Much has been said about the recent release of Amazon's Kindle, from reviews and rants throughout the blogosphere to the cover article in Newsweek magazine. I have sifted through a bunch of this information, and while I am happy to see such buzz about ebooks, I wonder if some of the issues that are being raised are a little, how do I put this ... lame?
I mean, to gripe that the first generation of the Kindle does not support social networking or have a touch screen? Can E Ink even support a touch screen interface (I don't know the answer, but I would not simply assume so)? Is it really an issue that you can't use the Kindle to purchase print books (or a 50" HD LCD TV, for that matter) direct from Amazon? Isn't it just pretty darn cool that you can wirelessly connect to their ebook store and purchase download titles without being tethered to a computer?
I have now had the opportunity to consume digital content on both the latest generation Sony Reader as well as the Kindle, and I think the main issue with either device has nothing to do with features and functionality. It has to do with the availablity of CONTENT. That's right, until there is a critical mass of digital books available for either platform, I just don't see adoption. In fact, when I recently received my Kindle, none of the top 3 titles I was looking for were available for purchase, so I had to settle for my fourth choice. The same thing went for the Sony Reader. I am much more concerned with having the content I want to read available than if my device can jump through hoops.
So now we have several devices on the market that support E Ink, two of them from large, significant companies. Now, how do we get publishers ABLE to get their books to these channels? Is it a question of business rules and royalties with Sony, Amazon, etc? Or is it still a production question, that the cost of preparing the IDPF's EPUB format or a variety of other proprietary formats is still too high? How can we get over this hump?
Until we do, I think we have some pretty cool early generation digital reading devices with not enough content.
