This, folks, was one of the reasons why the Nook failed. B&N underestimated consumers who were savvy enough to figure out that they could read Nook ebooks on other hardware, but they couldn’t do jack with B&N’s tablets because of the sparse app store.
Source: B&N is Shutting Down One of Its Top Three Digital Blunders on 15 March | The Digital Reader
Apple would sell more music if they released an Android app, and the same can be said for movies and ebooks. But Apple hasn’t done so, and I think it’s time to acknowledge that the strategy is working for Apple.
That is especially true in the case of ebooks. By my estimate, Apple sells more ebooks than B&N.
via The Problem with Apple and eBooks, Redux | The Digital Reader.
The tl;dr version is that Adobe is going to start pushing for ebook vendors to provide support for the new DRM in March, and when July rolls Adobe is going to force the ebook vendors to stop supporting the older DRM. (Hadrien Gardeur, Paul Durrant, and Martyn Daniels concur on this interpretation.)
This means that any app or device which still uses the older Adobe DRM will be cut off.
via Adobe to Require New Epub DRM in July, Expects to Abandon Existing Users – The Digital Reader.
On Thursday, Barnes & Noble announced that “device and accessories sales” plummeted to $88.7 million during the October through December 2013 holiday period, a drop of 66.7 percent. The company attributed the drop to “lower unit selling volume and lower average selling prices.” Of course, that’s prime shopping season, when most retailers see a spike in sales. The company added that “digital content sales” were $36.5 million during the same time frame, a drop of 27.3 percent.
via Nook sales crashed by over 66 percent during 2013 holiday season | Ars Technica.
The top-rated reasons for preferring physical to digital products were: “I like to hold the product” (51%), “I am not restricted to a particular device” (20%), “I can easily share it” (10%), “I like the packaging” (9%), and “I can sell it when used” (6%).
via Young adult readers ‘prefer printed to ebooks’ | Books | theguardian.com.
Beyond that, once an entire corpus of work has been analysed in this way, it becomes possible to compare them in unprecedented depth and detail. For example, Mohammad has analysed all of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales and arranged them in order of negative word density. The darkest turns out to be a tale called Gambling Hansel.
Those details are what will make the new CourseSmart service tick. Say a student uses an introductory psychology e-textbook. The book will be integrated into the college’s course-management system. It will track students’ behavior: how much time they spend reading, how many pages they view, and how many notes and highlights they make. That data will get crunched into an engagement score for each student.
The idea is that faculty members can reach out to students showing low engagement, says Sean Devine, chief executive of CourseSmart. And colleges can evaluate the return they are getting on investments in digital materials.
If you buy e-books from Amazon, and want to engage in a bit of digital civil disobedience—by stripping the files’ DRM and making sure that Amazon can’t deny you access—we’re about to show you how. Yes, many parts of the Internet have known about this technique for some time now, but we feel that it bears mentioning again here..
via DRM be damned: how to protect your Amazon e-books from being deleted | Ars Technica.
Now, as West himself noted, these files are for your personal use only—they’re not meant to be distributed anywhere. Enjoy!
Electronic paper only draws power when the display is updated, making it very energy-efficient. It also reflects light in the same way as ordinary paper, so there is no need for a backlight.
via Plastic Logic demos colour video animation on electronic paper – Techworld.com.
Amazon’s entry into publishing’s traditional casino is a sideshow. More worrisome, at least over the long term, is the success of Amazon’s Kindle Single program, an effort to encourage writers to make an end run around publishers, not only of books but of magazines as well. That program offers writers a chance to publish original e-book essays of no more than 30,000 words (authors agree to a bargain-basement price of no more than $2.99 in exchange for a 70 percent royalty and no advance).
via The Amazon Effect | The Nation.
This article is very long winded but makes a good history reference for amazon.