Sony E-Reader
There’s a Sony shop across the road from Baker Street station, on the the busiest underground stations in central London. A few days ago, as I happened to pass with the boss, I noticed the Sony E-Reader in the window.
Look
I said, and I explained what it was. I don’t recall if I said
Not a chance
before the inevitable question was asked, but I did use those words, ruefully, as I looked at the price tag: £199. But not because of the price.
The sad, regrettable fact is that Sony and the publishing industry are intent on repeating the bone-headed stupidity that cost the music industry so much.
They imagine that people are going to pay as much for electronic books as for paper books and would like to keep prices essentially the same. Dream on people. I would pay considerably more for a colour screen device with cheap content but I am just not going to pay traditional prices for electronic content. Reduce the price of books to what we pay now for magazines, newspapers or a bar of chocolate and sales will go through the roof. Refuse to do it and the market will wait until it happens.
It needs to happen soon.
The top IT news story of the day is the demise of the print edition of PC Magazine. I stopped subscribing years ago when it lost focus but I resubscribed last year to the digital edition for something like $10/year, simply because at that price it really didn’t matter whether I read every issue or not.
I read it now, along with Business Week and PC World and a few other things, on a 22 inch monitor that, using Zinio Reader, affords a very reasonable facsimile of an open magazine.
The Economist, The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly and a half a dozen others could be there too but aren’t. I subscribe to the Economist, but don’t always get to read as much as I’d like before it HAS TO GO, there’s no way that I’m going to add more paper subscriptions. To dispose of a half-read New Yorker would cause me a pang that my other half finds bizarre.
What if I missed an article like this?
This one was just drawn to my attention by a friend who got to attend one of those meetings.
At least with an electronic edition there is no need to recyle. But what’s really needed is a combination of an electronic reader — leather cover and colour screen please — and an interface that allows one to see what friends and colleagues are reading and buying and to be able to pay for individual articles or have a flat rate for a year’s access.
Why is this so difficult?
I’ve resisted the offers from the New York Times to join its TimesPeople, even as it is supposedly wobbling on the knife edge of insolvency. But if it was on the Amazon Kindle or the Sony E-Reader I’d overcome my dislike of being tracked and monetized left and right and I’d actually PAY.
Are we really going to have to wait for Apple to show the way here? I think the answer is, unfortuntely, yes. Where is Jeff Hawkins when you need him?
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I used to be perfectly happy reading out-of-copyright editions from Project Gutenberg on my old Psion; just the job for when the train was delayed and I’d read everything else to hand. But then, that was totally free bonus, if you like, to carrying the Psion. I’d never have paid for them. Today’s equivalent is a slew of free podcasts.
I never owned one but I would have liked to at one point. I found one (5 series) on my table when plunked myself in the front row for an operations management lecture last week, belonging to the lecturer, with a very battered leather case. I was awestruck. Still perfectly functional, evidently.
Somehow, I’ve never had time for podcasts but if I had a couple of train journeys every day I think I’d be keen. I’d be interested in your must listen list. I have recorded various Alastair Cooke letters in the last year for listening to later, post MBA, under a plam tree somewhere perhaps. I vaguely recall hearing something about the whole archive going online.
I finally gave up on my Psion when I realized that connectivity to the main machines was always going to be a problem. ll those dongles and really old software. Not good.
Must listen: In Our Time and TedTalks. That’s it, for me, for now.
One would grow very weary of Alastair Cooke very quickly, I fear, especially when they are no longer actually topical.
Agreed. It’s the same story with my v1.0 Palm Pilot which has lasted longer than subsequent models (V anv Vx long gone). I’ve got a serial to USB converter but the last time I tried to use it, to flash a ROM on my KVM switch, it didn’t work.
But the topic is only part of the story. Cooke’s craftsmanship and elegant discursions were enjoyable. You may be right. I may decide I don’t have time for this once I get around to listening. Since you write “one would grow weary” one might think one is a bit of an old boy oneself!. Sorry :-)