eBooks are HAPPENING - Finally!! Maybe??

Elliot: eBooks to the left of me, eBooks to the right of me… eBooks are happening!

 

Cathie: Elliot, are you referring to the flurry of eBook announcements from Amazon and Sony?

 

Elliot: Indeed I am! The eBook is one of those technologies that has been hanging around and hanging around, but not going anywhere. Maybe the time has come for eBooks to cross the chasm and be acceptable to the mainstream?

 

Cathie: As I’m sure you remember, I bought my first eBook about 5 years ago for my Sony Clie so I could roundly critique it in my human-computer interaction class – and I haven’t stopped reading eBooks since. eBooks are convenient to buy, carry, and read. I buy 10 at a time, and read them on planes, waiting in the dentist’s office, curled up on the couch – everywhere! I am particularly adept at sleepreading – but unlike a paper book that closes when it inevitably falls and I lose my place, my eBook reader always remembers where I stopped reading.

 

Elliot: Blog readers out there… who among you are eBook lovers, like Cathie? Who is reading this blog on a Kindle?

 

Cathie: Amazon just announced their Kindle 2, a sleek, lightweight device for reading eBooks. Amazon makes it totally easy to buy eBooks – using the Sprint cellular network, under the covers so to speak, to log into Amazon, select the book you want, and download it.

 

Elliot: And now Amazon says that it has a Kindle eBook reader for the iPhone. And the really sweet thing is this: automatic bookmarks. Stop reading a book on your iPhone on the plane; pick up your Kindle at home and it knows where you stopped reading. Very cool.

 

Cathie: Not to be outdone, did you see that Sony is selling their eBook reader – which, like the Kindle, has pluses and minuses – with 100 free books. That is a great incentive to go with the Sony reader.

 

Elliot: I think we need to do a full Tech Disruptions column on eBooks; folks, what do you think?

Comments

[Jim Hirsch]

And Kindle for the iPhone works great already in version 1.0 and makes the e-book reading experience more mobile and more multi-functional.

[Elliot Soloway]

I am jealous of your iPhone users. My fingers are just too plump for that soft keyboard. So, I am a Windows Mobile man. When will Amazon come out with a Kindle reader for Windows Mobile? Never is not the answer I was looking for!