Perhaps taking advantage of the demise of Borders, Amazon has lowered the price of their popular Kindle 3G eBook reader to $139. This is truly a great time to move to eBooks as the choices for quality readers have never been better. And I’m sure that the Borders closing stories have increased interest in eBooks in general and the Kindle in particular given that Amazon is getting a lot of credit for the demise of Borders and popularization of eBooks. Those who really like to pinch pennies may want to wait and see if Amazon also drops the price of their $114 Kindle with ads to the magical $99.
Tag: eReaders
Google is now selling its iRiver Story HD eBook reader exclusively at Target in the U.S.. We speculated here back in January that a Google branded eBook reader may be in the works and now that that shoe has dropped, what does this mean to the larger tablet vs eReader battle that is shaping up in the marketplace?
Well first of all, it may mean that Barnes & Noble, makers of the Nook eBook reader are none too happy to have Google as yet another competitor in its pitched battle with the Amazon’s Kindle. Indeed, I wonder if this is why Barnes & Noble is no longer an advertiser on Google’s Affiliate Network. They’ve moved to Linkshare, which I should note means I have to update the Nook ads on this web site!
The reader itself has so far garnered only mixed reviews. The design is clearly inspired by the Kindle, and in a market that is moving to touchscreen eReaders as witnessed by the recent Nook and Kobo offerings, seems a little dated. But as I previously argued, I don’t think Google is trying to capture the eReader market and their survival, unlike Barnes & Noble, doesn’t depend on that. Like the Nexus smartphones, the iRiver Story HD is probably a hardware reference platform intended to encourage other players to enter the market.
If Google follows form, they’ll probably freely or cheaply license the underlying iRiver Story tech to 3rd parties who want to jump into the eReader market. It seems pretty clear by now that Google wants to be a part of any device that can access the net and consume digital product. Amazon is already giving readers a big price break on Kindles if they are willing to have ads display on the device’s screen saver. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see this on the Google eReader at some point in the future. If 3rd parties in Google’s eReader ecosystem follow suit, then Google wins big time, much as they are with the proliferation of Android based tablets and smartphones.
In the end, I doubt Amazon or Barnes & Noble have much to fear from Google itself. However the legions of eReader competitors Google may give rise to are another matter entirely.
A new Amazon Kindle ad has Crave writer David Carnoy speculating that Amazon has pronounced the physical book dead. Long live the physical book! He writes,
By saying that the physical book “lives on,” Amazon is implying that it died at some point. That’s not exactly true, of course, but the messaging seems pretty clear, and expect to see more of it going forward.
It seems rather obvious that physical books continue to be printed and sold to millions of readers. But you know what? I think Amazon is on to something here. As an avid book lover, my heart has been torn by my growing love of eBooks and the accelerating disappearance of bookstores most recently due to the Borders bankruptcy.
As I sort through the remains of the store closing sale of my neighborhood Borders, I am filled with the same ambivalence about physical books as I’m sure was in part responsible for the store’s demise. I love the printed book, but these days I prefer eBooks whenever they are available, and in many cases, I am more than willing to wait for an eBook version to come out. As a result, the only printed books I buy now are graphic novels and manga because they are still mostly unavailable in eBook form, at least legally that is.
So maybe Amazon is right. Somewhere along the way physical books died, at least in my heart, but the soul of the book lives on. It lives on in Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and anything that can display the printed word. If that’s not going to heaven, I don’t know what is!
Borders has cut the price of the Kobo eBook reader to $99.99 permanently. This may mean that the earlier promotional cuts spiked sales of the readers and eBooks enough to significantly help the bottom line of the embattled bookseller.
So anyone who’s been on the fence about eBook readers due to price should definitely take a look at the Kobo. If Borders can survive, this cut may have a ripple effect pushing the Kindle and the Nook to the magic sub $100 promised land as well.
Buying presents for my wife is a tricky task at best, but it looks like my birthday gift of a Nook Color has paid off handsomely. Being a demanding user, I asked her to write a review of her new eBook reader in which she had this to say,
I have always been an avid reader. I devour everything that is printed, be it books, magazines, newspapers, academic journals… When I was a child I even read the dictionary, the telephone book, street signs, and food labels for fun. So I was not sure at first if I would like an E-reader. Holding a pad just doesn’t seem the same as turning pages. But the Nook Color is so easy to use and has so many features that the print medium cannot offer that I am officially sold.
Click here to read the full review on Grace Notes in Chicago.