Julianne Pepitone, CNNMoney.com (January 27, 2011)
"OK, bookworms, now you can declare Armageddon: Kindle e-books have overtaken paperback books as the bestselling type of content in Amazon's bookstore.
"Amazon made waves when it announced in July that Kindle content was outselling hardcover books. But industry analysts quickly dismissed that milestone, pointing out that paperback books sell far more copies than pricier hardcovers.
"E-books have now vanquished their paperback rivals as well.
" 'This milestone has come even sooner than we expected -- and it's on top of continued growth in paperback sales,' Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a prepared statement.
"In fact, for every 100 paperback books sold, Amazon has sold 115 Kindle books since the beginning of the year, the company said...."
The Lemming hasn't bought a Kindle or other e-book: yet. There's something to be said for the codex as a data storage and retrieval technology. But the Lemming doesn't think it's an either-or situation. There's plenty of room for online research and reading, ink-on-thin-sheets data storage units, and e-books. (July 2, 2010)
In the Lemming's opinion.
On the other hand, what's happening at Amazon probably isn't the best news that old-school publishers have seen recently.
On the other hand - the Lemming's written about technology and getting a grip before:
- "Technophobic Movies: A Top (Bottom?) Ten List"
(January 27, 2011)
I'm kinda waiting for an e-book that's less of a light-source. Trying to read a traditional novel on a surface that both emits light and reflects it? That's a recipe for a headache.
ReplyDeleteThough I am rather curious how one saves their place with an e-book. Digital bookmark?
Brigid,
ReplyDeleteI've read about - years back now - a technology that was in development, where a sheet with embedded tiny spheres could flip specified spheres 180 degrees. The spheres were black on one side, white on the other - and could form images. Like letters.
It was, at the time, rather cutting-edge - and doesn't seem to have made it into the consumer product market.
Something like that would use ambient light, like a codex.
The bookmark thing? I haven't run into a description of how someone does the equivalent of inserting a bookmark.
Give it time, though: We're very close to having something around the size and shape of a trade paperback that contains as much data as the Library of Congress. And is as easy to read as data stored in a codex.