Cells phones vs. PDAs for e-books: A lesson from Korea
“It’s true that [a] PDA is a better source to read e-books. It has bigger screens than that of cell phones. But there is no one buying PDAs. That is the problem.” – You Youn-sun, public relations manager at Booktopia, a Korean e-book comapany, as quoted by the Korea Herald.
The TeleRead take: Needless to say, an XMLish Universal Consumer Format could help e-books keep up as platforms came and went. Technology marches on. Too bad the trogs would rather fight the format wars than meet consumer needs.
Something clueful
One exception to the general stupidity is OverDrive’s use of Mobipocket, the very best of the proprietary formats, which, yes, has a Smartphone version. Astutely, OverDrive’s Content Reserve unit and the Cleveland Public Library have been promoting the availabity of library books on cell phones. Would that OverDrive CEO Steve Potash, also president of the OeBF, understand how much better the group could do by looking ahead rather than fixating on the proprietary approach. Mobipocket is good but just a hint of what would be possible if the e-book industry pulled together rather than spending so much time on mediocre and redundant efforts.
Meanwhile a few more details from Korea:
An electronic book can be downloaded from Internet sites. Users can obtain an entire text or parts at cheaper prices than regular books and pay via credit card online. Currently, 200,000 e-books are sold to PDA users every month, but more than a million e-book readers are using mobile phones, said You. Sales for mobile phones have increased from 20 million to 30 million won per month in early 2003 to 300 million won, where they have stayed since in August 2003.Following the boom, SK Telecom Co. and KTF Co. added e-book content to their basic features. They felt books were better than games or other entertainment for promoting mobile phone services, especially to students.
Booktopia also got a lift from MBC’s “Exclamation Point” television program. Since the program began recommending a book every week, about 50,000 more mobile phone downloads have been recorded each month.
Time for publishers and telecom interests to support PBS in a big way?
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