ebook readers : the next flip?

-
As an owner of a Flip camera, I was disappointed to hear that Cisco has decided to sunset it's Flip camera operations.At the same time I see the same writing on the wall that motivated this move.  The handheld video market has been sandwiched in two directions. First from smartphones and their increasingly better cameras in a highly portable multi-purpose device, and second from Digital SLRs shooting HD video in better quality. As an owner myself, with the wife's iphone and my android, the flip, continued to be forgotten at home. And most importantly, not missed.

It remains a great niche device, but I like many others I suspect are willing to sacrifice the user experience for portability. This was a  great device at home with a young baby, but newer smartphones and more critical things to pack like diapers, food and drink.  Despite our 1st world entitlement people make some (small) sacrifices in quality for portability (see mp3). In our disposable culture, many new tech devices are laid to waste very quickly with vastly improving physical technologies like SSD.

eBook readers share some very similar  traits. Their main highlights are readability, and portability. Very similar in form factor to tablets, which are the larger form smartphone. ereaders could easily end up as a temporary technology. The main hurdle would be some sort of eInk that can switch to a display capable of video. From anecdotes I haven`t heard complaints about reading from tablets, so that could be the sacrifice users will make for a more powerful multi-purpose device. While I`m very happy to see a Canadian company like Kobo doing well, I`m not looking to go long on Kobo unless they can successfully transition to becoming a marketplace or a platform.


Related Links:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20053337-266.html
http://gigaom.com/2011/05/08/kobo-rides-the-shockwave-of-interest-in-e-books/
http://www.theflip.com/

Comments

nicolescooter said…
Great post! Its so true, with the price of tablets coming down closer and closer to tablets, eReaders are going to be a hard sell. I think they are going to become a device that you get free with subscription or with purchase of a tablet. We'll see in the fall when Amazon comes out with their tablets what their strategy is with the kindle. What they decide to do is going to determine how quickly the eReader takes to fade away.
August 14, 2011 at 7:18 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

de-cluttter

-
it really is amazing what you can do without when you must. Our home is going up on the market so the agent came by and suggested that we cleanup. Now our place is not dirty, my wife would never let that happen. All the sweaters you don't wear,But might want to; extra dishes, utensils, printed articles you intend to read... should we throw them out? doesn't that just increase waste, where we might print/buy it again later on when we Do need it? Perhaps we need to examine how we managed without it and just continue. Or if it's aspiration-based clutter just give ourselves a reasonable deadline to put it into practice. The idea of aspirational clutter is one that hits home. Things that you don't use, but embody qualities that you aspire for yourself. A treadmill doubling as a clothes hanger; one day you will get in shape. Books you've never read that fill shelves; the budding philosopher that never bloomed. The extra server, more of a footrest than anything; the proje...
Read more

TechCrunch should stay out of economics

-
I was startled when I read Warren Buffet's Op-Ed piece in the NYT .. He basically burned down the GOP/Fox News "Job-creators can't be taxed" house of cards narrative. Buffet definitely has the cred to state how investors and businesses have been operating over the years. Investment during times with higher taxes like the 80s and 90s led to a Lot of people getting rich, people created jobs and grew businesses. There are some of the lowest taxes on the wealthy right now, and there definitely aren't a lot of jobs being created. Sounded like straight talk. Then a ridiculous piece by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch nearly dropped me out of my seat. One of those pieces where you're waiting for the sarcastic punch-line only to find out that the writer was serious. Arrington states that Buffet's true motive is to keep others from getting rich. He don't like the "New Money". Otherwise he would've proposed a different tax which would hit him har...
Read more

watt is in the bag?

-
I was at my local library yesterday picking up some reading material. I went to the check-out desk and found a a small stand from the power company. There were about two dozen packages. Within each package was $$$ http://tinyurl.com/2tg6x6 What a fantastic idea on multiple fronts. The campaign to conserve energy is all well and good but you need to enable people to understand their drain on the system their footprint etc. I've seen many sites on calculating offsets but that was estimation and felt more like guesswork. This watt reader allows you to plug any device into the wattreader which plugs directly into the wall. From there the reader will let you know exactly how much current is being drawn. This will allow you to understand the phantom load of many common devices. A great application to help people better understand their footprint, and how much it costs them on a daily basis.
Read more