My last post reminded me of something I'd been thinking about.
The kindle is already uploading lots of stats to Amazon via the cell phone connection - it's how their whole 'whispersync' technology works. That's the name for uploading statistics from one device and then using those statistics to place a bookmark when you start reading from another device - but 'digital bookmarks' don't sound like a cool selling feature.
Anyway - most of what I would want in a kindle api is the data sent from whispersync.
So meet us developers half way - let us access the data you're collecting anyway (with the user's permission of course). It won't cost you any extra access fees and won't leave you dealing with hacked kindle problems.
You're concerned about the extra cost of making that data available? I know a company that has a whole computing cloud available - maybe they could help you out.
Making developers tell you how to get synergies out of your own products - kindle fail!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
'Kindle' for the PC
I am starting to believe that Amazon has no one driving their flagship product.
The latest post on the Kindle blog:
Amazon created a document format. It worked on the PC long before the first Kindle was complete. Why is it coming to the PC now? Uhm, I'm guessing Amazon finally realized that people who are going to pirate books aren't going to wait for Amazon to make content available.
I've mentioned this before - maybe it's a case of publishers getting less stupid, but not offering books on the PC is just giving away revenue.
It's the internet, if it's not for sale, it's free. You'd think Amazon.com would have been a .com long enough to learn something about how the internet works.
Also, it's not 'Kindle' coming to the PC, it's a digital book format. A Kindle is a physical device, a book is a piece of software. That's why Amazon insists on selling kindles and licensing books.
Again, you'd think a .com would know enough about computers to tell the difference between hardware and software.
For being annoyingly stupid - kindle fail!
The latest post on the Kindle blog:
The Kindle team is excited to announce that soon, you'll be able to read more than 360,000 (and counting!) Kindle books on your computer. Our free application for your Windows PC is coming--no Kindle required. Even when you don't have your Kindle with you, you can access your Kindle books, and Whispersync automatically synchronizes your last page read and annotations between devices. Find out more at: http://www.amazon.com/kindleforpc. Stay tuned.Sigh.
Amazon created a document format. It worked on the PC long before the first Kindle was complete. Why is it coming to the PC now? Uhm, I'm guessing Amazon finally realized that people who are going to pirate books aren't going to wait for Amazon to make content available.
I've mentioned this before - maybe it's a case of publishers getting less stupid, but not offering books on the PC is just giving away revenue.
It's the internet, if it's not for sale, it's free. You'd think Amazon.com would have been a .com long enough to learn something about how the internet works.
Also, it's not 'Kindle' coming to the PC, it's a digital book format. A Kindle is a physical device, a book is a piece of software. That's why Amazon insists on selling kindles and licensing books.
Again, you'd think a .com would know enough about computers to tell the difference between hardware and software.
For being annoyingly stupid - kindle fail!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Google to Amazon: B&N E-reader for checkmate
It seems like just yesterday that I was talking about e-readers based on Google Android competing with the Kindle. Now we have one using the same e-ink technology coming out from Amazon's main competitor in the book work, Barnes and Noble.
The 'nook' has lots of new features going for it, but very little I don't expect to see in the next version of the kindle.
What will make or break the nook will be how B&N uses Google Android.
I may have mentioned before, but my day job is as a computer programmer (I know, I know, many of you thought I lived off the revenue from this blog with no ads on it). When I got my Kindle I was very excited about it's social networking potential.
What social network potential you might be asking yourself?
Why having Kindle upload my reading activity to Goodreads so that all of my friends can see what I'm reading.
Or being able to tweet passages from books via twitter.
Or just asking about the meaning of some Victorian slang from an O. Henry story.
I can do all of these things very easily with a computer hooked up to the internet, but I can't do it with the kindle.
I was going to fix this! I was going to implement a Kindle API and unlock the device's true potential. Then I remembered 2 things:
1) Kindle has DRM
2) I am more willing to be lazy and do nothing than I am to talk with a lawyer about how much trouble I could get in for helping Amazon for free.
So I did nothing.
I am reading 10 Days That Shook the World by John Reed (which you would know if I could enable the non-existent Goodreads app) and there is a great quote about how the bi-partisan political groups lost their power and standing during the revolution. It was very fitting for our current situation in which the bi-partisan center is falling to the right and left (though without the revolutionary overtones). It was a great quote and I wanted to tweet it. But I couldn't, because there is no twitter app for the Kindle.
e-readers need app stores. Kindle, Nooky, and Sony must all develop and deploy them.
Except that B&N doesn't have to develop and deploy an app store for the Nook - it already exists, all they have to do is allow it onto the Nook.
Amazon is bragging that they now have:
"a new electronic publishing program that we hope will help you solve some of the issues that you find yourself worrying about...Elements are short bursts--nuggets--of stand alone, targeted information and inspiration on a discrete topic, of 1--2,000 words...at only 1 dollar and 59 cents."
How about a wikipedia app that lets me download the 10,000 highest rated articles? Make it Encyclopedia Britannica if you want to charge money.
While Amazon is wasting resources trying to nickle and dime their users, the first e-reader with an app store is going to blow the kindle out of the water. And that's before some genius thinks of a killer app for ereaders that isn't obvious like the ones I've pointed out.
Programmers will PAY for the privilege of being able to sell software that Amazon is writing for itself. This isn't a crazy idea - it's Apple's app store - it's why Apple is announcing record revenue. It's even risk free - you don't have to pay development costs for apps that don't work out.
No app store, $1.59 for an encyclopedia article, and a Google based rival offering from their biggest competitor? Kindle fail! - big time
The 'nook' has lots of new features going for it, but very little I don't expect to see in the next version of the kindle.
What will make or break the nook will be how B&N uses Google Android.
I may have mentioned before, but my day job is as a computer programmer (I know, I know, many of you thought I lived off the revenue from this blog with no ads on it). When I got my Kindle I was very excited about it's social networking potential.
What social network potential you might be asking yourself?
Why having Kindle upload my reading activity to Goodreads so that all of my friends can see what I'm reading.
Or being able to tweet passages from books via twitter.
Or just asking about the meaning of some Victorian slang from an O. Henry story.
I can do all of these things very easily with a computer hooked up to the internet, but I can't do it with the kindle.
I was going to fix this! I was going to implement a Kindle API and unlock the device's true potential. Then I remembered 2 things:
1) Kindle has DRM
2) I am more willing to be lazy and do nothing than I am to talk with a lawyer about how much trouble I could get in for helping Amazon for free.
So I did nothing.
I am reading 10 Days That Shook the World by John Reed (which you would know if I could enable the non-existent Goodreads app) and there is a great quote about how the bi-partisan political groups lost their power and standing during the revolution. It was very fitting for our current situation in which the bi-partisan center is falling to the right and left (though without the revolutionary overtones). It was a great quote and I wanted to tweet it. But I couldn't, because there is no twitter app for the Kindle.
e-readers need app stores. Kindle, Nooky, and Sony must all develop and deploy them.
Except that B&N doesn't have to develop and deploy an app store for the Nook - it already exists, all they have to do is allow it onto the Nook.
Amazon is bragging that they now have:
"a new electronic publishing program that we hope will help you solve some of the issues that you find yourself worrying about...Elements are short bursts--nuggets--of stand alone, targeted information and inspiration on a discrete topic, of 1--2,000 words...at only 1 dollar and 59 cents."
How about a wikipedia app that lets me download the 10,000 highest rated articles? Make it Encyclopedia Britannica if you want to charge money.
While Amazon is wasting resources trying to nickle and dime their users, the first e-reader with an app store is going to blow the kindle out of the water. And that's before some genius thinks of a killer app for ereaders that isn't obvious like the ones I've pointed out.
Programmers will PAY for the privilege of being able to sell software that Amazon is writing for itself. This isn't a crazy idea - it's Apple's app store - it's why Apple is announcing record revenue. It's even risk free - you don't have to pay development costs for apps that don't work out.
No app store, $1.59 for an encyclopedia article, and a Google based rival offering from their biggest competitor? Kindle fail! - big time
Monday, October 19, 2009
Google to Amazon: Check
Google has announced that they will be opening their own online book store with all of those books they've been scanning. Worse for Amazon, Google is starting their store with pre-set rates for selling their books themselves, OR THROUGH OTHER ONLINE BOOK STORES.
So day one Google will be selling books for all e-readers on all storefronts. No extra work required to sell to Kindles on Amazon, or Sony Ereaders through Barnes and Noble.
All that work Amazon has been going through to lock down the ebook market - throw it in the trash and hand all the money over to Google.
By locking themselves down to the kindle, Amazon locked themselves out of the future of ebook retail. There are e-readers based on Google's Android platform so Google has just as much skin in the hardware game, they're just smart enough to realize that hardware is just a way of creating a market for books. The money is in digital sales, not hardware.
Not understanding that they are a .com and not a factory - kindle fail!
So day one Google will be selling books for all e-readers on all storefronts. No extra work required to sell to Kindles on Amazon, or Sony Ereaders through Barnes and Noble.
All that work Amazon has been going through to lock down the ebook market - throw it in the trash and hand all the money over to Google.
By locking themselves down to the kindle, Amazon locked themselves out of the future of ebook retail. There are e-readers based on Google's Android platform so Google has just as much skin in the hardware game, they're just smart enough to realize that hardware is just a way of creating a market for books. The money is in digital sales, not hardware.
Not understanding that they are a .com and not a factory - kindle fail!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
How to charge for free things
I've got an upbeat post after the last few downers - Amazon has found a way to charge for free content in a manner I find acceptable.
Shocking!
As detailed here, Amazon is offering classic texts (IE texts that can be legally downloaded for free) with built in commentary and analysis. Personally, I hate built in commentary and analysis, but I also have a memory that lets me make associations from books years after I read them (It's not as cool as it sounds, you end up making strange references at parties and looking awkward.)
Now, MacBeth is free, it belongs to all of us now, but $2.39 for MacBeth and Commentary seems like a decent deal.
Certainly a better deal than this version for $0.99 - you ran the text through an auto-formatter, for that you think you deserve a dollar?
Or this version where for $1.75 you can get less than the entire play, which is free.
It seems that Amazon's Kindle store is still a goldrush for people who want to get paid for stealing from the public domain. At least Shmoop is giving you something in return.
For profiting by stealing from the public domain - kindle fail!
Shocking!
As detailed here, Amazon is offering classic texts (IE texts that can be legally downloaded for free) with built in commentary and analysis. Personally, I hate built in commentary and analysis, but I also have a memory that lets me make associations from books years after I read them (It's not as cool as it sounds, you end up making strange references at parties and looking awkward.)
Now, MacBeth is free, it belongs to all of us now, but $2.39 for MacBeth and Commentary seems like a decent deal.
Certainly a better deal than this version for $0.99 - you ran the text through an auto-formatter, for that you think you deserve a dollar?
Or this version where for $1.75 you can get less than the entire play, which is free.
It seems that Amazon's Kindle store is still a goldrush for people who want to get paid for stealing from the public domain. At least Shmoop is giving you something in return.
For profiting by stealing from the public domain - kindle fail!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The ownership debacle
Amazon's Fahrenheit 451 debacle has really turned me off from posting.
Remember, I am generally supportive of Amazon and the Kindle, I'm just one of the self selected critics who has decided he has the chops to snipe from the margins.
Amazon's Fahrenheit 451 actions are a failure on a whole different level.
The skimmed down basics are:
*Someone who didn't own the copyright submitted a digital copy of the book to Amazon.
*The true copyright owners contacted Amazon and had the unauthorized version removed.
*Amazon deleted the unauthorized copies from all Kindles, and returned the customer's money.
Ironies about deleting Fahrenheit 451 aside this exposes just how different digital books are from real books. Namely: you can't own digital books. This has always been obvious to some extent since you can't resell your kindle books, but not being able to keep the books you've bought is something else entirely.
If this had played out with physical books Amazon would have stopped selling the unauthorized version and the copyright owners would have sued the unauthorized publisher. Any suggestion that Amazon would turn over its customer list so that the copyright holder could contact and confiscate the copies that were already sold would have been laughed at. If the publisher did try and go to this extreme step they would have had to take Amazon to court, followed by suing each and every customer to compel them to turn over their copies.
It would never happen.
But it can happen in digital land.
Do we get the same benefits in reverse? When a publisher issues corrections to a book, will Amazon correct the kindle versions? If a revised edition comes out, there's no reason we can't have the corrections.
Now that Amazon is setting itself up as the guardian of book correctness, I think we have the right to demand that they provide us with the positive as well as the negative.
Remember, I am generally supportive of Amazon and the Kindle, I'm just one of the self selected critics who has decided he has the chops to snipe from the margins.
Amazon's Fahrenheit 451 actions are a failure on a whole different level.
The skimmed down basics are:
*Someone who didn't own the copyright submitted a digital copy of the book to Amazon.
*The true copyright owners contacted Amazon and had the unauthorized version removed.
*Amazon deleted the unauthorized copies from all Kindles, and returned the customer's money.
Ironies about deleting Fahrenheit 451 aside this exposes just how different digital books are from real books. Namely: you can't own digital books. This has always been obvious to some extent since you can't resell your kindle books, but not being able to keep the books you've bought is something else entirely.
If this had played out with physical books Amazon would have stopped selling the unauthorized version and the copyright owners would have sued the unauthorized publisher. Any suggestion that Amazon would turn over its customer list so that the copyright holder could contact and confiscate the copies that were already sold would have been laughed at. If the publisher did try and go to this extreme step they would have had to take Amazon to court, followed by suing each and every customer to compel them to turn over their copies.
It would never happen.
But it can happen in digital land.
Do we get the same benefits in reverse? When a publisher issues corrections to a book, will Amazon correct the kindle versions? If a revised edition comes out, there's no reason we can't have the corrections.
Now that Amazon is setting itself up as the guardian of book correctness, I think we have the right to demand that they provide us with the positive as well as the negative.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Insert lie about not posting here
I was going to come up with a witty explanation about why I haven't been posting, but really it's because I've been lazy the last few weeks.
That and I've been using my kindle for reading, and not as inspiration for writing. I know this makes me a bad person.
The only thing really bugging me about the kindle right now is that I can't use it on an airplane during take off and landing. I didn't realize how annoying that would be. It's a good 30 minutes once they close the doors, and another 15 minutes while landing with nothing to do.
45 minutes with nothing to do but stare at my fellow passengers.
My new idea is to buy a magazine, physically, and take it on the plane.
Having to buy physical media - airplane fail!
That and I've been using my kindle for reading, and not as inspiration for writing. I know this makes me a bad person.
The only thing really bugging me about the kindle right now is that I can't use it on an airplane during take off and landing. I didn't realize how annoying that would be. It's a good 30 minutes once they close the doors, and another 15 minutes while landing with nothing to do.
45 minutes with nothing to do but stare at my fellow passengers.
My new idea is to buy a magazine, physically, and take it on the plane.
Having to buy physical media - airplane fail!
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