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VIDEOB&N, BlackBerry Try to Extinguish the Kindle
By
Scott Reeves Mar 25, 2009 12:40 pm
Brief scrutiny of today's headlines.
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Barnes & Noble (BKS) -- the nation’s largest bookstore chain by revenue -- announced a free application that will allow users to read electronic books on Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry.
This suggests convergence between devices designed specifically for e-books, such as Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle and smartphones. Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone also offers new applications for e-books, so it will be impossible to put this genie back in the bottle.
BlackBerry users can download the latest version of the e-book reader and gain access to about 60,000 titles for sale at B&N’s online eReader shop. The e-book market is still new, but some estimate that consumers spent about $100 million on electronic books last year. Publishers are betting the market will grow. Random House, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann, plans to have about 15,000 e-book titles by the end of the year.
Sony (SNE) also offers an e-book reader and recently struck a deal with Google (GOOG) to give readers free access to about 500,000 titles in the public domain that Google has digitized.
The problem for smartphones isn’t content, but screen size. Who wants to read a book on a small screen in a font that would tax the eyesight of an eagle? Enlarging the screen would defeat its pocket-sized convenience, so it’s unclear how far the convergence of e-book readers and hand-held communication gizmos will go.
Electronic distribution of books cuts costs for publishers and retailers, but will rob future generations of one of the great pleasures in life - wandering the stacks in a bookstore. It’s time to stand astride this Internet thing and yell, “Stop!”
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