What is a "magic catalog"?
A "Magic Catalog" is fancy pants marketing words for a simple HTML catalog which has been converted to EPUB or MOBI format in a way such that when one has the Magic Catalog in one's Kindle or other E-book reader you can read the catalog there "in native format" just like any other e-book, click on any book in the catalog, and the catalog automagically fires up the mechanizations which cause the Kindle or other E-book reader to automagically start downloading the E-book over Whispernet or Wi-Fi to the E-book reader. The only thing "magic" about it is the "holy cow!" reaction of seeing how easily this works after painfully fighting the PG website over the rudimentary web browsers found in Kindle and other E-book readers. One can have a Magic Catalog in one's Kindle, for example, be at the airport, and with one click get a new book for free to read on the airplane flight. Compared to literally a half-hour fighting the PG website and then it being catch-as-catch-can whether or not one can successfully download the book you want.
You don't need landing pages, you can go directly to the epub/mobi.
Yes one can do this and this is in fact how the Magic Catalogs work, but PG asks that one not do this kind of direct linking to a book, rather PG asks that one links to the standard "landing pads" at PG, such as: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/142 But that doesn't work for E-book readers and other small format devices because the standard PG page uses frames and includes too much information to be usable on small format devices. Mnybks.net in comparison demonstrates the kind of simple interface that actually works for small format devices. One would like a simpler landing pad than http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/142 but one that still retains the essentials, such as how to donate to PG, how to get to the home page of PG, etc.
Try the RDF/XML catalog:
Yes -- agreed this is a much better format to derive other catalogs from such as a "Magic Catalog"
We have no information about the 'illustration' status of an ebook. Sometimes the producers include ornaments and drop caps as images, so we cannot claim 'illustrated' if we find images.
Very Strange, then how does PG generate a page such as http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/22210 -- which includes both "illustrated" and "un-illustrated" versions of the same book? Again, E-book readers like the option of choosing getting texts illustrated or not illustrated. If I am downloading a book at an airport, the Whispernet connection is probably not fast enough to make getting the illustrated version worthwhile. But if at home with a direct hardwired connection to the internet, then an E-book user might want to get the illustrated version.
Also it would be cool if someone took on the issue of using netbooks as-if they are Ebook-readers, because that would be a way to support a "Generic" Ebook-reader that would be agnostic about where one gets one's books from -- including PG.
Huh? Please illustrate.
OK, let's say Santa brings me an netbook for Xmas. Besides the built-in HTML format reader aka "Internet Explorer" I can also easily install other HTML readers, such as Firefox. On the same netbook I can also install a variety of MOBI format readers including "Kindle for the PC", "Mobipocket Reader", "Stanza", etc. I can also install a variety of EPUB format readers including Adobe Digital Editions, Calibre, EPUBReader, etc. In general see: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_software to see what-all is available for a netbook or other computers. Now much of this software is happy to read free books already on your computer, but also is often tied to one or more for-pay publishers such as B&N or Amazon or Sony where you can use the reader software to buy and download the for-pay book. People can and do disagree about which e-book reader looks prettiest, just like they disagree about which HTML format reader they like best. They also disagree about which for-pay ebook publishers they like best. One can obviously also install Adobe Reader and read PDF format. And Calibre and Stanza among other tools allow one to change file formats on free books. So there is a ton of options available here, and it could be cool if someone documented all the different ways one can read the various file options PG offers using a netbook -- which is after all just a small laptop, but personally I don't see people lugging a big laptop around in order to use it as an e-book reader.
The new kid on the block is the "Open Publication Distribution System":
which PG will eventually support.
Yes this looks like it will be very cool once it is developed and if it is supported by more sites than just PG.