Listed on iTunes
By admin | August 7, 2008
We are now listed on iTunes, so feel free to subscribe to us on your iPod. Also, be on the lookout for our next episode early next week. We will be discussing eBook conversion processes and hints.
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Episode 2 - eBook Readers
By admin | July 28, 2008
More about ninjas!! well, maybe not…
News
- Amazon is pursuing publishers for more content
- Joshua was wrong: Mobipocket does not work on the Mac or in Linux. That’s really sad…
- Christian Publishers Commit to Delivering Majority of Catalogs to Amazon Kindle Owners by the End of 2008
- Total Kindle books currently available: 144,000
- Why did they decide to do this? Rumors are that Amazon is offering to do the Kindle conversions for some publishers if they put their books up in Search Inside. I could not find any corroboration on this, only anecdotal evidence from colleagues.
- Derek has an iPod Nano, and has used the “Notes” feature to load “Of Mice and Men”. It’s a stretch to call the iPod Nano an “eBook reader”.
- 12% of Book Sales on Amazon are Kindle editions
- Titles, not sales
- Amazon’s cut is 65% when published on the DTP, or 25% when published on Mobipocket
- Looking at publishing Law books on the Kindle
Discussion - eBook readers
- Will Amazon crush the competiton? Is the Kindle the iPod of eBook readers?
- Here is a list on Wikipedia of the various eBook Readers that are available: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix
- PDF format is not supported by many eBook readers
- Why is this the case? They could put a PDF reader in the device!
- Kindle itself does not open PDF files, you have to send it through the conversion process via your Kindle e-mail address.
- eInk is the screen of choice for eBook readers. There have been some good developments in that technology as a result:
- color screens (12-bit color in a 400×300 pixel format with resolution of 83 pixels per inch)
- touchscreen
- Other options and the future of eBook readers
- eBook readers are still in the “beta” phase. All of them are similar right now.
- Most people are combining functionality in their mobile devices, dropping PDAs for smartphones, etc.
- Joshua thinks eBook Readers will conflate with micro PCs
- OLPC XO-2
- Joe Wikert’s perspective on dual-screen eBook readers
- Researchers Maryland and Berkeley Universities testing dual-screen eBook readers
- iPhone tested against the Kindle
- Derek pointed out that Amazon’s distribution model is the killer feature, and Apple is in a unique position to compete with that
- Steve Jobs, though, thinks people “don’t read anymore”
- Apple Tablet PC rumor
- Joshua wants to see them make a PADD
- Holographic display showing off a TIE fighter
- Back to micro PCs
- Kindle
- Amazon has not released numbers on how many Kindles have been sold
- Joshua erroneously said 30,000 to 60,000. The actual number cited was 300,000
- Kindle 2.0 rumors
- New eBook Readers from Fujitsu
- Derek asks what is Fujitsu’s distribution model? They have to fight Kindle’s model like every other reader.
- Joshua says that everyone should buy an eBook reader.
- Derek disagrees. They are too expensive.
- At the very least, you should check out the technology.
Derek has promised to talk more about ninjas in the next episode, possibly even relating a history of Ninjas.
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Episode 1 - Things That Are Awesome About eBooks
By admin | July 8, 2008
- Welcome to the eBook Ninjas podcast. We have not found a podcast just on the subject of eBooks, so we’re starting one. We plan to talk about anything that has to do with eBooks. And ninjas.
- Who are we? Derek Kurth and Joshua Tallent. We work at WORDsearch, a Bible software company with a large library of eBooks.
- Joshua creates Kindle books on the side through his website, KindleFormatting.com.
- What is an eBook? It can be a digital representation of a hardcopy, although some eBooks were never printed in hardcopy. Usually, though, the eBook is just a different version of a print book, but with certain benefits, such as special functionality and portability (you can carry a whole library of eBooks easily).
- Apart from books he’s converting to the Kindle format, Joshua’s Kindle is loaded with free Sci-fi books from Tor.com.
- Certain fields could benefit from the special functionality eBooks. We discussed medicine and science, fields where new research is published frequently, and could be dissiminated in an easily searchable format to make it easy to stay up-to-date in your field. In our field, having a large library of theological eBooks means that you can check obscure sources just as easily as well-known ones, and you may discover some point that would have gone overlooked.
- One thing we love about eBooks is that they make it easy to check a source. If one book cites another book in your electronic library, you can easily check the original source (sometimes the citation will link directly to the relevant passage). This allows you to delve into researching a topic as deeply as you like, or to check into a claim that you’re not sure about.
- An eBook is just tagged-up text, so some functionality requires a special engine, just as HTML requires an engine (your web browser) before it becomes useful.
- Joshua mentioned the EPUB standard, an open standard for eBook markup. But companies want to preserve their copyright and licensing, so they are more likely to adopt a proprietary standard where they can control how the rights are managed.
- Another killer feature of eBooks is the ability to purchase and download immediately; like with iTunes, you don’t have to go to store, there’s a huge selection, and you can be impulsive. This kind of zero-friction distribution method is what Amazon.com did right more than anything else with the Kindle.
- Joshua mentioned that Kindle users are buying 2.5 times more books than they did before they bought the Kindle (actually 2.6 — here’s the article).
- That’s it for this episode. Next time, more ninjas!
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