Falconportal.com
Just to preface this entry, I have never said and never will say The Fruit company doesn't know how to market their ultra slick and rather geewizz products. At present time, they are the master and unlike MS they have *cough earned their market share. With that out of the way I would like to focus more on HOW their new product is being handled then the actual product itself. But first a few words about me.
No matter how many times I play a formula1 game I will never be as good if I instead actually drove the car. Why? Tactile and bodily (proper use of word? Bah who cares ;-)) feedback. That is why I loathe indoor training so much. I would rather, and have, gone out in 14 degree weather bundled up, then head off to some gym and ride some lifecycle machine while watching TV or listening to music/podcasts/etc while sweat drips to the floor. With a bike there is balance, and a certain feel that only comes with being out there. You have the wind in your face, the brakes have a certain feel that changes as they heat up. Nature adds it's own sound track and the air is better then anything any purification system will ever provide. The same can be said of reading and music. I love plopping a cd into the tray, sitting back in my living room, and reading the liner notes or lyrics as the music fills the room. I love to read a book in my comfy LayZBoy with a nice Green Tea. Turning the pages, and getting close to the end are all part of the experience. Then seeing the finished book in my den on the shelf brings back memories and may even warrant a re-read some day. In the world of digital all of that is stripped away.
Now I do agree there is a certain cool factor about being able to carry a 100 books with you in the space of magazine. I actually have a few books of the bible on my PDA (Handspring Edge FTW) and read them when I'm in line at the supermarket. But I much prefer to use my Bible at home.
So with all of that said lets look at how this new product is being presented with the RDF turned up to 11.
source: Gizmodo
Title: Uses the word Redefine instead of change. Why? Because Redefine carries more cache.
They redefined print media elevating it to a new paradigm.
vs
They helped print media move to digital.
The title is equivalent to saying that the FruitPhone redefined how we make calls. Ummm, no it didn't. You dial or use memory dialling, you connect, you talk, you hang up. The last time I checked the Kindle already allows you to read books, get newspapers, etc etc on a slim device. Oh and before them there was the Sony Reader. And before them was...you get the point. In fact most of today's cell phones have in fact gotten people to not use the phone as a phone but rather a txt messaging device. Did anyone say that Nokia redefined the phone market?
Next up
"The logic here is that textbooks are sold new at a few hundred dollars, and resold by local stores without any kickbacks to publishers. A DRM'd one-time-use book would not only be attractive because publishers would earn more money, but electronic text books would be able to be sold for a fraction of the cost, cutting out book stores and creating a landslide marketshare shift by means of that huge price differential. (If that device were a tablet, the savings on books could pay for the device, and save students a lot of back pain.)"
There are so many problems with this statement it's not funny.
When you buy a brand new Honda from a dealer they earn a profit. You then turn around and reseal the car. You get some of your money back on the original purchase but Honda doesn't get a second cut. Why on God's Green earth should anyone? Only people associated with big media, music, print, movies want this sort of ongoing charging scam. The rest of the world gets the whole concept of "When you buy something it's yours to do what you want with it."
Electronic books will not be sold at a discount just as electronic music is not either. All the reasons quoted on why music prices will drop are the same ones being trotted out for digital books. In fact the book industry would be wise to drop the prices by a very small token amount and keep the savings as additional profit. So in the end we'll end up like we did with music where we have hardware lock in (Early days of itunes) and tons of DRM. So the price won't change much and you'll have more restrictions. Talk about a real defining moment.
Next up channel control. As it is now, getting an independent book on the shelf at a large book chain store is next to impossible. Just ask Cory Doctorow. But at least if you have little mom and pop stores there is a chance. We've seen what happened in the music industry when Tower Records and such went away. They took all the mom and pop stores with them.(They were their way out before that but that put the final nail in) But now the choices of where to get your music have been greatly limited. Less choice equals less competition and that can only lead to one thing, higher prices. (Thankfully sites like Jamendo.com are out there but they have an uphill battle) The same thing will occur with books and it will be just like radio where the large media companies will control all the channels.
"creating a landslide marketshare shift by means of that huge price differential. (If that device were a tablet, the savings on books could pay for the device, and save students a lot of back pain.)"
I touched on the fallacy of lower prices (RedBox is another fine example of finding the perfect price point only to be told by large media that the prices are too low) but adding the no resale "feature" in will in fact not help students. Resale is one of the biggest ways almost every college student I know gets their money back. I remember selling my music, english, chemistry books, etc etc. There was an entire market set up which was aided by notes. When I sold my music book I gave all my notes and past tests to the girl. I got all of my money back minus 5 bucks and in return the buyer got an already highlighted text, plenty of study material and some insight into the teacher. It helped when I showed my transcript and she saw the A as my grade. We both benefited. If given the choice most students will take what I was selling that day because it's almost priceless.
"Some magazine company is also considering Adobe Air as a competing option for digital magazines, but without a revenue/distribution system that jTunes has, it seems unlikely."
As you can see the slant continues throughout the entire article. If people can get my podcast delivered to their mp3 player of choice why can't people just subscribe to VeloNews, or Shape, or Organic Gardening in the same way? If Adobe Air can send me updates across three OSs why can't they handle subscriptions? Heck the producers could just email it to you.
Simply put we are once again being told that barriers exist that don't, that ease of use is not there and that you can't do certain things at the present time when it fact it's all lies. Think about it, your laptop/netbook can do all of this right now. Instead of convergence we are seeing the creation of a product for no other reason then DRM. Don't believe me, head over to DailyLit.com. Stories right to your inbox. So if your laptop can already handle this, why buy another product?
I'll end with this. I'm sure you've heard of the old expression that if you were ever going to start over with a new nation/govt the first thing you'd do is shoot all the lawyers. Not a nice thing to say but there you go. I personally think they got it wrong, For me, the first to go would be the ....hold on a second my phone is ringing...Hello? What? ......No I don't want to buy any personal hygiene cream! ........No I said I don't want to buy anything from you... I don't care if this is a limited time offer ......BLOODY marketing people.