This morning on my way to the office I did what I usually do most subway rides. I turned on my e-reader and read.
Today it happened to be my iPad (I bought an O’Reilly book and thought the big screen would be best) but sometimes its kindle on my Android phone, and sometimes its my kindle on my kindle. I have different use cases for each but love reading on all three. On the iPad I read more short form content than on Kindle and I wouldn’t read on my iPad outside in the sun (I feel like my iPad is a little bit of a vampire).
But I digress.
Point #1:
I was reading and riding this morning and I looked to my left. Kindle. I looked to my right. Kindle. I looked down at the riders sitting in front of me. Blackberry, iPhone, Android.
No joke, everyone around me was reading or playing a game. A mere year ago I felt like I was the only one riding the subways of NY reading an e-reader.
We have come a long way. Some people (eg my brother) say the like the feel of books and will never make the switch BUT the wave is moving to digital.
Point #2:
This is part of a greater trend of people feeling more secure using technology in their every day lives. I want to explicitly throw in television. Tech like Boxee is becoming an accepted thing in our living rooms and is known about more and more people. That’s why we are building Shelby.tv, we believe that there are better ways to do the things we do everyday. It shouldn’t be a process to watch things your friends are talking about and enjoying (we do that all the time with traditional tv), it should be simple to discover and enjoy.
Shelby is the best way to discover and enjoy video on the web. The Future is arriving soon.
(p.s. see what i did there? check out Shelby!)
(p.p.s when will then be now?)
This is HILARIOUS!
Entirely new forms of discovery will be possible. Imagine a software tool that scans through the bibliographies of the 20 books you’ve read on a specific topic, and comes up with the most-cited work in those bibliographies that you haven’t encountered yet.
How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write - WSJ.com
Reading is addictive on a Kindle. If authors and their publishers see that and make buying a book an impulse purchase (like a ringtone or a game on a mobile phone) they will see way more purchasing activity, more reading, and more addicted readers.
Fred Wilson: The Book Market Stares At Ubiquity
Rumor: Is the Apple Netbook Really an Ebook?
This makes the whole Kindle 2 phenom VERY interesting… this would mean REAL competition!
I just downloaded Kindle on my Touch… and a book. I will say more if I get through the book on the Touch, but so far I really like it and thought Dan’s post below was spot on… a Kindle seems appealing of me all of a sudden!
dankantor:
I’ve been interested in eBook readers for a few years now. I have never purchased one though because I haven’t seen one yet that gives me everything I want. The Kindle 2 comes close, but it is still too expensive and doesn’t have backlighting which means I can’t really use it in bed while my wife is sleeping (a major use case of mine).
Amazon recently released the Kindle as a free software app for the iPhone. The iPhone is my preferred way of accessing the web these days. I spend most of my time in Google Reader and find the experience first rate - I am lying down, the lights are off and my arms and eyes do not get tired after long periods. So I was incredibly anxious to try out the Kindle app.
So far the experience has been great. The text is very large and adjustable. My favorite feature is that when you turn the iPhone the screen does not flip. This allows for lying on my side while reading - something I cannot do with Safari and love doing with books. It’s a little weird that you can’t buy books within the app itself but I guess that is Apple’s fault, not Amazon’s.
One main critique of eBooks is that you cannot put them in your book case, show them off to friends or lend them out. I agree that these are serious drawbacks but think technology will come to solve these issues. I used to feel the same way about my wall of CD cases. Then last.fm came along and provided a way to show off my music collection which actually was a lot better than anything my wall of CDs could do.
Overall, the advantages of eBooks far outweigh the disadvantages. I have a feeling that this week was a turning point for me in how I will read books the rest of my life. Like in 2000 when I ripped my entire CD collection to my computer. I never went back.
