Posted 03/09/10 at 04:52:03 PM by Bart Salisbury

It’s a challenge trying to parse what a company might be up to. It’s obvious, for example, that Amazon will need to respond to recent events in the tablet PC market to keep its Kindle competitive. But what exact path it might take for this endeavor isn’t necessarily obvious. Unless, of course, you happen to be a keen observer of the want ads.

Michael Calore, at webmonkey, thinks Amazon is working to improve the browser engine of the Kindle, which he likens to “taking a step backwards in time.” According to Calore, a job posting for a “browser engineer” at “Lab126” is a dead giveaway that an upgrade is in the works. Lab126 is the Amazon division that develops the Kindle, and it is on the hunt for a person to “develop “an innovative embedded web browser” for a consumer product.”

Calore suggests that once the iPad hits the market, allowing for a fuller web browsing experience (and the HP Slate not too far behind it), the Kindle will look pretty lame. Looking lame is no way to hang onto market share.

Amazon is also looking to broaden the Kindle experience with a recently launched beta program for third-party app developers. And there’s the persistent rumor that Amazon is jonesing for a color Kindle as well. From all this it would seem clear that, at the very least, Amazon is rising up to meet this new challenge.

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Posted 02/09/10 at 04:44:44 PM by Pulkit Chandna

The initial reaction to the iPad has been mixed. But the mixed reaction hasn't necessarily soothed any nerves among its potential competitors. The fractured response means that they will have to wait a bit longer to take stock of the challenge. From the looks of it, Amazon is not awaiting the public's final word on the iPad to post its reply. After all, the iPad is supposed to be Kindle's sternest test till date.

A few days after Amazon was reported to have acquired touch screen company Touchco, the New York Times has unearthed at least 50 job listings on Amazon’s Lab126 career board that all seem to be pointing towards a Kindle equipped with a color screen, multitouch and Wi-Fi. The “Hardware Display Manager,” according to one of the job postings, must have "significant exposure to high volume manufacturing environments; you will know the LCD business and key players in the market."

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Posted 02/08/10 at 08:04:51 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Are you searching for just the right outing for you and your special someone this Valentine’s Day? Well, look no further, Barnes and Noble will have Nooks available in stores for you to actually buy. Name just one thing more romantic than swinging by your local retail establishment to buy a new gadget. We sure can’t come up with anything.

The bookseller was caught off guard by demand for their ebook reader this past holiday season, with preorders spilling over into January. Barnes and Noble has had limited numbers of demo units in their retail locations since shortly after launch, but now you can actually take one home. This was cited as a main advantage over Amazon’s offering.

The Nook is a compelling alternative to the Kindle for some. The Nook runs the Android operating system, and a dedicated modding community has even gained root access to its Android core. Now that the production delays have finally been sorted out, we’ll see just how many people walk out of a Barnes and Noble with a Nook.

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Posted 02/05/10 at 09:12:51 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Till now, Amazon has enjoyed a smooth ride in the e-book reader market. But it is now bracing itself for a series of tight corners and bumps. Its Kindle e-reader is bound to come under pressure from the iPad and a slew of other slates and e-readers. It is said to have acquired a New York-based company named Touchco.

The company it has acquired specializes in touchscreen technology, according to the New York Times. Its flagship technology is something called interpolating force-sensitive resistance, which it uses to produce transparent touch screens for around $10 per square foot – much cheaper than competing technologies. Amazon remains mum on the acquisition.

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Posted 01/29/10 at 02:26:18 PM by Bart Salisbury

There’s good news, and there’s good news in the latest leaked figures on Kindle ownership. While Amazon is a bit tight-lipped on the subject, with Jeff Bezos only admitting to “millions of people” owning Kindles, TechCrunch is reporting the number of those millions to be three.

Michael Arrington, who’s checked with this “amazingly accurate” sources, reports that the three million number was hit sometime in December, before the release of the global Kindle, and Amazon’s “free” Kindle offer.

Why double-good news? First, because this gives Amazon a distinct early market presence, which can have a snowball effect. (If all you see are Kindles, why by a Nook?) Second, because Amazon might well need this presence to weather the introduction Apple’s iPad into the market. For no other reason than its cachet value, the iPad will sell, and when the initial frenzy is over Kindle has a good chance of still being there.

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Posted 01/27/10 at 07:17:18 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Regardless of how you feel about the newly announced iPad, it’s probably going to do a few things very well. But will it be the reading device we’ve all been waiting for? Steve Jobs pushed the iBook store in the keynote, and discussed how the Kindle pioneered ebooks. Jobs then said Apple would “stand on [Amazon’s] shoulders”. Can it work?

The obvious benefit of the iPad is that it has a color screen. There will be more options for text size, search, and even font choices. Magazines and newspapers will look nice, but reading an old fashioned book may not benefit much. The Kindle and other eReaders have a 16 level eInk display meant to be easy to read. The screen on the iPad, being a conventional LCD, may not be quite so easy on the eyes.

Content wise, the iPad may be in good shape. Out of the gate it will have content from Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Harper Collins and Hachette. It will also support the open ePub format, which is more than we can say for Amazon. This means the iPad will have access to Google Books. The Nook has ePub support also, so it’s not a total win for Apple.

Price is certainly of concern. The iPad is clocking in at $499 for the 16GB version sans 3G. That’s quite a bit more than the Kindle and Nook at $260. To get data on the go, you need to purchase an AT&T data plan for the (more expensive) iPad, whereas the Kindle and Nook come with free wireless. Granted, the iPad does much more than eBooks, but buying it primarily as a reading device may be a questionable move.

Check out this much more exhaustive rundown at MacLife.

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Posted 01/21/10 at 01:57:07 PM by Bart Salisbury

Whether or not Apple announces a tablet PC next week, the tech world is fretting about the possible impact. Take, for example, Amazon. It’s cute little Kindle is basically a uni-tasker--it lets you read books and little else. An Apple tablet PC, it’s expected, will be more iPod Touch/iPhone like--a multi-tasker--making it more useful. Amazon’s not waiting to find out if the rumors are true, and is acting to negate some of Apple’s suspected advantage. It has opened up the Kindle to outside developers.

The Kindle Development Kit (KDK) will be available in a limited beta starting next month. The KDK, which is suited for Mac, PC, and Linux environments, will include sample code, documentation, and a Kindle simulator for building and testing apps.

With the KDK and outside developer support, Amazon looks to make the Kindle a more versatile tool, albeit with a monochrome display. Amazon is looking for apps that are free, one-time purchase, or monthly subscription. But there are some limits: “Voice over IP functionality, advertising, offensive materials, collection of customer information without express customer knowledge and consent, or usage of the Amazon or Kindle brand in any way are not allowed. In addition, active content must meet all Amazon technical requirements, not be a generic reader, and not contain malicious code.”

Amazon plans the same revenue split for publishers/authors it announced yesterday: 70/30 after deducting a delivery fee of 15-cents per megabyte. Amazon hopes to have apps available in the Kindle Store later this year.

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Posted 01/20/10 at 02:55:58 PM by Bart Salisbury

Amazon’s Kindle is a neat idea, as are eReaders in general. But they aren’t much good if there’s nothing to 'eRead' on them. Book publishers, still stuck in last century’s economic models, are slow to come around to Jeff Bezo’s world of bits-and-bytes, leaving a gap in what is and what might be. Amazon has moved to shore-up that gap, at least for the Kindle and Amazon’s digital bookstore: it’s offering to pay authors and publishers a new royalty of 70 percent of list price--doubling the current 35 percent rate.

Well, not quite 70 percent. First, Amazon wants to deduct delivery costs. This is readily factored into the equation, as Amazon projects costs to be 15-cents per megabyte. And the book must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99 to qualify for this royalty rate. On top of this the book’s ‘ePrice’ must be at least 20 percent less than its physical copy price.

Oh, and Amazon wants distribution rights throughout the world where the publisher/author has such rights. The book can’t have been published prior to 1923. And the book must be sold in the United States.

Honestly, though, isn’t the soul of an author or publisher worth a royalty of 70 percent?

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