BPN 1689: Dutch e-reading market in flux

The market for e-readers and e-books in the Netherlands is changing. The online shop Bol.com, recently acquired by the supermarket concern Albert Heijn, has announced a cooperation with the Canadian e-reading company Kobo. The chain of Libris bookstores, which until now had Kobo in their portfolio, change over to the German e-reader Tolino. And the rumours are stronger that Amazon will have a distribution centre based in The Netherlands instead of distributing from Germany. And as of September 13, the public libraries started an e-book campaign, adding more than 1,000 new Dutch lingual e-books to their collection of 7,000 e-books with many bestsellers. These developments are taking place against the backdrop of the disappearance of Sony e-readers and e-books from the Dutch market.

Bol.com has chosen to cooperate with the Canadian company Kobo, the runner-up in the global market of e-reading. Kobo provides millions of users in 190 countries worldwide with titles from the largest catalogue with over 4 million e-books in 68 languages​​, a portfolio of reading devices with an open platform and apps. in the Netherlands Bol.com can now strategically compete with Amazon, admittedly the world player with the reading machine Kindle, but with a closed platform. Kobo is part of the Tokyo-based eCommerce company Rakuten. Along with Albert Heijn Bol.com should be able to create a large Dutch e-book market for Kobo.

The chain of Libris bookshops terminated its cooperation with Kobo immediately, as if stung by a wasp, and announced the distribution of Tolino, an e-reader that has been put in the market since March 2013 by a German cooperative of bookstores and book clubs. The cooperative is active in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, but also in Belgium, where the Standard bookstores sell the Tolino e-reader. Tolino is also an open platform, and can even work on open source software.

Amazon has had the intention to conquer the Dutch market. So far the company has done this through their German distribution channels, but now the company is showing signs to start a Dutch operation. Two years ago Amazon started talks with CB (formerly Central Book House), which runs the largest database with Dutch lingual e-books. Now the company has started to talk with publishers. Publishing company Xander has already been signed, but Podium is very hesitant to sign. Amazon is in a fight with US publishers and Dutch publishers will be afraid to fall victim to the same type of squeezing. Besides Amazon is aiming broader at selling publishing products such as printed books, videos, games and other products. As such, Amazon is a direct competitor Bol.com.

Public libraries conducted during the summer holidays the Holiday Bieb action. Eight weeks long members of the public libraries had access to a wide reading package for the whole family. A total of 345,000 people downloaded the app, with 200,000 new users this summer. In total this summer, 1.5 million e-books were downloaded, three times as many as last year; of these downloads there were 485,000 youth titles.

It is clear that there will be a lot of competition and promotion for e-reading in the coming year. The major fight will be between Bol.com/Kobo and Amazon, while Libris will attempt some impact through their bookshop chain.  The whole effort will result in more e-readers and legal purchase of Dutch and foreign-language e-books. The public libraries will attempt to convert its two million adult members to e-reading. 

BPN 1589 No endless bankruptcy for Dutch e-reader manufacturer

The Netherlands based Endless Ideas, the company behind the Bebook line of e-readers, officially filed for bankruptcy on January 5, 2012. The company offered in less than two years the e-reader models Bebook Neo, One, Club, Mini, and the recently released Club S. The problem for the company was the worldwide competition, the stay in the middle price range, technical problems and bloating supplies. But within two weeks the company has been purchased by the BAS Group, a Dutch consumer electronics distributor, active in Europe and the US.

The BAS Group is the better known in the Netherlands through its chains Dixons, PC World and Dynabyte. By acquiring Bebook and Endless Ideas BAS Group will be able to expand its portfolio and sell through the e-readers in their street locations and online. AS Endless Ideas has also developed a tablet, the BAS Group recognises the difference between tablets and e-readers. The group recently opened an iPad shop in a retail store. But it sees a niche group of readers for the paperlike screen readers. But being a hard- and software distributor, BAS Group is guaranteeing the Bebook warranties and support.

Endless Ideas has had a rough ride so far. It started up being a Dutch competitor of the Philips spin-off , iRex Technology, dubbed IRX Innovations coming out of bankruptcy. So it had to start competing in price with that company, as iRex was serving to top segment in the market, between 500 and 600 euro. Endless Ideas was producing the Bebook models, offering them between 200 and 300 euro. In this price rage they had competition from the UK and French manufacturers, resp. Cool-ER and Cybook. Working from the Netherlands the company had to cover The Netherlands and other European countries as well start up competition in The States. In the US it sold e-readers through Amazon and eBay; however the company never found a regional content partner and financer to offer competition to the Amazon homebrand Kindle e-readers. Recently  Endless Idea got onto the fray of tablets with the 279 euro Bebook Live.

Besides this marketing situation the company had more inventory of e-readers than sales. And with the last model Club S with the S for Storage, increasing the internal memory to 2000 Mb for up to 4000 books or documents, the company got into technical problems as the boot strap contained a bug, which needed a manual patch, too difficult for average users.

With the BAS Group taking in Endless Ideas, the company will gain more marketing and technical support. However in order to make Bebooks a success, BAS Group will have find an association with a content supplier in the Netherlands such as Bol.com, e-Book.nl or the network of Dutch bookstores, but also other countries.

BPN 1561 Looking back at 2010

The year has almost come to an end. It has been a crazy year. In the beginning of the year I had a knee replacement surgery and became a bionic man. Rehabilitation took a while, but I had great exercises as I travelled to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. And in the second half of the year I was in New York, Finland, Sao Paolo (Brasilia),Austria and Abu Dhabi.

For the content world it was also a great year on two fronts: e-books and mobile content.

E-Readers became popular and cheaper. I saw them on the beach and in airports. They are no longer the private resort of Amazon with the Kindle, but you see them now in Germany and Austria and at very reasonable prices; in fact the price is still going down. Of course the acquisition of these reading devices stimulate the sale of e-books.
However there is a dark side to this success. Where e-readers used to be reading devices provided with displays based on the e-ink technology, and e-reader can now also be an i-Phone, i-Pad, a Samsung Galaxy or any digital pane manufactured in China. In the Netherlands Bol.com even gave away such a device (including a firmware mistake), when a buyer bought 10 e-books.
I think that only the e-reader devices with e-Ink technology should be allowed to be called e-readers and not every digital pane with a tft screen or other display. The fonts are not as sharp as the fonts on an e-Ink display, besides the other screens have an interference, while the e-Ink screen is stable. The e-Ink screens should be marketed for excellence with a pay-off slogan: e-Ink screen for YOUR eyes only.

As mobile telephones are getting smarter, the need for mobile content comes up. Mobile telephones are reaching over 100 percent coverage in some western countries, while in countries like India there are more mobile telephones than PCs (in 2009: 17 million mobile telephone over against 4 million internet subscriptions). As mobile telephones become smarter and the operating system war becomes more heavier (Apple IOS vs Google Android, leaving Nokia Symbian in limbo), mobile content is required for demonstration and use.
So it was great to be at the mobile content conference in Abu Dhabi in December 2010 and to see mainly new publishers exploring the possibilities of the fourth screen. Of course hardly any representatives of hard wire devices were present there as they still suppose that people will come to them. I wonder what the situation will look like in two years time when the next mobile content conference will be held: will the representatives of hard wire devices be there and how will mobile content/apps have developed.

BPN 1561

BPN 1422 iRex Technologies bancrupt

Earlier this month the Dutch e-reader developer and manufacturer iRex Technologies requested for protection under chapter 11. Since 29 June the company has gone in receivership with a debt of 10 million euro. Martijn Kemps, the lawyer treating the bancruptcyexpectes that iRex will be able to make a new start as many parties have shown interest in the IPR and operational knowledge of the company.

iRex Technologies has been a pioneer in the digital page display technology. It started out as a Philips company which brought the e-Ink display technology from the laboratory to the factory. While e-Ink had debvveloped the principle of the digital page technology, iRex Technologies used the substrate technology of Philips to make a workable ereader. iRex Technology was also the first company to bring a usuable ereader to market, the Iliad.

iRex Technology nested itself in the top of the market, striving after quality and pricing its ereaders high. Competition by manufacturers of cheaper ereaders and marketing setbacks made it not easy for iRex Technologies to conquer a fair market share. Amazon.com talked to iRex Technologies about the production of the Kindle, but did not get to an agreement in the end. Last year iRex Technologies missed the Christmas season sales for which it had teamed up with Barnes & Noble.

Last month the company went into chapter 11 and looked for 2 million euro to bridge the financial gap. However when a regional development banker and the Deutsche Bank broke off talks, the bancruptcy was inevitable.

Tags: ereader, ebook

BPN 1416 Colour screen and video on ereader

It is coming, the colour screen and video on an ereader. So far ereader have black/white screens and are slow in internet representation. The Eindhoven based company Liquavista, a Philips Research spin-off, is now showing a colour screen and video at CES in Las Vegas thanks to the technology of electrowetting.

Electrowetting looks like the e-Ink technology. They both work without backlightning and have low energy consumption. E-Ink technology is fully implemented now for ereaders in the meantime. Electrowetting will change the reader from reading to entertaining and yield a complete new range of interactive colour devices for consumers. Now ereaders based on the principle of e-Ink technology are used as text iPods in black and white and audio iPods. Devices based on electrowetting will become content devices, offering ebooks and epapers in colour, audio, but also high-fidelity video as well as internet. The greatest advantage will be the low energy consumption.

Electrowetting is now shown as a laboratory development, which will be in operation by the end of the year or the beginning of next year. The production is rather simple as 90 percent of the existing LCD production equipment and processes are being used.

Plastic Logic Unveils QUE E-book Reader. At CES the digital paper manufacturer Plastic Logic on Thursday introduced its QUE e-book reader device, which features a 10.7-inch touch-screen display, is about one-third of an inch thick, and will sell for $649 (4GB + Wi-Fi) and $799 (8GB + Wi-Fi + AT&T 3G). Pre-orders for the device are now available from the QUE Store and will ship in mid-April. Later this year, the QUE will also go on sale at Barnes & Noble stores nationwide, and from the bookseller's website.

Samsung Ebook Readers with Stylus Pen. On Thursday at CES Samsung debuted its first two e-book reader devices, the $399 E6, which features a six-inch screen, and the $699 E10, which sports a ten-inch screen. Both devices feature non-back-lit displays, which come with a built-in electromagnetic resonance stylus pen that can be used to write annotations or create to-do lists directly on the device's screen. The devices, set to ship in early 2010, will also feature Wi-Fi capability and Bluetooth, which allows sharing of certain content with other devices.

Plastic Logic and Samsung are creating a new top of the range. Kindle DX and iRex Digital Reader 1000 series were already leading the pack, but they will now get company of Plastic Logic and Samsung. They will be sitting together uneasily as the prices are same range and a choice of preference will made on facilities and services such as news online and telephone services.

While this ‘traditional’ fight will go on in the market place for the year to come, Electrowetting will get introduced by the beginning of next year with colourful devices and have competition awaiting from Apple, from new LCD manufacturers like Pixel Qi and to a less extent from HP, Asus and others. And these new players will not just be in the market for flogging books and newspapers. They will do text, audio and video on the content container. And a complete new game with ebooks, epapers, emagazines, music and video will start.

Blog Posting Number: 1416

Tags: ebook, ereader

BPN 1412 Ereaders will drop under 150 euro

The year is almost over and looking back I am impressed by the inroads made by ereaders and electronic books. Of course Kindle had made impressive inroads already, but only in the US. And now the fight for market share has begun. Barnes & Noble launched the Nook. In neighbouring Canada a new entrant Kobo is starting up dotted with 16 million US by amongst others Borders. But in Europe, Amazon.com has not made any impression and still does not do so.

In Europe, it is Sony which started up the wave. In The Netherlands Sony and Bol.com teamed up successfully and made a dramatic start. The aim was to sell 10.000 units before the end of the year. And they did sell more than 10.000 units. In fact the Sony ereader was and still is the favourite item in the consumer electronic goods, leaving netbooks behind.

But the Sony/Bol.com combination triggered also other brands of ereaders such as Bebooks, Hanlin and Cybook to start selling. In fact the action by Sony/Bol.com set off an action among Dutch bookshops, where ereaders were met with a lot of expected scepticism. Yet when potential buyers showed up, the tradesman in the bookseller would loose all reservation.

The introduction of ereader in The Netherlands has had five effects on the Dutch ebook market:
a. The price of ereaders has been lowered under 300 euro and the Price will even drop under 200 euro in 2010.
b. The publishing format has been standardised on the EPUB format. It is now the official format and publishers and distributors using other formats offer now also EPUB.
c. EPUB carries DRM limitations, but a liberal regime is offered: a buyer can share the ebook with four friends or copy it onto four platforms.
d. Publishers are getting more eager to publish an electronic counterpart together with a printed edition.
e. In the Netherlands printed books have a fixed Price for cultural reasons. But for ebooks the price has dropped 10 percent on average. The price would have dropped more if the VAT had been lined up with the VAT of printed books, which is only 6 percent instead of 19 percent. (The Spanish government has announced plans to slash value-added tax on electronic books to the same low level as printed books, from 16 percent to 4 percent).


BTW The price of ereaders will drop even under 150 euro, I am convinced. Looking at the Nook of Barnes & Noble it is clear to me that this ereader with two screens of digital paper and LCD could have been cheaper by leaving the useless colour mini-screen out.

So ebook and the ereader will become a consumer item for the book reader next year, while the larger ereaders will start a fight for their share of newspaper market, on which Kindle and Irex DRS are already players with Hearst waiting in the wings.

Blog Posting Number 1412

Tags: ebook, ereader

BPN 1394 Kindle launched globally, did you notice?

Beginning of October a press statement was released by Amazon about the international launch of a global Kindle. The global Kindle would be a Kindle 2, it would be 20 US dollar cheaper than the price of the US Kindle at that time and AT&T would be the telecom carrier worldwide instead of Sprint Verizon. The e-books will be only in English/American and will be two US dollars more expensive; the two US dollar paying for the telecom charges. Next year a Kindle DX would be on offer. After that statement it stayed quiet in The Netherlands even on October 19, 2009, the day of the launch.

In the meantime Sony is very active in The Netherlands and even thinks to sell more than 10.000 e-readers before the end of the year. Sony has associated itself with the popular internet bookshop Bol.com in the starting market in The Netherlands. So fat the buyers of e-readers buy 4 books to each e-reader; in the US each e-reader contains 8 e-books. The market condition in The Netherlands is now ripe for the sales of e-readers. The publishers are finally embracing the e-book; it is even expected that every new title will have an electronic counterpart next year. The price of the hardware has come down to an acceptable level. There is a portfolio of 110.000 e-books, including Dutch language titles. And the popular internet bookshop has become the prime promoter of the e-reader. Also the physical bookshops have started to sell e-readers of various brands and e-books. The bookshop chain Selexyz started last year selling the iLiad of the Dutch manufacturer iRex Technologies. It looks like the iLiad had a preferential treatment for a period, but now Selexyz as well as other bookshops sells other less expensive brands like Sony, Cybook, Cool-ER and Bebook.

Will Kindle make it in The Netherlands? No. The portfolio contains only English/American titles and no Dutch language ones. AT&T is only a business telecom provider. Amazon.com uses the Mobipocket format, while in The Netherlands the publishers have chosen for the EPUB format (the Dutch even can lend an e-book to four friends or devices).

Will The Netherlands embrace e-readers in one or two years. No, not even in before 2015. I believe that by 2030 the e-reader might be a common device or perhaps it might even be overtaken by a new tablet like a multifunctional, colour screen device for cultural matters like music, movies, books, cartoons, newspapers as well as social media. Something like the iPhone but with a larger screen.

Blog Posting Number: 1394

Tags: e-book, e-reader

BPN 1393 Barnes seeks nook in e-reader market

The bookshop chain Barnes & Noble with 1300 retail stores had already announced its rentree into the e-book; it had also announced that it would launch its own e-reader. Now the announcement is official and the e-reader, named the Nook (meaning a secluded place or space), can be pre-ordered at 259 US dollar to be delivered in November. The device has two outstanding features: a six-inch reading display and a colour touch-screen display with virtual keyboard and the option to pass on an e-book to another device or lend out e-books to one another. Now the battle for the Christmas season sales between the Kindles of Amazon.com and the Nook can start.

The e-reader is 7,7 x 4,9 x 0,5 inches and weighs 317 grams. So its thin and very portable. It has the most advanced E-ink electronic paper display, which can be reads in bright sunlight and inside. It has also a 3.5 inch colour touch screen LCD with one touch control and navigation. It downloads e-books via AT&T, the nation's fastest 3G network and Wi-Fi ( 802.11 b/g). In Barnes & Noble stores e-book previews can be downloaded for free. The Nook has a memory of 2GB or approximately 1500 eBooks. An expandable microSD can be slotted in so that you can buy an extra 16 GB memory card and store up to 17,500 books (more books on one card than in the library of the Paris based university Sorbonne in 1750!). The Nook can also hold 26 hours of MP3 audio. A battery life of ten days reading is predicted, but also a recharging time of 3,5 hours. As to the format of e-books, Nook uses the EPUB format and can use other e-Reader formats. PDFs, MP3s and graphics can be loaded to the Nook from a computer or from and a micro SD card. JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP files can also be used.

Two features are outstanding in the device: the screen and the lending facility:
- the screen looks like a composite of digital paper with a colour LCD screen. As such this composite screen does not look ideal and might generate technical problems, but it heralds the colour electronic display;
- the lending facility is new to the English speaking world. According to the New York Times the lending facility is limited to one transfer for a fortnight, either between the Nook and another reading device like the iPhone or between the owner of a Nook and another person with a reading device. It looks like a great concession, but it is in fact very limitative as in The Netherlands Sony is using the EPUB format and offering lending facilities to four devices or persons.

Barnes & Noble was in the pre-electronic paper era already selling e-books, but gave up the adventure as the e-book sales were slow. But with the improvement of electronic paper Barnes & Noble is stepping into the e-book fray almost five years after the launch of the Sony Librié. But this time the prospects look better than ever. Barnes & Noble is in time with the launch of the Nook for the Christmas sales season. And the Nook makes a good chance to become a hit. The Nook looks to be top of the bill as far as state of art technology. Barnes & Noble has a book portfolio of 700.000 e-books. People can lend an e-book to a friend for a fortnight. And the price of the e-reader is competitive with the Kindles of Amazon.com and in fact with many other e-readers. Also publishers will be more pleased with Barnes & Noble than with Amazon.com. Barnes & Noble offers publishers 55 percent of the revenue, while Amazon.com asks 60 percent. The Nook will be sold only in the US (so I do not have to search the nooks of the apartment for my Christmas present). Let the battle begin!

Blog Posting Number: 1393

Tags: e-book, e-reader

BPN 1392 Frankfurt Book Fair: no e-book excitement

The annual pilgimage for publishers to the Frankfurter Book Fair is over. On this largest book grail publishers walk kilometers, select potential books to be translated and talk about the latest developments in the sector over a beer or a good dinner. And the e-reader definitely was on the menu of the item list. The marketing bureau Forrester forcated a sale of 1 million e-readers in the Christmas season, followed by sales of 6 million e-readers next year. And Google announced that Google Editions will start distributing e-books in the first half year of next year. But how much whipped cream wsa in these announcements?

Concretely there is some action on the e-readers front. Barnes & Noble will re-join the fray. And Amazon will launch a global English-language Kindle with wireless 3G access through AT&T in more than 100 countries. And Google has announced In my home country The Netherlands the Kindle will (finally) be available on October 19, 2009. Amazon will not have Dutch titles available yet; but the portfolio starts with the US offer and the European offer, read UK offer, probably with a small selection of French and German titles. The e-reader will be available at 185 euro, just a fraction cheaper than the cheapest Sony device. Besides subscribers to the Kindle will have to pay 99 eurocents for every megabyte transmitted. The offer looks too little, too late, as Sony has teamed up with the internet bookshop Bol.com and is well on its way with their introduction.

Not only in The Netherlands, but also in Europe Kindle will have a hard time. Publishing e-books in foreign languages is not yet popular with publishers as there is no real demand for it. In Europe there is still a culture of ink sniffing. No books without ink.

Google will start distributing between the 600.000 and 800.000 e-books. This portfolio will partly exist of public domain book of which the copyrights are no longer valid., and partly of books, to which Google has been licensed. Google will keep 55 percent of the sales price (Amazon keeps 60 percent).

Should we be impressed by the potential sales figures? The sale of 6 million e-readers is impressive, but still small in terms of demography worldwide and even of the US. It is a start. But publishers and certainly foreign language book publishers will remain careful.

Blog Posting Number: 1392

Tags: e-book, e-reader

BPN 1363 iRex to join US e-reader fray

iRex Technologies has confirmed that it will launch a new e-reader, for the time being only for the US market. A few details have been leaked and confirmed by iRex Technologies. The e-reader is the latest arm in the American e-reader market with Sony’s e-readers, Amazon Kindle I and II and e-readers for Hearst and Barnes & Nobles waiting in the wings. With some 4,5 million e-readers around in the US, according to Forrester, the e-reader war will be fought on more than one front.

Officials have confirmed that the spun-off Philips company iRex Technologies will launch their third edition of an e-reader. Irex was the first company to launch an e-reader, called iLiad, with digital paper (and 16 grey scales) and wireless communication in July 2006. The first edition got a cut-down version minus the wireless facility, the Bookwurm. Then a larger screen edition the IREX Digital ereader (10.2 inch) was launched in three flavours. Although there are only a few details known on the third edition e-reader, it is not a cut-down version of the first two editions.

This is what is known about the forthcoming e-reader: 8.1-inch display; 3G wireless connectivity (no carrier announced); touch screen with stylus navigation; fall 2009 release. From the photograph the page ruler, absent in the IREX Digital ereaders series is also back. The new e-reader will only be offered in the US, but a few very essential details such as preferred online e-book seller, 3G network vendor and price has to be established.

One thing is sure. Irex likes to compete on the size of the screen and the 16 grey scales. The Sony e-readers, Kindle versions and the Barnes&Nobles one. The new Sony e-readers have screens of 5 and 6 inches, The Kindles have resp. a 9.7 and 10.2 screen, while Barnes&Nobles will carry the Plastic Logic e-reader with a screen based on letter format (8,5 x 11 inches) iRex sits in between with the 8.1 inch display.

As for the online e-book seller, iRex has not made up its mind. Question is of course whether they will tam up with a bookseller. So far they have only teamed up exclusively with the newspaper service Press Reader, but not with an online e-book service. The company had aimed at a business community so far and looked for newspapers rather than for books. The lack of an association with an online e-book service has always been seen as a weakness in the iRex marketing policy. Sony has its own shop,. Kindle has Amazon and Barnes&Nobles has its own shop. So, it will be interesting to see whether iRex really looks for an online e-book shop.

The new iRex e-reader will have a 3G facility on board, not a wifi like their first iLiad had. A 3G vendor is not known yet. The Kindles work with Verizon, while the Plastic Logic, and implicitly Barnes&Nobles, has teamed up with AT&T.

What will the price be of the iRex device? iRex products have been expensive from the start. And the products are still top of the bill. Speculation on the new iRex 8.1 inch screen e-reader says that iRex aims at less than 400 US dollars. It might be even around 350 US dollars and be face to face in competition with the Kindle.

It is clear that iRex Technologies tries to get into the US fray, as it takes more effort to sell e-readers in the underdeveloped markets of Europe and Asia. Soon the US market most likely will double its marketing statistics from 4,5 million e-readers. Hopefully iRex has learned the lesson that the real fight starts not with the e-reader and its technology, but with the full package: the e-reader, the portfolio of online e-book and newspaper titles, the online e-book service (open or exclusive) and the 3G service (open or exclusive).

Blog Posting Number: 1363

Tags: e-reader, e-book

BNP 1353 A changing e-Book world (2)

It is not only e-readers, where you see changes. Also in the distribution of e-books things are moving. Google will soon offer a program for publishers to offer the digital versions of their books. But also the e-book veteran, the Project Gutenberg, will increase its offer.

Google has a long standing tradition with publishers. In 2004 it launched its book search service, in which copyrighted books could be read online. Google was heavily attacked by authors and publishers. Yet it made 1,5 copyright free books available in the public domain through its site. Google is launching a download service in which publishers can set their own price on the book; this in contrast to Amazon, which offers books in Mobipocket format and optionally on its own e-reader Kindle.
Details about the service still have to be published. No word on the format, except for the guarantee that a book must be readable on an e-reader, on PC or a mobile phone. It is rumoured that the e-books will be transformed to HTML. There is also no word on whether Google will have its own e-reader produced (with android software).
Also the veteran of the electronic book, the Project Gutenberg, is shifting gear and making eyes to mobile phones. The first goal of Project Gutenberg was simply to reach totals of estimated audiences of 1.5% of the world population, or the total of 100 million people. With the advent of mobile phone access the project management is now setting its goal at 15 percent of the world population or 1 billion. Given that there are approximately 4.5 billion mobile phones now in service around the world that means that the project with its offer could reach just over one-fifth of all mobile phone users to accomplish this goal.

Given the estimated 4.5 billion mobile phones for which eBooks could be made, presuming they can all display plain eBooks, and the extremely slow rise in Kindle sales as compared to the iPod, iPhone, Blackberry Curve, and all the others, Project Gutenberg could reach more readers than Kindle and Sony combined. This attempt to reach these mobile phones has to include books in many more languages than English.

This means that Project Gutenberg will have to be more multi-lingual, if Project Gutenberg is to reach anyone beyond the number of people comfortable enough with English to read the eBooks on the mobile phones. There are already well over a thousand book titles in French, followed by lesser numbers in German and the other more popular languages, but not nearly enough to really offer a library in these languages.

Project Gutenberg especially aims at the smart phones and iPhones in particular. With iTunes as a shop it has a software and content distributor in one. Various iPhone applications for eBooks have appeared in the iTunes appl shop such as Plucker, the defacto mobile eBook reader format for Project Gutenberg, houses over 20,000 free eBooks. Another eText reader for the iPhone is Eucalyptus.

Blog Posting Number: 1353

tags: e-books, content

BPN 1352 A changing e-reader world (1)

Something is changing in the e-reader scene. Plastic Logic e-book reader has now 3G. And even more newsworthy is the acquisition of E-Ink by PVI. What is going on in this world?

The news of Plastic Logic is not really breaking news. But after Kindle and the iLiad using 3G, it will mean that the business e-readers are going to compete on a plain level. The question will be of course whether Plastic Logic will make a special deal with a telecom provider like Kindle did with Sprint. The deal with Sprint has limited Kindle geographically to the States. Whether Plastic Logic will make an exclusive bundled deal with a telecom operator is not known. With such a deal you win some customers, but also loose some. It is like with the iPhone and T-Telecom. They have a worldwide deal for a half year exclusivity. And of course they sell the iPhone to Apple tifosi, but not to other people who do not like T-Telecom (yes T-Telecom there are people who do not like the bundled deals; it means no competition).

But the fact that Plastic Logis is going to have 3G, means that there will be competition in the market. iLiad was the first one with a telecom facility, followed by Kindle. Then iRex Technologies came back with the iRex 1000 series, of which the model 1000SW is equipped with a large screen and wireless. The Kindle is equipped with 3G and now Plastic Logic will be part of the competition with a large screen and 3G. So mark 2010 for the launch of Plastic Logic.

Really breaking news is the agreement of Prime View International (PVI) to acquire E Ink. PVI is a Taiwanees leading small and medium display provider and the world’s highest volume supplier of ePaper display modules. The production company is acquiring the laboratory company of digital paper. So research and production will now be in the hand of PVI.

I am wondering whether this is smart. In the first place the acquisition sum of 215 million US dollar is not impressive for an innovative company and certainly not for a market which will grow to over 20 million e-readers units by 2012. Secondly, PVI has now the research facility and the e-reader production facility in one hand, which will hinder the diversification of the product development. PVI and E-Ink worked already close for some years. PVI acquired the ePaper business of Philips Electronics and partnered with E Ink to provide displays for electronic books including the SONY Reader and the Amazon Kindle 2 and Kindle DX.

Yet in the past twelve months E-Ink customers have announced many exciting digital paper devices. Oprah Winfrey endorsed Amazon’s Kindle on live television calling it “her favorite gadget”. Subsequently Amazon’s Kindle 2 has proven highly popular and the Kindle DX enters the eTextbook and eNewspaper space with a large 9.7” screen. SONY launched a new PRS-700 Reader with integrated touch screen. Chinese astronauts brought the Hanwan N510 eBook into outer space on a recent Shenzhou 7 mission. PVI, Epson, LG Display, PolymerVision, Hewlett-Packard and Plastic Logic demonstrated flexible active matrix displays using E Ink Vizplex imaging film. E Ink Corporation teamed with Esquire Magazine and Ford Corporation on the first ePaper animated magazine cover. In May 2009, Verizon announced the Samsung Alias 2 cellphone, with a changeable keypad made with E Ink Vizplex imaging film.

Blog Posting Number: 1352

Tags: e-reader

BPN 1300 Kindle 2 slimmer and smarter

This posting is a milestone, in more than one sense. This posting is numbered 1300; since May 1, 2006 I have logged developments in ICT, new media and journalism. And in this posting I treat the launch of the Kindle 2, which will be a powerful stimulus to the sales of eBooks and specific reading devices for the coming year.




The Kindle 2 is not just a successor with some minor changes to the Kindle 1. The predecessor, which was launched a little over a year ago, was smart, but clumsy. But Kindle 2 is slim and smart. It is just less than 1 cm thick and it weighs only 235 grams. The Kindle 2 can hold 1500 books and without charging it has a battery life of two weeks, if the Wifi is switched off. It includes the New Oxford American Dictionary. And NEW: the Read-to-Me button the Kindle 2 can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you. The 15,2 cm in diameter, 600x800 pixel electronic paper display includes 16 shades of gray, compared to the 4 shades available on the original Kindle. The Kindle 2 is now up to par with the iLiad in screen quality with its 16 gray shades. Like its predecessor, Kindle 2 does not use backlighting.

Kindle 2 uses the same wireless network as the original Kindle: Amazon Whispernet. Customers do not incur a monthly bill for the network costs; Amazon will continue to pay for the wireless network. The new Whispersync technology will sync Kindle 2 and Kindle 1 to help transition, but it will also sync with a range of mobile devices in the future such as iPods, iPhones and Androids.

Last but not least is the portfolio of eBooks. Kindle 1 was launched with 90.000 eBooks in Kindle format (Amazon also owns Mobipocket software and format) . The Kindle store offers now 230.000 eBooks, newspapers, magazines and blogs (an eBook can be downloaded under 60 seconds). The Kindle 2 will cost 359 US dollar, comparable to Kindle 1. Pre-registration has started and delivery will start on February 24, 2009.

The Kindle 2 is still limited to the US. But it will have quite some impact there: the slim line, the better screen, the longer battery life, the greater storage. The eReader fulfils the readability requirement of the success factors. So the eReader combined with the vast portfolio will give a strong stimulus to the new world of eBooks and eReaders. In the US, the Kindle 2 will be a strong competitor to the Sony PRS700 and certainly to the expensive iLiad Book version. In Europe the Sony eReader and the iLiad can still sell on. But what will iRex Technologies do when the Kindle 2 is adapted to the European market?

Blog Posting Number: 1300

Tags: eBook, eReader

BPN 1252 No Kindle at Frankfurt Fair

Amazon.com was expected to launch the Kindle e-reader at the Frankfurt Book Fair. However the online retailer has become caught in Europe's complex web of Wi-Fi operators. It will be unable to sell the e-reader at Chistmas time, but is now expected to launch the device in Europe in 2009, according to an article in the Telegraph.

Blog Posting Number: 1252

Tags: e-reader

BPN 1210 Sony e-reader in UK

Today the Sony PRS505 arrives in the UK. It is an important moment for the UK and for the European continent. Sony will cooperate with Waterstone’s chain with 60 book shops. The occasion will also be sought by publishers to release electronic editions of their print books; noticeably Penguin has promised 5000 e-books.

The Sony PRS505 will not be officially introduced on the European continent. Regional Sony companies are free to introduce the e-reader and make agreements with local or regional publishers. In small countries the PRS505 will not actively be promoted, but project proposals will be honoured.

The introduction of Sony’s PRS505 in Europe is remarkable. For years kept the Librié e-reader only on sale in Japan. After this, Sony introduced the e-reader in the USA. In the States it met opposition of Amazon’s Kindle and to a lesser extent of the iLiad.

With the introduction of the Sony e-reader in the UK, Sony will find another chequered battlefield. Before Sony’s introduction only iRex Technologies had its wireless edition of the iLiad on the market. But recently iRex Technologies introduced an iLiad without the wireless facility. This edition will be the flagship of Border’s book distribution. Sony will not meet Amazon’s Kindle in the UK, yet. But it I expected that Amazon will have a European edition by next year. Amazon is said to be working on a German edition of the Kindle, which will be introduced in Germany in the first half of next year. (Amazon has denied that it is working on a student edition of the Kindle). In France Amazon’s Kindle will meet competition by Ganaxa and Cybook Bookeen.

By introducing the e-reader earlier than Kindle, Sony has prevented a monopoly by Amazon in the UK. Sony will distribute the e-reader, but not e-books. Amazon sells Kindle in the US together with e-books, charging publishers a commission of 60 percent of the sales price. In the UK the publishers can deal with (e-)book distributors like Waterstone’s and Border’s as well as Amazon. In Europe, it looks like Amazon will be able to strike in Germany. In France Amazon will have a hard time, given its national chauvinism for products, produced in France.

Blog Posting Number: 1209

Tags: e-book, e-reader

BPN 1188 Europe to become battlefield e-reader

Kindle is rumoured to launch a European Kindle at the International Book Fair in Frankfurt in October 2008. Deutsche Telekom researches digital newspaper. Sony open for other formats and starts distributing e-readers in the UK. Cybook works with SFR on wireless e-reader. iRex technologies distributes iLiad without wireless through Borders in the UK.

This is just an inventory of actions to come in the field of e-readers in Europe. Despite the fragmentation in languages, it looks like Europe has become a new battlefield for e-readers. The real battle in the UK will begin in September in the UK between the Sony-Waterstone combination and the iLiad-Borders combination, both combinations of hardware manufacturers and book distributors. However before this battle starts another battle is brewing in Germany. Kindle is said to launch the Kindle in October, while Deutsche Telekom is about to launch an e-Paper service. The leaking of the news suggests that a combination of Amazon with Kindle and Deutsche Telekom is in the making.

But these are not the only moves on the European continent. Another move comes from Sony. One is a real important one. Sony is leaving its regional subsidiaries free to formulate a local strategy for introducing the Sony e-reader. It has not formulated an all-over European strategy to attack a particular market. The regional subsidiaries are not obliged to develop the consumer markets in language areas which hardly have any e-books in the local language. If they want to develop the market, they can so; but they can also develop the educational market and the technical/business market. It is not the first time that Sony attacks the European market with an e-reader. In 1993 Sony canvassed Europe with the first Sony e-reader Sony EB (se photograph). In the UK, France and Germany there was some interest from consumers, but in 2005 when there was an economic downturn the campaign was stopped. One thing Sony did well was to organise publishers, software integrators and distributors in committees sponsored by Sony; the objective of the committees was to develop an offer of e-book for the e-reader and to set up a common market campaign. But as it looks now, Sony will not be the promoter on behalf of the e-book industry.

For the general market there also two moves coming up. Although details are lacking iRex Technologies is said to work on a new model, which should be launched in December. And Kindle is working on a 10 inch screen device for the B2B and educational market.

Of course at the same time of this e-reader battle, the UMPCs are coming on the market with price tags from 99 US dollars and giving e-readers a run for their money.

In short we have some fascinating times ahead not only in Europe, but also on the general e-reader market.

Blog Posting Number: 1188

Tags: e-reader, e-blog, e-Paper

BPN 1169 e-Book lands in the UK in September

Well, it is finally happening in the UK: the large-scale introduction of e-readers and e-books. The bookstore chain Waterstone and Sony are taking pre-launch orders for the e-reader of 199 pounds (232 euro) to be launched in September. Will the combination of a bookstore and a consumer electronics giant make an impression on the UK market? Does the combination fulfil the conditions for the iPod syndrome: innovative hardware, a large portfolio, easy access to a fast download service, a reasonable price and does the combination have an innovative image.

Hardware: Sony will sell the 2006 model PRS 505 e-reader, which weighs 260 grams, can hold 160 e–books, has a battery life of 6.800 page turns. It sells in the US for 299 dollars. The model has the dimensions of a printed paperback. The action of Waterstone and Sony is a pre-emptive strike to grab market share. Book distributor Borders has announced to introduce the non-wireless iLiad of 399 pounds (465 euro). And the Kindle of Amazon still hangs above the market; the Kindle costs in the States 359 dollars, which would make it the cheapest e-reader for 155 pounds (210 euro).

Portfolio: Waterstone and Sony have not announced which portfolio they use. The buyers will receive a free CD with 100 classic e-books. Recently trade publishers have been falling over themselves to get in on the e-book act. Penguin, Random House Macmillan, HarperCollins and even Harlequin have all made announcements. I had expected that Penguin would have been in on the deal with its 5.000 e-books. But of course the problem will be the publishing format. Penguin is using the .epub format, a format already adopted by Hachette Group USA. HarperCollins is expected to go the same route. And Sony has announced that it will support the .epub format (Sony writes the format as .ePub); that is quite a change from a closed format Sony has used since the launch of its first e-redaer in 1991. Borders and the iLiad adhere to the Mobipocket format. Amazon and Kindle list more than 40.000 titles.

Download service: Sony has already a download service in operation. Thousands of eBookscan be downloaded at Waterstones.com/eBooks from early September 2008 onwards.

A reasonable price: for the iPod the price per song was important and turned out to be reasonable in the end; in fact downloaders started to realise that they could legally download against a reasonable price. In the e-book sector illegal downloading is less a problem as in music. Yet if there is not a price difference between the printed copy and the e-book, it will not really work.

Innovative image: Apple is the promoter of the innovative products iPod and iPhone. Waterstone and Sony is not the most exciting combination; the combination Waterstone, Sony and Penguin would have made a super combination. The team Borders and iRex Technologies is not a real winner either. Amazon is of course a winner, but the UK publishing industry does not want to hand itself over to the Moloch, which could create a monopoly on e-books.

Blog Posting Number: 1169

Tags: e-reader, e-book

BPN 1155 French telco SFR in e-readers

While I was in Paris a lot of e-reader news came out in France. I knew that the tenth e-reader round table Rencontres Tebaldo was held on July 8. But being back at my desk, I read that the telecom company SFR (Société Française de Radiotéléphonie) had started a pilot with the wireless e-reader GeR2, adapted for the new Ganaxa publishing platform on July 4. The screen of the e-reader is digital paper and is six inches in diameter like a page of a pocket book. The format is of a pocket book (18,8 cm x 11,8 cm x 0,85 cm) and very light (175 grams). It will stay charged for 10 to 15 days and reloads in three hours. The pilot carried out by SFR is on the new telecom and developing open platform, developed by Ganaxa the GPP (Ganaxa Publishing Platform), for the press, publishers and advertisers, integrating tools for creation, production, diffusion, consultation and display. The e-reader device works won a bluetooth module which connects to the mobile. In turn this mobile link up with the network 3G/3G+ of SFR.

And it looks like SFR has learned basic lessons on introducing e-readers. With the e-reader it offers seven major press titles of press (Les Echos, Le Monde, L’Equipe, Le Parisien, Le Figaro and L’AFP) as well as books from seven major publishers large actors of the world of (Dunod, Flammarion, Hachette, M21 éditions, Plon, Ramsay, Solar).

SFR wants to have 100 test users. They must be clients of SFR. They will have access to the contents of the daily editions of the newspapers and t the ten recent books (romance, biographies, guides,…). The content will be protected by a system of DRM. Each machine has a single serial number; the readers are thus identified and the files containing the works are encrypted so that only the identified readers can download them. It is neither possible to transfer a downloaded work to another e-reader or another platform.

The pilot is to test, in particular, the ergonomics of the product, its use in situations of mobility and the relevance of the content offer. The lessons drawn from the pilot will make it possible for SFR to adapt the device and content offer before the launch in September.

The SFR e-reader is the third e-reader after the iLiad and Kindle with wireless facilities and the first Bluetooth equipped device. SFR is the first company to launch a full-fledged pilot, bringing a group of newspaper and book publishers in from the start. This will educate publishers in one go and yield a lot of publicity for the pilot as well as a lot of user experiences. A really smart move.

Blog Posting Number: 1155

Tags: e-reader, e-book, DRMe-reader, e-book, DRM

BPN 1083 The effect of Kindle

On the Monday before Thanksgiving last year Amazon.com launched the Kindle. I had heard before that time that Amazon.com had not selected the iLiad manufactured by iRex Technologies and wondered why. The launch made it clear that Amazon.com was after another type of e-Reader; one with a keyboard and a Digital Rights Management system. DRM can be delivered on the iLiad but it is not standard.
So Amazon.com surprised everyone with its own model, the Kindle. It is neat, but it is curious in shape. Of course the main feature is digital paper, which dumbfounds everyone who is used to LCD screens. Yes you can read a book on digital paper on the beach in the sun. As far as this Sony nor the iLiad are real competitors, although I hear people still raving about REB 1200.

Did Kindle have any effect on the e-book market? Amazon.com just did not launch an e-book reader. In fact it launched a full business plan. The e-reader could be used for books. But it could do more in comparison to the Sony –trader. It could also wirelessly download newspapers, magazines and blogs. And the service did not get stuck at that point. The offer of books, newspapers, magazines and blogs was priced competitively; although pricing free blogs is still an absolute sin to me.

Yet the Kindle had all the hallmarks for the iPod/iTunes effect. When Apple introduced the iPod, music downlods had a bad image; most of the downloads were illegal and unpaid for. When Apple introduced the iPod and added later iTunes, it offered a complete service to its customers, breaking the mould of illegal downloading. People were willing to pay a reasonable price for a song, which they could download and use. Problem of course is the iTunes fixed format, which makes it hard to play it out on another platform. But all in all, iPod in combination with iTunes helped the music industry tremendously.

But what has been the Kindle effect on the e-book market? Did it bring about a revolution or just a small tidal gulf? As said, Amazon.com had a nice business proposition with a wireless device as the bleeding edge of technology, a good and fair proposal for books, newspapers, magazines and a less fair proposal for blogs. And the assortment of books and respectable newspapers as well as the reasonable prices made the offer attractive enough.

At the announcement Amazon.com told that Kindle had made already a deep impression. I picked up the figure of 10.000 units sold in the first days. Others report at least 2.000 Kindles. I guess it were more units than that. This also brought along the rise of e-books. And not only Amazon.com profited from it, but also Sony, which has been longer active in the market. Sony is even thought to have doubled or even tripled the sales of e-books.

But measuring the iPod/iTune effect with Kindle, Kindle has only made an impression in the US and has stimulated the sales of e-books, even to the point that Penguin starts to get on the bandwagon of e-books. But Kindle has not made any impression in Europe yet. Will Amazon link up with Penguin in the UK by September 2008?

But even so, then Kindle and Penguin would cover the US and UK market, but not the European continental market. Selling hardware is not the problem, but selling a bundle because of the language fragmentation in Europe. The US and Japanese manufacturers see this as a problem as it requires books in many languages. It requires negotiations with publishers per language base. US and Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers see this hardly a challenge. By not introducing the Kindle with an multi-lingual offer of e-books will put a brake on the distribution of e-books on the European continent. All in all, Kindle has lost its momentum for Europe for the time being and offers a commercial window for its wireless digital paper competitor iLiad and indirect digital paper competitors as Cybook and the likes.

Blog Posting Number: 1083

Tags: e-book, e-reader, iPod

BPN 1057 Great discussion on ebooks and epapers

Yesterday I was the guest of the Crossmedia Experience Learning Lab (CELL) at the HU University of Applied Science in Utrecht. I was invited by Harry van Vliet, one of the HU lecturers, to present a lecture on the History and Future of eBooks for other lecturers and instructors. The so-called LabTalk had been even announced with a poster (see illustration). There was great interaction and enthusiasm.

I have been in contact with the faculty of Communication and Journalism of the HU University of Applied Science in Utrecht for some years. The faculty has basically three streams of courses: communication, journalism and digital media. When the digital media stream was founded in the nineties – it was called School for Communication Systems – I had hoped that the school would specialise in editorial production systems or content management systems (as they are called now). But this did not happen. Since the new century the stream looks more focussed on communication and journalism. So it was great to see staff from all three streams showing up.

The presentation started with the Memex of Vannevar Bush and went amongst others The Tablet of Roger Fidler (He wrote me a message saying that he is in the process of converting the original tablet newspaper video from VHS to QuickTime as well as a video created in 1990 from Beta to QuickTime; upon completion they will be put on the Internet). I finished with the plethora of digital paper eReaders. I was lucky to have the assistance of Frits Hoff (see photograph, the managing director of Edupaper, who brought his full collection of digital paper ereaders with him. So we had on the table the vintage EB of Sony, the Rocket EBook and digital paper eReaders.

Most of the discussion went on the readability of the screen and the cultural acceptance of eReaders. With the Sony EB and iLiad or Hanlin on the table it was clear that there is a substantial progress in readability. There is still a question size of the screen; would you rather read a newspaper on an A4 or an A5? Cultural acceptance will still be a discussion item for some time to come; that was clear. You can divide the cultural acceptance group in ink sniffers and cultural baggage promoters. There is still a very conservative attitude against electronic books. In the Netherlands you are still not allowed to publish a doctoral thesis as an electronic file for an eBook reader or PC only; the thesis will have to be printed and otherwise you do not exist.

In the presentation I had included a slide with research items. I personally think that a Faculty of Communication and Journalism should research ePapers, the design, standards, the acceptance, the promotion and the workflow. It was good to hear that this type of research should be done there. So I am anxious to see what will be the follow-up on this research wish list.

The FROCS (FRiends of the Crossmedia Experience Learning Lab) had also a good discussion on the promotion of the eReaders, eBooks and ePapers. Presently we have in The Netherlands iRex Technologies promoting its iLiad, some representatives for Cybook, Hanlin and other eReaders, e-book.nl as the only download service for Dutch books, the book chain Selexyz selling the iLiad only and using e-Book.nl as the download service, some libraries offering eBook rentals and the quality newspaper NRC Handelsblad, using the iLiad for its own downloads and there are some eBook converters. In short, in the Netherlands there is a fragmented landscape of companies pushing in one or another way either eReaders, ebooks or epapers. I explained that the Sony EB failed in The Netherlands in the beginning of the nineties, but that they had a great promotion plan. They asked a neutral company to set a committee, invite publishers, a bookshop chain and technical companies. This committee prepared a nationwide publicity campaign to make people aware of the Sony EB and the titles available. The awareness part succeeded; however the sales failed miserably. The Sony EB was too early, too expensive and only some 10 titles at the start. In small countries this type of promotion model can be used. Of course in the US the iPod model worked for Amazon, when they rolled out the Kindle.

Blog Posting Number: 1057

Tags: ebook, epaper, digital paper, ereader