info NeoGnostic: Kindling enthusiasm: the Amazon reader

: Name: Chris Armstrong; Location: Aberystwyth, Wales, United Kingdom

I am the owner and managing director of Information Automation Limited (IAL), a company that specialises in research, consultancy and training for the information profession. We are particularly interested in all forms of electronic information resources (e-journals, e-books, etc) and I teach a course in electronic publishing at the Department of Information Studies in Aberystwyth. Drilling down still further(!), my interests centre on the quality and evaluation of electronic information, and in the thinking that underpins activities in library and information science.

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Thursday, November 22, 2007

Kindling enthusiasm: the Amazon reader

Walt at Random is known for its incisive comment - today's post, Food pills and the Kindle, notes that while thankful for many things,

I’m also thankful that I’m not really writing about ebooks and ebook devices these days. ‘Cause then, you know, I’d probably want to write something about the Kindle (do you really need a link?).

and then enjoys himself commenting on the commenting on the Kindle! Meanwhile, if:book in of razors and blades, also borrows from others (as do I... and as will we all in the UK, if the Kindle doesn't get here soon!). There is concern in some quarters that Amazon haven't gone down the standards route and embraced .epub [the International Digital Publishing Forum's new standard format] -but why should they? It is a standard in name only and Amazon surely don't need its imprimatur with c.90,000 titles already available.

TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home has excerpts from some of the many US Kindle owner’s reports - naturally there are happy owners and some not-so-happy owners: there are now 547 customer reviews (so sales can't be too bad despite what some regard as a high price!) on the Amazon page... and I'm not going to summarise them here! There is also a response to the posting I had a go at in my last Kindle post about the failure of Kindle meaning the failure of e-books: Kindle failure would mean biz failure of obnoxious DRM lockups, Evan—not E-BOOK failure.

Oh, and there is also a Wikipedia page already! But of course there is.

And if Amazon is reading this, what about the UK market???

>>Technorati tags: ebooks; readers; Amazon; Kindle