The Future of eReaders
I recently read an article on Gizmodo comparing a variety of ebook reader devices both on the market today and newly debuted at CES 2010 ( http://gizmodo.com/5445603/the-ultimate-guide-to-ebook-readers-we-care-about ). What struck me is that on every account, they seem to focus on technical merits of each device.
They focused on comparing screen size, responsiveness, 3G or no 3G, and while that is all well and good, people seem to be forgetting that in this world, content is King! What good is an amazingly clear, color 11 inch display to me, if the content I want is not available on that device? No publisher is going to want to support every device and its respective proprietary format, and even with the emergence of the ePub format, it still really isn't the standard, though amongst non-Kindle devices, it is rapidly becoming one.
Right now Amazon is, in my opinion, at the precipice. They have, to date, enjoyed a nearly Apple-like command over their space. Sure there are and have been other eReaders out there, but without the content, many of them have floundered. I myself once purchased the Sony Reader, but returned it after less than a week of use because it could not display the content that I wanted to read. As I tend to purchase a lot of technical books, as I am sure many of you do as well, Amazon is really my primary choice right now, as they have the content.
However, as new formats like ePub gain maturity, and a plethora of devices begin to hit the shelves, Amazon is going to be forced to make a choice, to embrace an open format and risk losing their hardware dominance in the reader space, or to remain closed and risk losing their content dominance for the same reasons that iTunes users demanded DRM-free music, to be able to consume their content on whatever device they pleased.
Thus far, Amazon has taken a slightly different route, they have begun creating reader software for multiple devices. iPhone, and most recently Windows PC's are the first, with Mac and Blackberry to follow soon. One can only assume there will eventually be a Kindle for Android coming, and ideally, Kindle Web that would allow you to read your content on any web-enabled device that supports next generation web technologies.
I believe this to be a good move for Amazon. I do not own a Kindle, and likely never will. To date, I have been holding out for the Apple tablet, with the hopes that since it is supposed to run the iPhone OS, I will be able to run my Kindle for iPhone on it and have color access to all my Kindle content. I wonder if I am alone in having Amazon make hundreds off of me in the Kindle book store, but with me not even owning a Kindle. Perhaps Amazon is learning that the hardware is just a tool to sell the content, much like the iPod is just a tool to sell music, movies and apps from iTunes, and that the sale of content is where the real money is made. Offer free Kindle software for every major platform, and allow your content to be portable across devices, and you will sell a lot of content.