mhp's musings

It’s been interesting to read the reaction to the vague report of ebook sales for the Kindle http://mashable.com/2009/12/26/kindle-ebook-sales/ and the ensuing discussion.  In particular, that it is a non-story.

The argument goes something along the lines of “sure all the books were bought before Christmas and the Kindle gifts drove up the ebook sales numbers”. This is a completely true statement - but misses the point entirely.

People are reading - more importantly - buying ebooks.  Period.  That is the story.

To all the ebook naysayers (how many of you actually read in the tub anyways), the game has changed.  2009 has been the year of the ebook:

• Kindle 2 and DX, Kindle goes international
• Barnes & Noble releases the Nook
• Kobo (nee Shortcovers) launches as a global, platform agnostic ebook option with international backing (disclaimer: I spent the last year developing the Shortcovers/Kobo iPhone app)
• Lexcycle, makers of Stanza iPhone eReader, partners with Fictionwise -> Fictionwise gets purchased by B&N, Lexcycle gets purchased by Amazon (and is now virtually dead - have you seen the latest update? second-tier new icon?)
• seems as though everyone and their grandmother is (or is on the way) producing an ebook reader device
• 1/5 of iPhone apps approved in October where ebooks of some form

So the Kindle ebook sales out pacing dead tree sales on Christmas day is the last of a long list of ebook headlines this year. The printed word landscape is forever morphed by the tectonic shift that is digital media.

Now that we all agree on this, get over it, deal with it, shut up about it.  What I want to know is who is going to step up and actually start innovating? Instead of replicating a dead tree format on the godawful eInk displays (poor resolution and the flicker drive me nuts), or worse on full colour, high powered, multimedia smartphone. The iPod Giga (my name for the iSlate = 1/nano) will kickstart this trend in early 2010, see you there.

smack416:

I keep seeing this mantra repeated again and again, with the latest attack coming in Dave Winer’s “zealotry sucks” article where he concludes:

“I thought about returning my Droid and decided to keep it. Because while it is a piece of shit phone, at least it’s good for developers, and Verizon knows what it’s doing with its phone network. It sucks less than the iPhone. But it still sucks.”

So, people are switching from the iPhone to make a stand against it’s mistreatment of developers (and because of AT&T, but that’s another topic), but the only current serious issue Apple developers face is the patriarchal application review process. Which, based on a set of seemingly arbitrarily applied rules, has caused a very, very small number of uncool rejections and otherwise operated at a somewhat startlingly impressive pace given the volume of apps and updates Apple’s been pushing.

In the meantime, developers are cutting back development on other mobile platforms due to lack of sales or not bothering at all because the development platform is a fractured, bloated nightmare.

So, I wonder, is the multiple millions of dollars of heretofore unseen revenue for Apple developers really eclipsed by Apple’s management of the application approval process? (You know, other than the bullshit exclusionary policy.)

Aside from trying to compete with Apple on the platform it build (I’m not defending but it can be justified) with many millions of dollars, or submitting apps that will tarnish the expected user experience of the device (diminishing the brand - i.e., Android) approval is not that hard.  And Lee brings up a great point for developers, despite a few but noisy delays, there is a billion dollar industry there.

This is a test

So i never got around to resurrecting my old WP database to restore this blog so I’m starting fresh with tumblr and will possibly import all those old posts if I ever find the time.

I’ll be slow to start here, but expect it to pick up once it do.  Twitter stream http://twitter.com/mhp has been my primary communication medium, but the 140 char limits the ideas I have shared.