Great idea from ScrollMotion: In-book catalogs
Imagine—if you like a publisher’s book you can use the same app to buy other titles. What’s more, without leaving a book, you can e-mail part if to friends.
ScrollMotion is releasing an iPhone/iPod Touch app with those hyper-useful features. A strategy for other Kindle/Amazon rivals to use? ScrollMotion will also offer newspapers and magazines.
Now if only ScrollMotion will have a more sensible ‘tude toward DRM and also spiff up the interface. E-book-savvy people complain that ScrollMotion’s fidelity to the looks of print books means a lot of unneeded scrolling.
(Via Engadget. Also see other ScrollMotion-related stories via Google News.)
June 8th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Great idea? Great idea? I’m agog that you think this most anti-consumer of ALL e-book readers is worthy of such a compliment. Have you seen the prices on Scrollmotion books in the iPhone app store? Outrageous. New books are $25 to $27, back catalog are $15+. I noticed the other day that “Infinite jest,” available on the Kindle for $9.99 is $17 in the Scrollmotion edition. Bob Barker’s new memoir is $25 versus $9.99 in the Kindle store. Why would ANYONE pay double the price for an ebook available on other platforms? Because Scrollmotion shows you the actual page number of the print edition? I don’t think so.
And aren’t you guys opposed to the limits of DRM? Scrollmotion is much more DRM’ed than Kindle, which can be read on the Kindle app and a half-dozen Kindle devices at the same time.
The real problem here is that while Apple is now allowing app vendors to sell things from within an app, they are excluding free apps from the program (which excludes almost all ebook apps) and they are insisting on a 30% cut of the sales. With Kindle and probably some others selling ebooks at a loss, there’s no way they can afford to pay Apple the 30% cut without raising prices. Ick.
June 8th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Hey, Aaron, I LIKE the marketing idea and still HATE Scrollmotion’s DRM. I thought the original post made that clear. As you’ve noted, price gouges are yet another problem.
But let’s be fair to ScrollMotion about the positives. I’m totally in favor of making it easier, in nonintrusive ways, to buy books! Same for mailing excerpts to interested friends!
Thanks,
David
June 8th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
I guess I was reacting with such surprise at your positive mention because it left out the book price issue, which I think kills the product dead from a consumer standpoint.
The marketing idea is not really Scrollmotion’s, either. Several ebook app makers have said they want to or plan to add in-app buying but Apple currently prohibits it (there are a few ways some of the ebook apps try to get around it, but I don’t think we need to get into that level of complication here).
Apple announced this policy change when they first revealed the features of the iPhone 3.0 operating system back in March. At the time, there was discussion/grumbling about the exclusion of free apps and folks wondering how the 30% of revenue charge could work for ebooks sold at a discount. I’m sure every ebook app would like to add the in-app book purchase feature but Apple isn’t letting them.
ps from your wording above is the Scrollmotion in-app book purchasing limited to titles by the same publisher as the ebook you’ve bought? Sounds even more consumer-unfriendly.
June 8th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I very much appreciated your further thoughts, Aaron. Yes, like you, I’m not fond of Apple’s war against free apps (there might be an exclusion covering those accessing just free books–I don’t recall). Same re the 30 percent.
ScrollMotion’s prices? Outrageous! I hadn’t checked recently, which is why I didn’t include that in the post I hurriedly banged out to keep people up to date.
As for the in-book purchasing from the same company, I’m fine by that as long as consumers have other choices.
No pay, alas, but if you want to write at length on ScrollMotion, especially if you can get your hands on the app, I’d love to publish your thoughts.
Chris Meadows may also want to weigh in.
Me, I find it hard to get near that app because of the horrid interface.
But one can at least hope that ScrollMotion will listen. It’s not the people I hate. It’s the app. I just wanted to give it some deserved credit, in the case of the in-book catalog option.
Thanks,
David
June 8th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I have in my library a large number of books from the 1920s, 30s and 40s which have — guess what — a catalogue of other books from the same publisher listed at the back. Heraclitus was right: there really is nothing new under the sun.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Goes back further than that, Jon. I meant e-book cats. Good observation. Thanks. David
June 8th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
David, I’ve expanded my thoughts into a blog post at http://gravitationalpull.net/wp/?p=948