Sony and the perils of proprietary e-book formats—and the promise of cellphone e-books
Uh-oh. Sony’s Timebook Town is winding down efforts in Japan to deliver e-books to PCs and the Librie dedicated e-book reader, which in fact is no longer even made. Pity the people who spent good money on the Librie expecting that Sony would support it forever. Photo below is of Librie.
Even now, one never knows about the Amazon Kindle despite just-reported speculation from Goldman Sachs that Bezos and friends may have sold as many as 50,000 in the first quarter of 2008. Remember when the pundits thought that Rocket eBooks and Gemstars would go on and on forever. My own hardly infallible opinion? The Kindle will do fine as a niche product and maybe much more; and in fact, we could see the opposite danger—Amazon using the Kindle eventually to bully the book industry, and I don’t just mean the E part of it. Such is the danger of the ePub standard not catching on.
The good news: More focus on cellphones
Meanwhile there’s also good news from Japan. Sony’s new Publishing Link will focus on e-content for cellphones—the very medium that many in the States are dissing in favor of the Kindle. Hey, it’s a generation thing, and maybe a country-by-country thing as well. Middle-aged and elderly e-book pundits in some cases may be partial to the Kindle because it’s easier to read with aging eyes. Younger people may literally see matters, er, text, differently.
So might cash-strapped people in developing countries, for whom cellphones could be dirt-cheap e-book readers.
As for the Japanese, they just seem to go for small gadgets, especially the teenaged girls. Here’s to all kinds of platforms, rather than a Kindle-centric world! If young people in the States show a preference for cellphones over Kindles as e-readers, especially as pop-out displays improve, that could help address the Amazon-as-Standard-Oil risks.
(Sony item found via MobileRead.)
May 19th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
David;
I think Sony is making this move because of the extreme populariity of genre fiction novels sent straight to a cell phone.
I remember reading a report some months back (TeleRead perhaps?) about how there was sudden rash of novelist publishing straight to cell phones via text messaging. They were short or given in manageable chunks and they were VERY, VERY popular in China.
It would make sense for Sony to follow the market and, apparently, try to cash in on it.
That sort of thing hasn’t caught on in the States which is why they are stating they are staying in the Sony Reader game elsewhere.
Personally, I do think cell phones make dirt cheap e-book readers, just not very good ones.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Hi, Aaron. That’s a reasonable analysis, although I suspect that Sony has enough resources to do both cellphones and other things. We do know that the Librie is a bust.
Yes, cellphones are *really* taking off. They aren’t the best e-readers now. But with different display tech, that could eventually change.
Meanwhile cellphone e-books beat having NO books—E or P. That’s why I’m excited about the possibilities for developing countries. Not everyone there will be able to enjoy a $100/$200 laptop.
Thanks,
David
May 20th, 2008 at 3:56 am
We have made a specific analysis on the Japanase epaper market. Electronic ink devices are seen as future extensions of mobile phone for better reading (as for Nokia, if you noticed).