Coolness
At today’s directors meeting we reviewed our top 10 priorities. These included items like, and I quote verbatim, “develop a rational funding model,” “finish staff evaluations,” and the perennial “fix server room cooling.” As the 10th item, I asked us to start considering “what is cool?” so we can start doing some fun things. So far, the cool list includes the Kindle and not a lot else. We’re working on it.
seth vidal said:
Mar 11, 08 at 7:18 pmThe kindle is DRM’d doom. Seriously, run away. If you want to look at any of the electronic books I’d say look at the sony one. For the following reasons:
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2008/01/19/why-i-purchased-the-sony-prs-505-reader/
Ted Ts’o ‘s opinion on the sony. In case you don’t know Ted chances are your data is being held in a file system he wrote. 🙂
-sv
filberthockey said:
Mar 12, 08 at 8:06 amSo you’ve got me with my pica stick measuring books, and I’m wondering if I even want something that small. What if my eyes are old and I want to use a taller font – one word per page? That would be impressive when I told you I could read 30 pages an hour (well, more impressive than the 20 pages I currently read per hour). And how will I impress people with my bookcase anymore, anyway? One supposes one could make cardboard bookshells, or maybe just buy bookcases loaded with empty spines.
admin said:
Mar 12, 08 at 7:26 pmThanks, Seth–this is helpful. Ted only pwns my home file system, for now. Filberthockey: DUDE! You use your bookcase for all your eBay collectibles–duh.
Gahlord said:
Mar 12, 08 at 9:22 pmKindl = Books that crash and run out of juice.
Ultimately it’s a use-case failure product, beyond the DRM pansy-whine. And well past the UI failures. Just look at use patterns or workflows.
How many books does a typical (median) reader read at once? Maybe a novel, two books that are related to their job, the book they have sitting by the john and a trashy paperback. So say four books.
Next up, how does that book consumption take place (mmm book comsumption, sounds like gout)? Each of those four books is finished asynchronously. I don’t sit on the shitter and read the book from cover to cover. I don’t sit in the airport with the throwaway novel and miss my plane. I consume a book in context. Just as I don’t smoke a Churchill on a cigarette break.
Ok so what about total use. Some researcher somewhere said that Americans consume four books a year. Sad but true. So it’s going to take us a year of airports, johns, going to work and honest reading of worthwhile material to get through those four books.
From here it only gets uglier. Those four books would cost maybe 100 bucks total (benefit of the doubt to put a hardcover next to the commode). Kindl… price point? Doesn’t cut the mustard (and why cut it if you can spread it anyway?).
Due to the epistemology directly supported by book-length material, the usage of book-length material is contextual and for the heavy stuff requires time commitments. If you’re willing to commit you’re time you’re willing to dedicate a location to the activity and/or carry the weight of that particular book-length activity.
Kindl is an iPod for books. I’d be willing to wager fourty three American Standards that someone in a product development meeting at Amazon said as much. Downside is that we consume music different than we consume book-length material. I don’t need to set aside time to re-engage music when I turn on the iPod. Music just doesn’t work that way.
Kindl would rule for pithy, blog-length attention spans. Crapper-length stuff. But since I’m only going to get through maybe one of those sorts of books a year (and those sorts of books are pretty low value anyway) the price point is a wash. And for most short-length attention span material I can hit the interwebs. Might as well use my iPod Touch or (this summer when it gets into my zone) an iPhone.
Anyway… you don’t need to get into DRM or squinty screens to see the flaw in the kindl.
Yikes, I wrote a novel. Set in the shrine next to the Porcelain God.
filberthockey said:
Mar 13, 08 at 4:32 amGahlord,
If you really want to sink to the level of common denominator, the cost of an eBook is giong to go WAY DOWN when everybody has one. Those four-book-a-year people aren’t going to buy a $400 book, but the readers who bring that average up could see cost savings – especially after they close down all the libraries. Of course, avid book readers are going to be reluctant to give up their books. Now, when you can start sending the morning newspaper to your eReader over the air, without any ads, you might find newspapers can make a comeback.
Gahlord said:
Mar 13, 08 at 4:46 pmFLhockey,
Bird in the hand.
As much as I savor conspiracy theories I don’t see the end of the library in our lifetimes. And if the libraries did come to an end the market would be flooded with books which the avid book readers would likely purchase thus glutting the market for readable material for some time. You do know that Amazon is funding libraries precisely to prevent this from happening, right? Them and the aliens (who just like the nice quiet buildings to conduct their “research”).
Newspapers pushed our eReader is me using my iPod Touch to read the Times. It’s already done. And it ain’t the Kindl. For casual reading of that sort
As for the comeback of newspapers…. I’m letting that bait go.
The cost is all beside the point really (also I was talking about median at-a-time book-reading and not averages but I was also making up my numbers so whatevs). The use case for a dedicated reading device is all wrong. Even so I’m sure the Kindl will have a nice life as a niche product and then quietly discontinued when the bean-counters wake up. I bet it’s awesome. Like betamax.
🙂
admin said:
Mar 13, 08 at 5:21 pmWow. I feel so unworthy. Gahlord–you make a good point regarding the economics and the use case. Just one thing: see, who does, supposedly, have to read a lot of books? College students. So I thought it might be a nice learning tool and would save us a couple of hundred K in course reserve printing. But maybe not. Maybe the user interface is just so horrible no one would use them unless there’s no alternative. And why not use your pda or smart phone etc? If it goes the way of betamax then maybe in a couple of years we could buy one on ebay and display it next to our dusty books on our half-empty bookshelves…
filberthockey said:
Mar 14, 08 at 9:11 amIt’s all about cost, so how can the cost be beside the point? Sooner or later paper will become an artifact, either the environment wins and trees survive or all the trees get cut down. Granted there’s already been enough paper made to just recycle from now on if you can figure out how to keep it from wearing out.
I don’t want to read newspapers on a hand-sized device, but maybe I’m old-fashioned. Effectively if you read the Times on a handheld then you are already taking the first step toward the Kindl. Surely newspaper-to-handheld is a harder format transition than book-to-Kindle.
Gahlord said:
Mar 14, 08 at 12:05 pmFilberthocky: Does the car you drive cost more or less than a Yugo? Or bike you ride or whatever. You get the idea. And I’m completely with you on preferring dead trees as my reading material. Ideally letterpress and none of that smashed in mctype either.
admin: Do the students really read the books? If they had access to the same material on a non-dedicated device such as an iPod Touch would they still carry the Kindl? I’m sure the UI is fine on the Kindl. It can’t be any worse than my mobile phone and I still use that. Digitizing the course material is a good idea either way (even if you’re going to output to print). Then you just have to determine the publishing format and that is flexible (laptop, web, ipod, kindl, printout, whatever). If you’re game to force your customers to use some dedicated device then go for it. I don’t think you have to though.
I’m going to put my Kindl next to my pen that scans text. Maybe hotrod them together. So the pen can read the books and then I can carry them around. Then I’ll be the cool.
admin said:
Mar 14, 08 at 6:02 pmYeah, I wonder if students actually read the books too. I think the increasing availability of information in a variety of formats doesn’t seem to make most formats obsolete (ok, maybe papyrii or tablets) but does make them more valued for what the format itself contributes to the experience. As Gahlord notes so eloquently, some information is perfect for consumption on the toilet. Other times, we want the text to be presented with the nice binding, the nice paper, even the letterpress with–dare I say it? a well-chosen f-f-f-f-ont.
Okay, so that idea’s been played. What next?
Gahlord said:
Mar 14, 08 at 7:29 pmWait for Largo and his bots to fix your network?
kdghty said:
Apr 09, 08 at 8:46 amwhat about free kindles that can display course pack pdfs? would that be worth a try? as the one who orders the paper, i thought it might be worth a try. seems unlikely that amazon will agree with me, but, eh, who knows – maybe my 6 lines of text shot into the ether will get through to someone at amazon who does.