Electronic Readers - who's using one?

[ShriDurga]

At present there are a limited number of titles and the machines are too big and heavy, use monochrome displays and proprietary formats. But maybe this Oprah plug will help create demand, which will in turn drive innovation.

http://www.nytimes.com/external/venturebea...stre-99552.html

[bobt]

Generally an Oprah endorsemeny turns me off, rich doesn't mean smart, it just means lucky.As yo the readers, they may have merit, altough I have read on my Pal Pilot, still prefer the carbon-cellulose based retrieval system

bob

[sector001]

rather just read a real book, it's cheaper.

[KJ_Palmer]

Indeed, there are few things more impressive than bookcase stuffed full of great works. The e-readers might be useful for people who travel a lot, or for the odd throwaway bestseller, etc. Not planning to get one however.

[pata2001]

What's great about the kindle? Here's one: You can subscribe to newspaper, and they are downloaded wirelessly every morning to your kindle. This means instant new newspaper every morning. It even beats regular newspaper delivery (great for international newspaper). This is 1 thing that nobody seems to have done before, aside from its built-in EVDO. The only issue is the price upfront, which turns off a lot of people.

On the other hand, maybe this is just a ploy to clear out 1st gen kindles as the 2nd gen one is coming.

[ShriDurga]

That is indeed one of its great features.

There's an interesting article here about the paperless office, that it is only now, as the generation that grew up using computers comes of age, that the promise of computers is changing the business environment. I suspect something similar will happen soon to books.

http://www.economist.com/business/displays...ory_id=12376821

[Strungup]

not to my 1932 " Great Poems of the English Language" Hardbound , tome containing H.D.T , Sir William( Shakespeare of course) , Keats, and innumerable others who have contributed to thought and verse , that gave an Image to thoughts we ourselves could not express , to bring to mind an immitigable moment of contemplation , that might even have the power to change the direction of our lives , reduced , to bits and bytes , and not the weight and heft of aged pages that lend even their weight to that of which was read ............................

thus spoken

[Richard]

I have a Sony PRS-505 Reader which I have had since July and it is great. Extremely well built, simple to use and a great battery life.

[ShriDurga]

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Christian Science Monitor goes Web-mostly

The only reason to publish an old-fashioned print newspaper in 2008 is because print advertising is more lucrative than Web advertising. Flip through the print edition of the Christian Science Monitor and you will see virtually no advertising. Therefore, the paper's announcement today that it will switch to a mostly Web model next April makes eminent good sense.

[snip]

Those who insist on the printed word will be able to buy a weekly edition, which will allow the Monitor to engage in reverse-publishing — that is, in republishing content that appears online first. That's what they're doing in Madison, Wis., where the Capital Times earlier this week dropped its daily print edition and replaced it with two free tabloids filled with material from its Web site.

http://medianation.blogspot.com/2008/10/ch...r-goes-web.html