Several points before replying to individual notes. 1. World Public Library is NOT a commercial venue. It is a 501 (c) (4) non-profit corporation. The major, perhaps only, difference from 501 (c) (3) is that they are membership driven, for a maximum of $8.95 a year for unlimited permanent downloading the 500,000 or so eBooks they have, and lower rates from schools and other groups, and even free access to an assortment of people who can't afford it. 2. Most of us are missing the point about this huge discussion, which is that we should be addressing an eBook system that brings eBooks to cellphones. I note the bowerbird had finally addressed this in a most recent message, but somehow misinterpreted what the point is about taking out the PG trademark which is totally unneccessary unless HE is now commerical. 3. Cellphones, USB flash drives and terabyte drives are the wave of the future. . .one really hardly has to even OWN a computer any longer to fill these up. More later, Michael

On Fri, 8 May 2009, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:

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.

So, about 1 out of 7 books goes through Amazon. And abaout 1/3 of those are said to be eBooks. If we believe all that. . . . That means 2.x% of books sold are eBooks. . . . Not yet a "popular" medium. . . .

and the other 86% is scared shitless...

I doubt it.

for good reason.

When and if it hits 10%, then think about it. Most new ventures never make it. Even when done by Google, Amazon, etc.

amazon is eating their lunch, abducting their children, and raiding their retirement fund...

Amazon is just a few years out of the red, let's see if they ever become a "maturing" industry such as Microsoft. . . .

...

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 think the PR dept. WROTE 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.

This is because Amazon provided them the soapbox on which they could be heard even more. . .and no other reason.

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.

I fully admit it is a cute gadget. Period. It just does not have a cute cost/benefit ratio. There are so many other things you could buy for the same amount of money that do so so much more!

***

michael said:

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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...

Does this mean you'll be reselling them for a profit???

...

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.

Thus Kindle will go to join the dinosaurs. . . .

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

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