TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘New York Times’ Category

By Chris Meadows

David Pogue’s latest column in the New York Times concerns the new Palm Pixi, the Pre’s precocious kid sister. The official price is $100 with a 2-year Sprint contract, but Amazon is selling it for $25—plus $2,309 in monthly fees over the course of the contract.

The phone is tiny, light, and thin, weighing in at 3 ounces. The design is nothing fancy, and it cuts a few corners (for example, no wifi—connection via Sprint’s cell network only—and an overall slower processor). In fact, for just $55 more you can have the somewhat more featureful and faster Pre.

But at least it shows that smartphone prices are definitely falling. Now if only they could rein in the calling plan prices, too. (Even if, as the article notes, Sprint’s are overall significantly less than AT&T or Verizon’s prices.)

Presumably, the Pixi will run the same e-book applications that the Pre will, so this may look like a reasonable option for people wanting a cheap smartphone. On the other hand, taken as a percentage of overall cost over two years, upgrading to the more-capable Pre is just a drop in the bucket.

By David Rothman

Update, 9:08 a.m.: The NYT is featuring the above headline on the Extra Home Page. Good for the Times! Ahead I’ll reproduce a screen shot of the head from Extra. Now if only the paper will retain the blog headline option! – D.R.

The New York Times is mysteriously killing the wonderful “Extra” option, which, if you turn it on, will turbo-charge the home page with blog headlines blended in with news stories. December 1 is when the option will vanish. Without offering an explanation, a home-page notice directs readers to the  Blogrunner aggregation service, which, for now, has a lower Alexa “reach” score than TeleRead.

I’m baffled why Extra option is disappearing and will ask the Times for an answer. “Extra” is one reason why I spend far more time with the Times than the Washington Post even though I live in the D.C. area.  Is  “Extra” not bringing in enough readers to justify the bother of having it? Is the Times worried that outside blogs are enjoying too much exposure? Or does it want to protect Blogrunner? In the Times place, I’d worry more about the total number of eyeballs and less about Blogrunner individually.

And speaking of the Times: Story shows how the Times still doesn’t get e-books

The smartphone-vs.-dedicated-reader debate, long familiar to TeleRead community members, is the topic of a feature called Library in a pocket.

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By David Rothman

How many people read the New York Times for its sports coverage? Time to drop the section? The newspaper itself has brought up but shrugged off the possibility, saying it wouldn’t save enough and would lessen the NYT’s quality.

Over at the Marginal Revolution blog, Tyler Coven wonders if the Times couldn’t “rent out somebody else’s sports section and stick it in the paper with a NYT label on it and maybe an extra article about the Knicks?" (Via Jim Romenesko.)

By Felix Torres

Editor’s note: Who’s downloading e-books illegally, and how much are publishers really losing? Is every illegal download in fact a missed sale?

Randall Stoss, author of a “Napsterization” piece in the New York Times, should check out the post below by Felix Torres, a TeleRead community member. It’s a slightly edited version of comments Felix wrote here earlier. Publishers, too, should read him. This tutorial happened accidentally, but that’s what it is, in effect, while the headline is mine.

I personally am in favor of legal action against major pirates, which Stross presumably would want at the very least. But DRMing of “sold” titles—and other consumer-hostile atrocities, including delayed releases of e-books—will just turn law-abiding readers into piracy fans. Why didn’t Stross mention the heavy damage the publishers are inflicting on themselves? Wouldn’t saner distribution of e-books be more cost-effective than just a flood of lawsuits? And now here’s Felix’s post. Also see Chris Meadows’ analysis of the Stross column. – D.R.

By Felix Torres

When it comes to book “piracy,” it is pretty clear there are kinds of players.

Category One: Hoarders

Hoarders grab free stuff just because it is free. More often than not, they will never actually consume what they troll for.

Even if they read a fraction of what they “pirate,” they would never actually buy the stuff if it were legally available. Hoarders are a nuisance at most—the online equivalent of shoplifters.

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By Chris Meadows

The New York Times has yet another article about the “napsterization” of e-books. Shock, horror. Alarums and excursions.

Randall Stross, the piece’s author, is only the latest of many to surmise that, if more people are reading e-books, e-book “piracy” might actually get big enough to damage the industry. The jury is out on that, but it is something worth thinking about.

Nonetheless, there are a couple of points in the article that need addressing.

When the music industry was “Napsterized” by free file-sharing, it suffered a blow from which it hasn’t recovered. Since music sales peaked in 1999, the value of the industry’s inflation-adjusted sales in the United States, even including sales from Apple’s highly successful iTunes Music Store, has dropped by more than half, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

This is the fallacy of “post hoc ergo propter hoc”. Or, in English, A happened before B, therefore A caused B.

If you listen to the RIAA, they’ll tell you anything. But all you really have is correlation, not causation. While peer-to-peer is probably a factor, there have been a whole host of economic and market changes in the intervening years which could also be responsible.

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By Paul Biba

Amazon Kindle Review has a compilation of reviews of newspapers that the Kindle can display.

For the Kindle, the New York Times is the best-selling newspaper. But, in 150 customer reviews, the august Times gets an average rating of just three of five stars. Some people want the $13.95 monthly subscription price slashed. Others gripe that the Kindle edition does not include all the articles.

If you own a Kindle and are a newspaper reader, you might want to go to the Kindle Review site and check the Times review and the others. For now, here is an excerpt from the end of the compilation:

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By David Rothman

New York Times reporter Brad Stone’s take on sales figures for the e-book version of The Lost Symbol—versus the numbers for the p-book—inspired lots and lots of skepticism from E boosters.

And I’m still waiting for him to write on social DRM and certain nuances of e-book standards that he and the Times have yet to explore, despite some progress in a recent article.

But Stone is right on the mark in highlighting another Kindle issue. And that’s the ticklish little matter of opening up the Kindle to third-party developers. Look at all the apps for the iPhone, such as the one shown here for Facebook.

Even with the the slow refresh rate of the Kindle’s E Ink, notes Stone, “there are still some interesting possibilities. Companies like Facebook or Goodreaders could add social features to the Kindle; game developers like Zynga could create nongraphics-intensive games like poker or chess for the device. There could also be educational games, or programs that take advantage of that rarely used keyboard and Kindle’s ‘experimental’ Web browser.”

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By Stephen Windwalker, editor of The Kindle Nation

When an experienced newsman like The Kindle Chronicles podcaster Len Edgerly  interviews an experienced newsman like Timesman Brad Stone (photo) on a newsy topic like the Kindle, there’s bound to be some news made.

Here are a few things I noticed as I listened to this week’s podcast:

• It’s not often that you hear unintended interruptions like a ringing phone in the background of one of Len’s interviews, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there may have been some cause and effect unleashed in the interview when Stone implicitly questioned his boss Arthur Ochs Sulzberger’s prudence for taking the stage with Jeff Bezos, perhaps prematurely, at last May’s Amazon corporate press conference to hype the Kindle DX. It took all of 24 seconds before Stone had to apologize to Len for the fact that his phone was ringing in the background. H’mm. Punch Junior on the line? Maybe not, but I’ve been reading The Lost Symbol, so don’t think I don’t know that everything is connected!

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By David Rothman

Barnes & Noble has filed with the FCC, as reported by Engadget, though it isn’t clear if if the Plastic Logic reader is the gizmo under consideration.

What’s your guess?

I suspect that it’s the same device for which B&N will power the bookstore.

Furthermore, though this is almost surely outside the FCC’s turf, the reader will most likely use ePub, among other formats—with DRM provided by Fictionwise, now a branch of B&N.

Speaking of DRM—and not just in a B&N context: I’d love for the New York Times to explore, in depth, how proprietary DRM lessens the usefulness of ePub as a standard.

Right now it looks as if we’re headed for B&N-DRMed ePub, Adobe-DRMed ePub and maybe even Kindle-DRMed ePub in time. A piece on social DRM, which Adobe exec Bill McCoy has talked up in the past, would also be a nice gift from the Times to its readers, some of whom just happen to be big New York publishers. Likewise a detailed look at geo-bans and DRM[related factors would be nice, with quotes from affected readers such as Ficbot.

By Chris Meadows

Sometimes Apple’s surprises are not pleasant. Starting back in March—when Apple made a job posting “looking for a Camera Engineering Project Manager (EPM) to drive the design, development and integration of camera modules across iPhone and iPod”—and lasting up until a few days before Wednesday’s Apple event, it was taken for granted that the 3rd-generation iPod Touches would have an iPhone-style camera. Third-party cases were manufactured with a hole for the camera.

Then, shortly before the event, rumors started circulating that the camera would be a no-show—manufacturing issues pushed it back. And sure enough, when the “rock and roll” had faded, no iPod Touch camera was to be found.

Jobs told the New York Times that the reason for this was Apple wanted to concentrate on lowering the price and pitching the Touch as a handheld game console. “We don’t need to add new stuff. We need to get the price down where everyone can afford it.” (Though strangely enough, only the 32-gig and 64-gig Touch models—not the “affordable” $199 8-gig—support OpenGL, a graphics engine much beloved of gamers and game companies.)

So was the talk of a camera in the Touch just a wild rumor with no basis in fact? Not so fast, says AppleInsider. Citing unnamed sources close to Apple, AppleInsider suggests that leaving the camera out for launch was a last-minute decision forced by a batch of faulty camera parts—and as soon as Apple gets its hands on some good cameras, there might be a 3.5th generation of the two more-expensive Touches with cameras added.

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By David Rothman

TeleRead has thousands of potential copy editors—our community members, whom we encourage to speak up in the right-hand column about glitches, or e-mail us directly.

But what to do in the case of books? O’Reilly has systemized the reporting process. Authors can keep up with the feedback and comment on it.

I strongly recommend such measures not just for O’Reilly-style technical books but also for any kind of book, novels included. Even newspapers might want to refine the error-reporting process. Same for (other) Web sites, including TeleRead.

Meanwhile I’m still hoping that the New York Times will acknowledge that Harry S. Truman never said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

By Evan Leibovitch

I guess David and I aren’t going to completely see eye-to-eye on this, but I didn’t see much that was wrong — or inaccurate, for that matter — in the New York Times article on the recent Sony press release. In fact, to me it appeared to be all good news.

Upon reading the original article, my first reaction was to celebrate the effective demise of Sony’s LRF format; I still think that was the main purpose of the announcement. The Reader’s continued support of LRF always allowed the possibility that Sony could be keeping its own proprietary-format options open. Now the field of supported e-book formats is now officially smaller by one, and that can’t be a bad thing for publishers or consumers.

I understand David’s point about DRM’d ePub not being an open format, but to me it’s not quite that bad. DRM is optional in ePub, it’s a third-party feature that is bolted on, not built in. The format is still "open" in that Adobe does not have a contractual monopoly on providing copy-protection for ePub. Once the numbers rise enough other DRM methods and vendors will step forward, all — like Adobe’s — required to stay outside of the ePub core.

I certainly am on David’s side about the evils of DRM, but a benign NYT article — which helps solidify ePub’s position as the definitive Kindle-alternative format — is not the place to fight this battle. We should be cheering that DRM is optional and about all of the Project Gutenberg (and other) existing ePubs that stay away from it. Advocates should be taking the opportunity to remind the public that the standard ePub spec doesn’t allow the kind of remote-takedown scanario that recently affected many Kindle users.

To me, Adobe DRM is to ePub what Macrovision is to DVDs — a non-excludive tool that is allowed by the spec but clearly outside of it. And a DRM ePub is still ePub — it will still play on all readers that support that particular DRM, and its content is still assembled the same way as DRM-free books. All the ePub format advantages to publishers are still in play when making DRM’d documents.

If Sony wants to sell DRM’d books to Reader owners, they’re welcome to do so. Maybe the titles they sell this way would not be available at all if DRM were not available to the publisher. Here in a standards-based world, a Reader owner has the option of going to any other online bookstores and publishers that might have a different approach to DRM. In the proprietary world that level of choice simply doesn’t exist.

By David Rothman

The New York Times tech section remains my favorite among those in the daily press—because of the volume and general thoughtfulness of its coverage—and here’s another reason why.

The Times, following a friendly chat with an editor there, is  looking over its Sony eBook Store article to see if a clarifying follow-up might be in order. No promises. But I appreciate the Times’ open mind. The article failed to play up up an essential—namely that Adobe-DRMed ePub is in effect a proprietary format. Only nonDRMed ePub isn’t proprietary. Adobe controls the DRM-related technology used by the Sony store and others, and in the future it could raise or lower prices or refuse to do business with certain companies.

Related:

• Adobe-DRMed ePub isn’t open: Why the New York Times urgently needs to clarify its Sony eBook Store article.
• How the New York Times was fooled? Sony’s misleading ePub-related news release.
• At least 16 e-reader devices support or will support ePub via Adobe Digital Editions.
• DRM, Orwellian book zaps and eBabel: Will the press TRULY grasp the importance of e-book ownership?

By David Rothman

At least 16 e-readers now support or will support ePub via Adobe Digital editions, and Adobe has compiled a nice, handy list.

Besides Sony (“four devices”), the vendors include Astak (three), BeBook (two), Bookeen (at least one—see Christine’s comment), COOL-ER (one—shown here in various colors), Elonex (one), Hanlin (two), Irex (one) and Neolux (one).

On top of the Sony’s eBook Store’s  forthcoming adoption of ePub—not to mention the Sony Reader’s ability to read ePub in the first place—this is good news for standards white hats.

The only fly in the ointment is that Adobe-DRMed ePub is really a proprietary format in effect. As noted separately, I’m more than a little grouchy at the New York Times tech section for downplaying this fact. The section is generally stellar, but when it comes to e-book standards coverage, the NYT is about on par with Judy Miller reporting on “weapons of mass destruction.”

(Via Adobe’s Nick Bogaty, as well as Electric Book Works.)

By David Rothman

No one loves the idea of the ePub e-book format—especially at the consumer level—more than I do. I applaud Sony’s just-revealed decision to use only ePub in its store by the end of 2009.

I myself helped found the OpenReader Consortium, and its OpenReader format in turn led the Internatonal Digital Publishing Fourm to create ePub so the IDPF wouldn’t be preempted.

But try to puzzle out a New York Times item by Brad Stone. The headline over his piece reads: Sony Plans to Adopt Common Format for E-Books. Alas, however, we’re still talking in effect about an Adobe-DRMed format in the case of most bestsellers.

The New York Times unwittingly plays down the new power that Adobe will enjoy within the e-book industry—for example, very possibly the ability to raise the prices of DRM-related technology or make other unwelcome changes in the future. If nothing else, what about the Amazon-owned Stanza e-reader for the iPhone? Will Adobe forever let Amazon use its proprietary DRM if the latter company is smart enough to want the current  Stanza-Adobe arrangement to continue? (Update, 10 a.m.: Well, assuming the arrangement isn’t already dead.)

Here’s an excerpt from the Stone article:

Sony will also scrap its proprietary anticopying software in favor of technology from the software maker Adobe that restricts how often e-books can be shared or copied.

After the change, books bought from Sony’s online store will be readable not just on its own device but on the growing constellation of other readers that support ePub. Those include the Plastic Logic eReader, a thin device that has been in development for nearly a decade and is expected to go on sale early next year

Really? So Adobe DRM is not proprietary? And yet I don’t see one bleepin’ reminder of that fact in Stone’s article. Nor do I see him emphasizing that proprietary DRM like Adobe’s will turn even an open format like ePub into a proprietary one in effect. Stone doesn’t say outright that Adobe DRM is “open,” but many a reader will conclude that anyway without adequate clarification.

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By David Rothman

“The New New York Times, or NNYT, would have a writing staff of say 50 people. These are among the best journalists in the world, and lets say they wanted to pay themselves $200,000/year, a top salary for a reporter of that stature. That’s just $10 million a year in payroll expenses. Call it $12 million with benefits. Plus, they all have stock options in the new comapny.”

So writes TechCrunch founder J. Michael Arrington—complete with the “lets say” and the “new comapny.” A publication of any size can use copy editors (a job description I dearly wish we had at TeleRead).

TechCrunch has its merits, and, yes, Michael is semi-joking when he says that the Times could follow the example of The Politico and slim down. He says the latter has a news room of just “100 strong,” with star writers recruited from the established newspapers. And yet the Politico now draws seven million visitors a month.

Trouble is, the Politico doesn’t really cover government in depth in the genuine sense—just politics, more or less, in an upscale version of the Gawker act. For the fun of it, I’ll list a few headlines in The Politico:

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By David Rothman

The New York Times is thinking about a $5 a month Web access charge. That’s reasonable if the Times doesn’t keep jacking up the charges and if it cuts back on obnoxious display ads—which I suspect most readers are ignoring anyway.

When an ad covers up a story, I just reach for the “close” button without even bothering the read the sucker.