Posts Tagged ‘Kindle’

In the latest episode of mediabistroTV’s “Elevator Pitch,” host Alan Meckler meets with Storyville co-founder Paul Vidich. Storyville is a mobile app for short stories that connects readers and authors. A former music executive, Vidich helped Steve Jobs bring music singles to iTunes. He hopes Storyville will do for the short story what iTunes did for the single.

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I have found a way to access my Google Calendar information on the Kindle Fire other than by using the web browser. Unfortunately, the solution does require you to spend $9.99 to buy a key to use Exchange By Touchdown beyond 30 days, but you can try out the app for a month free first to see whether you like it.
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Sharing a conventional paper book has been one of the most basic sharing activities for a long time. Sharing comes in the form of informal person-to-person lending or institutionalized library loans. This simplest and most basic of sharing activities has been, however, something that has not been easily adopted for digital books. The latest ebook sharing issue comes by way of the world’s largest trade book publisher, Penguin Books. The Digital Shift reported that…
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Did you ever wish you could the author of a book you’re reading a question about the book? Amazon’s new @author service is currently in a beta release mode and is trying to let you do just that.
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Amazon and other ebook reader app providers recently had to modify their iPad apps to comply with Apple’s policy for not allowing links that lead to the purchase of content from outside of the in-app purchase mechanism. Amazon just made available a new service that could eventually lead to working completely around Apple’s policies. Amazon’s new cloud based web ebook reading service works with desktop browsers (Chrome and Safari) as well as the iPad’s Safari mobile browser.

Kindle Cloud Reader

Here’s how it works:
1. Point Safari mobile at read.amazon.com
2. Sign-in to your Amazon account
3. Increase the browser’s database size when prompted
4. Add a shortcut to the web app on the iPad’s home screen
5. Select and read any of the ebooks you’ve already purchased

The Kindle Cloud Reader can hold the contents off the ebook locally so that it can be read even when offline. The web app’s page turning felt fast and smooth when I tried it. However, accessing the controls hidden controls did not feel comfortable to me. The web app does not support multimedia books with audio content. The web app is also iPad specific. Amazon advises iPhone users to use the native Kindle app.

Via TechCrunch: Amazon’s Answer To Apple’s Terms: A Web-Based Kindle Cloud Reader — Brilliant On PC, Better On iPad

Probably the silence with no fanfare release is based upon Amazon’s plan to let the omnipresent social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ handle the mainstream social media users. Kindle is more specialized – dedicated book readers.

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Anyone who has bought school textbooks knows about the relatively large price it adds to education. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Education issued a report titled An Economic Analy[s]is of Textbook Pricing and Textbook Markets (and yes, there is a spelling error in its title) which said:

Between 1986 and 2004, textbook prices rose 186 percent in the United States, or slightly more than six percent per year (GAO, 2005). Meanwhile, other prices rose only about three percent per year (GAO, 2005).

Students may find it profitable to purchase the economics textbook from a British bookseller and then pay to have it
transported back to the United States.

For example, in mid-July 2006, Barnes and Noble’s (U.S.) website offered to sell a new copy of Krugman and Wells’ Economics textbook for $126.75, whereas Blackwell’s in Great Britain advertised the same book on its web site at $76.31. Needless to say, it does not cost $50.44 to send the book from Oxford to the United States.

There may be a simpler way to save money on textbooks for the coming school year, however. Amazon announced:

Students Can Now Save Up To 80% with Kindle Textbook Rental

The “up to 80%” off goes into play if the rental is for a 30-day period. Rental periods can be any length between 30 and 360 days. Amazon says the books are “Rent Once, Read Everywhere.” This means that any of the Kindle readings apps or the Kindle itself can be used to read the rented textbook.

There is the possibility that a textbook owner could sell the textbook after the school year and incur less of a cost than renting the textbook.

You can find the Kindle Textbook rental site at:

www.amazon.com/kindletextbooks

FYI: Another interesting commentary on the reasons for the perceived high costs of school textbooks can be found in this Billings Gazette article:

Why are textbook costs so high?

All Things D’s Peter Kafka quotes Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney as predicting: Mahaney thinks they’ll be below $100 by Christmas, and that seems like a very conservative guess.
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Sources close to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos are indicating the company may be about to launch its own book publishing house. The news comes a week after the company announced that its retail bookselling division is now selling more Kindle Books than eBooks.

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Amazon’s Kindle took off when they introduced a WiFi-only model for $139 late last summer. The advertisement supported versoin of the WiFi-only Kindle became available just a few weeks ago for only $114 and quickly became the best selling model according to Amazon.

Many are expecting Amazon to announce an Android tablet of some kind to compete with Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color and other Android tablets. However, that is not to be just yet. Instead Amazon announced a variant of their last successful play.

Amazon introducing ad-supported Kindle with 3G (USA Today)

The ad-supported Kindle 3G cost $164. This is $25 less than the $189 3G model without advertisements. Advertisements appear at the bottom of the Kindle’s list of books as well as the screensaver page (the page displayed when the Kindle is turned off). Advertisements do not appear on pages of books you read. Here’s what Amazon says about ads on the Kindle: Special offers and sponsored screensavers display on the Kindle screensaver and on the bottom of the home screen—they don’t interrupt reading. I’ve highlighted the advertisement area in the book list page here to make it easier to find it.

Were you considering a WiFi-only model recently? Does the new ad-supported 3G Kindle seem more appealing at $164.

Kindle 3G with advertisements