May 2009 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Fwd: Re: Re: larger-format kindle
by Joshua Hutchinson 10 May '09

10 May '09

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Re: !@! Re: Re: larger-format kindle
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 10 May '09

10 May '09

michael said: > but somehow misinterpreted what the point is > about taking out the PG trademark which is > totally unnecessary unless HE is now commercial. i might charge a fee for my reader-program, just to demonstrate that it has value to people, but it won't be a very substantial price if i do... and i'd probably offer a free counterpart too, to reap the reward that would come from that. my main point would be to push the envelope on the functionality a viewer-app should give, and to demonstrate benefits of keep-it-simple. and very few of the iphone e-book viewer-apps have desktop counterparts, at least at present, so that's another missing-link that i'd provide... but the major capability i see missing at this point -- in terms of the project gutenberg e-texts -- is an ability to download en masse with one click. lots of copies keeps stuff safe, plus it also guards against corporations restoring artificial scarcity... and yeah, all of the books will also be "in the clear", regularized in regard to their zen markup language, on my website, as yet another version in cyberspace. most of the other jokers doing this put the text in a database, whereas my books are totally exposed, with an easy-to-grok u.r.l. file-naming convention, so other programmers can grab all of them at will... i'll probably echo them on my s3 (amazon!) account. the main reason i eliminated the p.g. boilerplate is because it's so ugly, and it just gets in the way. -bowerbird p.s. if i do charge a fee for my iphone apps, i'll set aside a portion of the proceeds, not for p.g. per se, but for health insurance for you, michael. i think you deserve that for the role you've played. ************** Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp000000…)

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Re: larger-format kindle
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 10 May '09

10 May '09

michael said: > This is Amazon talking. > Amazon talking about internal affairs. > What share of pbooks do they have these days? about 14% last i heard. and the other 86% is scared shitless... for good reason. amazon is eating their lunch, abducting their children, and raiding their retirement fund... > I'd like some solid numbers please. all we have are amazon's lies... and sweet lies they are, since they could be about just about anything, but amazon hype decided to tell its lies about electronic-books. i'm sure they are also moving refrigerators, and color tv's too, lots and lots of color tv's, i assure you, "lots" even by your standards, since i have seen many of those "in the wild". but amazon is choosing to tell its stories about e-books. evidently it takes the "bookstore" label seriously. even the p.r. department got the memo. > I've heard just the opposite. . . . > Even on PDAs. that's entirely possible. i'm sure we talk to different people. :+) > Kindle just barely exists, except in their PR world. hey, you know who's been doing all of the kindle hype? the blogs. techcrunch, engadget, mobileread, teleread. they all preannounced the thing for well over a full year, and they haven't stopped talking about it since, jeez i've been so sick of it, for so long, i no longer vomit over it... everyone is sick of hearing about this darned little gadget, but they just won't stop talking about it, i do need to vomit. *** michael said: > Since iPhones and iPods with screens work with eBooks, > I say it is far more worthwhile to be addressing those > kinds of platforms than Kindle, which supposedly isn't > going to need much addressing at all, if it can really > handle plain text and .pdfs as well as they say. of course we don't do any work to "address" the kindle. that's amazon's job. and they're doing a fine job of it... nobody is donating _any_ time to amazon, that's for sure. as for addressing the iphone.ipod, nobody _should_ have to do any work to address those either, since apple is surely capable of doing that work. however, lots of people _are_ doing it, for their own interest, as i'm sure you know. stanza's first big chunk of books was from project gutenberg. same with feedbooks.com, and manybooks.com. appengines, the guy who did the first bunch of iphone e-books, used p.g. texts, as did the guys who did the "classics" app (as shown on t.v.), not to mention bookz and a variety of lesser-known apps. together these ebook iphone-apps have taken in about $1million, i'd estimate, and maybe more. who knows what amazon paid for lexcycle, but i'd guess it would be more than the $3million paid for mobipocket years ago. o'reilly has made a big deal out of their iphone e-book. greg just gave us the example of another guy setting up a "library" consisting in its present entirety of recycling p.g. and finally, here's another iphone e-book app due soon: > http://th.ingsmadeoutofotherthin.gs/eucalyptus/ called "eucalyptus". (google "eucalyptus project gutenberg".) you guessed it, it pulls down e-texts from project gutenberg. by the way, since a lot of these guys tell the blogs that they will be donating some proceeds back to project gutenberg, it's probably time for you to be confirming that they _are_ -- or are not -- so the press of public opinion is on them. all of this in spite of the fact that apple don't need no help. in fact, when apple decides they're gonna step in this mess, they'll sweep all the cash up for themselves. wouldn't you? (no, michael hart, not you, the public "you", typically greedy.) oh yeah, i'll soon start writing my own e-book iphone app. it'll pull e-texts from my website, the e-texts which i have repurposed from project gutenberg, deleting your name, as per your terms... > As for the entire DRM and other proprietary issues the > various conversations have brought up, I keep quiet on > those issues pretty much, feeling Darwinian pressures, > such as they are, will do their thing on that front as > well as on the dedicated hardware front, as it did for > the Wang word processors, typewriters, and the like. i'm with you 100% on all that. the noises that amazon is making about kindle being a purpose-built machine are silly ridiculous. people want that machine to be full-powered, and for $500 they will _expect_ it to provide a completely browsing experience. (unless apple establishes a higher pricepoint, like $800, for that functionality, in which case amazon could stall, and their customers wouldn't abandon them in droves. still, if the kindle keeps a non-color screen, amazon will have to have a lower pricepoint so as to offset that flaw. but you have to also remember that netbooks are there in the mix as well, with their pricepoint and capabilities. so it won't be long until we have a full-fledged computer in a 9*12 form-factor with a good screen at a good price. the "good screen" might be pixel qi, work inside and out, and the "good price" might come in at around $300-$400. look for a huge burst of creativity when all _that_ happens.) > This is the way the world evolves, > conservative is not good for evolution. . . . i don't intend to let amazon stop my growth. or apple. or google. or any of the dinosaurs. but if they do something that's good for e-books, i'm not gonna stand in their way and yell at them... they will die off naturally. no reason for me to kill 'em. -bowerbird ************** Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp000000…)

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Re: !@! Re: Re: larger-format kindle
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 09 May '09

09 May '09

joseph said: > Like always I'll be waiting here with baited breathed > for that application to show up. like always, once it does show up, you'll pretend it hasn't... and keep repeating your "vaporware" lies, as if you thought everybody else is just as inattentive to the truth as you are... and meanwhile, i will be giving people the download u.r.l., so they know for a fact you are blowing smoke out your ass. -bowerbird ************** Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp000000…)

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Re: !@! Re: Re: larger-format kindle
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 09 May '09

09 May '09

joseph gruber said: > please realize that these are wild fantasies of his > and you'll never see such an application materalize you guys never learn, do you? even when your credibility is completely shredded, you keep telling your lies like you really believe 'em. -bowerbird ************** Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp000000…)

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The Kindle As A Public Relations Blitz
by Michael S. Hart 08 May '09

08 May '09

by Michael S. Hart Founder Project Gutenberg, Inventor of eBooks Why the Big Flap About the Kindle eBook Reader? It hasn't sold enough to pass 1/3 of one percent, even if you only consider the United States population. I keep reading things about how popular the Kindle is, without much in the way of real numbers to support it. This is much the work of Jeff Bezos PR team spending a million dollars in the hopes of foolling the public to the point where they believe the Kindle is "in," while the FACT is that Amazon has not even sold one million, and is unwilling to even SAY how many they have sold-- following Sony's lead in refusing to give hard facts. The truth is that even counting Amazon AND Sony it was hard to decide if they had sold a million together, at the beginning of 2009, just because of muddy numbers. Oh, yes, we get various prophets, profits, and pundits saying various numbers, but nothing as hard evidence. When Amazon has paid taxes on the sale of a million of the Kindles, THAT will be hard evidence. Defining Our Terms Meanwhile, I hear the word "popular" used more all the time, pretty much as if the media, and my friends, all have read the same public relations blurb and are nice enough to recite it as if Big Brother said to. However, when it comes down to hard numbers, not even, literally, the most paid off pundits will pretend that the Kindles, counting all three models, have sold just one million units, between them all. Not one million. On a United States scale a million is less then just a third of one percent, still zero percent in integers. On a worldwide scale a million doesn't register at all compared to the 1.3 Billion computers, and 4.5 Billion active cellphones were U.N. estimated for this year. The world and U.S. population clocks right now say: 6.778 billion and 306 million Meaning that about 2/3 of all the world has cellphones in active accounts at this very moment. ~66.39% Obviously this is higher in the more developed places. Cellphones are more than popular. . .more ubiquitous. iPods are popular. . .but only ~10 million per year. The iPhone App Store had 60 million downloads a month, right from the first month last year, bringing in lots of cash and new iPhone purchases, as well. What wouldn't Amazon do to hand out 60 million eBooks, in the first month of opening a new eBookstore??? The iPhone App Store brought in a million dollars in a single opening month. . . . iPhone sales were 3.8 million first quarter of 2009. Right in the jaws of the recession. Apple also sold 11 million iPods in the first quarter. Since iPhones and iPods with screens work with eBooks, I say it is far more worthwhile to be addressing those kinds of platforms than Kindle, which supposedly isn't going to need much addressing at all, if it can really handle plain text and .pdfs as well as they say. As for the entire DRM and other proprietary issues the various conversations have brought up, I keep quiet on those issues pretty much, feeling Darwinian pressures, such as they are, will do their thing on that front as well as on the dedicated hardware front, as it did for the Wang word processors, typewriters, and the like. This is the way the world evolves, conservative is not good for evolution. . . . mh

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Re: larger-format kindle
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 08 May '09

08 May '09

michael said: > Just trying to make things clearer, > unlike using terms like "shitload," > "lots," "popular". . . . when 1 e-book is being sold for every 2 p-books, that is officially "a shitload", michael, i looked it up. ;+) and it also means that amazon is selling "lots" of e-books, and that -- to amazon at least -- e-books are indeed becoming quite "popular". and yeah, there are many more cell-phones out there in the world, but i'm not hearing _nearly_ so many people talk about reading e-books on their cell-phone as their kindle. and these days, if i do hear about someone reading an e-book on their cell-phone, it's likely to be someone reading a kindle-book using amazon's kindle-app on their iphone. i said: > > yes, the kindle is a niche product. michael said: > Then make that clear. i think i made it _extremely_ clear, at the outset, when i said i've never seen a kindle in the wild... never. could that be any more clear? never seen a sony machine in the wild either... saw one at a sony booth, at a big book festival, but never in real use out here in the real world. but hey, performance poetry is "a niche product" too, yet i know people making their living off it... -bowerbird ************** Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp000000…)

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Re: larger-format kindle
by Joshua Hutchinson 08 May '09

08 May '09

3 2

Re: larger-format kindle
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 08 May '09

08 May '09

michael said: > Using your own statistics I thus defeat you: defeat? it's not a contest. it's a conversation. :+) we're all blind men trying to describe an elephant. > Using your own statistics I thus defeat you: > Half the US population is 150 million people. > MAYBE 1/3 of one percent have a Kindle. . . . well, if you look, i said that _among_book-buyers_, the kindle is popular, so i think i described it well... but if you want to quibble over the word "popular", i'll rescind it, in favor of "significant", so it now says: among book-buyers, the kindle is now significant... since this very small percentage of the u.s. population -- 1/3 of one percent, if we use your figure, michael -- now accounts for 1/3 of the books purchased at amazon -- at least for the titles which are available for kindle -- i think it's hard to deny that their impact is "significant"... heck, i thought the 10% figure in february was shocking, but it didn't seem to draw very much comment, i thought. this 35% figure, though, has been written up quite a bit... and everyone seems to think it's just as surprising as i do. -bowerbird ************** Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp000000…)

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Re: larger-format kindle
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 08 May '09

08 May '09

i'm not sure what you're saying, michael, or why you're saying it. yes, the kindle is a niche product. but the niche product that is kindle is now selling a shitload of e-books. so many that it's outright surprising. lots of kindle owners report that they are reading more now than ever before, _and_ that they are buying more books... honest-to-goodness people are saying that, not amazon p.r. flacks. after literally decades of slow e-book uptake, that surprises me... and i think it's good news. but by all means, you can take it however you like. -bowerbird ************** Remember Mom this Mother's Day! Find a florist near you now. (http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=florist&ncid=emlcntusyelp000000…)

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