KindleObsessedJust another random rambling!!

After scrambling to finish my book today…and being unsuccessful, I thought I would let y’all ponder an article I read today. Just 1 more reason to be in love with my Kindle.  Happy Reading!

Battle of e-readers shows Kindle books much cheaper than Nook, Sony

Tom Barlow

Mar 1st 2010 at 3:00PM

After reviewing various e-readers recently in one of our savings experiments, I thought I would compare the cost of a variety of books currently sold by the three dominant forces in the e-book field, Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), and the Reader Store, which sells books for the Sony Reader.

For this study, I chose the New York Times selection of the 10 best books of 2009; five fiction, five non-fiction. I avoided current bestsellers, since they are often subject to price wars and loss-leader pricing.

The results of my survey were startling. Since Amazon recently came to an agreement with major publishers, agreeing to sell e-books in Kindle format at a price closer to that of of the printed versions (a sop to the brick and mortar book business), I wasn’t surprised the prices had risen on Amazon above what had been $9.99.

What did surprise me was how many books remained at that low price, and the shocking difference in price between Amazon, the Reader Store and Barnes & Noble. In just these 10 books, books for the Sony Reader were 11.5% more expensive, while the Nook cost 41% more.

I asked Mary Ellen Keating, senior vice president of corporate communications and public affairs for Barnes & Noble, about this price disparity. She replied via e-mail “eBooks are an emerging category and many pricing models are being tested by both publishers and retailers. What’s important is that we are committed to providing our customers with the widest catalog of digital books and eperiodicals, that they can read and take with them on their computers and most (or mobile) devices. We are not focused on any one device, rather we’re about giving consumers choices as to where they want to read their digital content. We are also committed to offering these ebooks and periodicals at a very competitive price.” Take from that what you will.

Is Amazon continuing to sell these books at a loss to build its Kindle business? That would be my guess. In the meantime, those of us who read books on another platform, Blackberry in my case, have a choice between versions of the Nook and Kindle readers. Guess which one I’ll be using.

Hello Kindle-ites.  One of my readers forwarded me this article the other day and basically said “Hey!! This is you!” and after reading it…I concluded he was probably right.  Thought all of you might enjoy the banter as well.

Happy Reading!

E-Book Hoarding Disorder: A New Digital Disease
By Patti D.

Published today in the NotSoNewYorkTimes

American consumers are facing a new challenge with the emergence of new forms of mental disorders related to the popular new digital book technology, or e-Readers. The American Psychiatric Association has just issued a press release stating that E-Book Hoarding Disorder will be formally recognized as a sub-form of OCD in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSMVI)

The current President of the APA, John McKindlenook, stated yesterday: “It is only recently that we have come to understand the seriousness of obsessive compulsive hoarding and have recognized that this is a mental illness that is very difficult to treat. Researchers at Amazon University have recently completed studies which confirmed the presence of a specialized form of this disorder specific to owners of e-Reader devices. This disorder has been named E-Book Hoarding Disorder. Little is known yet as to the effectiveness of any current treatments for this serious disorder.”

E Book hoarding can follow one of two patterns. Some users display both patterns. These mixed type cases appear to be particularly difficult to treat. Most users, however, lean more heavily to one of the two subtypes.

The Tangible Evidence E-Book Hoarder collects a variety of physical objects related to e-Readers. Patients with this sub-type may own multiple contemporary e-Reader devices. (Contemporary e-Reader devices are those manufactured during the same period of time, as opposed to devices purchased to replace technologically defunct earlier generations). For example, the patient may own both a Kindle DX and Nook, and be contemplating the purchase of the new iPad. (Opinions differ on whether the purchase of an iPad device qualifies as an e-Reader. Medical professionals should use caution in basing their diagnosis of e-Reader disorder on the contemporary purchase of this device as its use as an actual e-Reader is debatable.) Tangible Evidence Hoarders may also collect a wide variety of “skins,” cases, sleeves, back-up devices, headphones, speakers, specialized book-lights and other similar physical objects which the reader believes will enhance their use of the device.

The second form of this disorder appears to be restricted primarily to the downloading of extensive numbers of e-Books, far in excess of those which the book owner can actually read. This subtype appears to have elements of both Digital Content Hoarding and Bibliomania (neither of which are official DSM diagnoses. See Wikipedia for further information about these disorders.) Official efforts to name this subtype have resulted in some controversy. It is popularly nicknamed “Freebie & Indie e-Book Hoarding” by some psychiatric specialists and Kindle users. Others disagree with this name since many books that are hoarded are neither free nor independently published. Typical users do, however, acquire hundreds, or even thousands of free eBooks from sites such as Project Gutenberg and Google Books. The more severe cases have resorted to downloading a popular free software, Calibre, to allow them to hoard books from an ever widening range of sources and file formats. Many websites, including AddAll Ebooks and Jungle Search, plus a wide variety of blogs assist Freebie & Indie e-Book hoarders in furthering their collections.

The causes of E-Book Hoarding Disorder are not yet understood. It appears that both genetics and environmental determinism probably play a role. Regardless of the cause, the outcome can be quite serious as it can have severe financial recriminations for the E-Book Hoarder, especially when the disease progresses to the downloading of extensive collections of New York Times best sellers which can no longer be sold for 9.99 under the new MacMillan and Apple Agency model.

Research into this mental illness, which does appear to be progressive, is currently being funded by a consortium of companies which are usually at odds with each other. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, and Jeff Bezos, the founder, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Amazon.com, have agreed to cooperate in funding a search for further information about the causes of this disease. Each of the major publishing houses have agreed to contribute 35% of all author royalties to the search for a cause. Several popular authors have pushed the Authors Guild into agreeing with this arrangement since they are afraid to offend their publishers. (Their primary concern seems to be that they would have to resort to digitally created artwork for the covers of their future novels.)

Amazon Kindle Discussion Board participants are suspicious of this cooperation between normally competitive companies. A participant posting under the moniker, TheWorldsBiggestKindleFan seems to have summed up this suspicion in his short post, “I think it’s pretty suspicious. They say they are looking for the cause. No mention has been made about a treatment though. I think they are looking for a cause so they can exploit it. I think they just want to know how to get us to buy even more books. They want us all to be hoarding e-Books!” User TinFoilHat suggests something similar, but much more eloquently, “I think it’s all a scam. Bezos and Jobs aren’t even human, man. Follow the money trail, man.”

Disclaimer: None of the quotes in this article are real. This is a work of fiction. No disrespect is intended to any person. I have no medical or psychiatric expertise. If you take this as real or serious in any way, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Amazon Launches Kindle For BlackBerry

The retailer said user demand spurred them to develop the e-book reader software for BlackBerry smartphones.

Job Postings Hint at Amazon’s Plans for the Kindle

Kindle 2 update adds battery life, native PDF reader

By Tim Conneally | Published November 24, 2009, 1:42 PM

Today, Amazon announced that an automatic update to its popular Kindle 2 e-reader will extend the device’s battery life by 85% and add a native PDF reader to its repertoire of functions.

The Kindle 2 could previously stay on for four days with wireless connectivity activated, following the firmware update, Amazon says the device will be able to stay turned on for a whole week.

Formerly, PDF documents had to be converted to Kindle format to be viewable on the family of e-readers. Now, users can e-mail PDF documents or upload them to their Kindle through a USB connection and be able to read them without conversion.

It’s a small, but significant upgrade as e-readers are looking like some of the most desirable gadgets this holiday season and the competition to Amazon’s Kindle 2 is stronger than it’s ever been.

For those of you out there who have yet to jump on the Kindle band-wagon, here is an EASY and now FREE way to get your read on!  Happy Kindle-ing my lovelies!

Amazon Kindle goes free on PC

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 10, 2009– Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the availability of “Kindle for PC,” the free application that lets readers around the world enjoy Kindle books on their personal computers (PC). The U.S. Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) currently offers more than 360,000 books, including New Releases and 101 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers, which are typically $9.99 or less. The Kindle Store is the only place to find some of today’s most popular books in digital format. Kindle books can now be read on the Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch and PC. Kindle for PC is now available as a free download to readers in over 100 countries at www.amazon.com/KindleforPC.

Kindle for PC features Amazon’s Whispersync technology that automatically saves and synchronizes bookmarks and last page read across devices. Whether you read Kindle books on a Kindle, Kindle DX, or one of the free Kindle applications, you can always have your reading with you and never lose your place. With Kindle for PC, you can read some on your PC, read some on your Kindle, and always pick up right where you left off. Whispersync helped make the Kindle for iPhone application the most popular books app in the Apple App Store.

“Kindle for PC is the perfect companion application for customers who own a Kindle or Kindle DX,” said Ian Freed, vice president, Amazon Kindle. “Kindle for PC is also a great way for people around the world to access a huge selection from the Kindle Store and read the most popular books of today even if they don’t yet have a Kindle.”

With Kindle for PC, readers can take advantage of the following features:

• Purchase, download and read hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store
• Read the beginning of any book for free before they buy
• Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon’s servers for free
• Read books in full color including children’s books, cookbooks, travel books, textbooks and graphic novels
• Choose from more than 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
• Add and automatically synchronize bookmarks and last page read
• View notes and highlights marked on Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, and iPod touch
• Zoom in and out of text with a pinch of the fingers (Windows 7 users only)
• Turn pages with a finger swipe (available in a future release for Windows 7 users)

Microsoft demonstrated Kindle for PC for the first time ever at the Windows 7 launch event last month in New York City. Kindle for PC takes advantage of capabilities in the new Windows 7, including Windows Touch technology. In addition to Windows 7, Kindle for PC is also compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Kindle for PC is available for free download at www.amazon.com/KindleforPC.

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