government have announced a programme aimed at connecting all children to the Internet via subsidy for the poor. In principle it looks good but as always the devil is in the detail and words have to be translated into action. However, what this effect will have on the debate on downloads versus online will be interesting. If publishers, retailers and even authors can reach their audience online will consumers still want the ereader in hard times?

The other news yesterday saw the European Commission declare that the mobile operators had to reduce their cross border tariffs on text, voice and data. Again this has a knock on effect of the service operators’ revenues and although the subscription model has enabled high device churn rates this may also start to slow down and could impact the purification of new devices being released in the market.

Perhaps its time to curl up with a good old book!

Fictionwise Make a Wise Move

We have written many times about Smartphones and the convergence of technology and applications to this platform. The recent iPhone application program demonstrated that there were both developers queuing to bring applications to the phone and users ready to use them.

We now read in Publishers Weekly that ebook retailer Fictionwise not only jumped the queue when it released the first version of a free ebook reader for the iPhone devices but that it has been installed on 130,000 devices and generated 35,000 bought downloads.

The eReader has already been upgraded to a version 1.1 and now enables users to download books from any site that sells or offers e-books in the eReader PDB (Palm Database) format. The new features include ‘ reverse-video’ or white text on black background, along with lock screen orientation both aimed at helping readers at night lying on their sides in bed! Watch at YouTube.com

They now plan another upgrade this month with yet more features. We can soon expect them enable users to purchase eBooks from eReader.com or Fictionwise.com right from their iPhone or iPod touch device.

This sort of enterprise move is what is great about the digital revolution. It is not down to the Gorillas to squash and own the market but smaller and more nimble companies to capture the imagination.