I am turning on Amazon, it just feels fundamentally unfair that they destroyed the brick and mortar book industry precisely because they operate on the principal of never having to turn a profit. Its almost a monopolist abuse of the market...
Kindle MatchBook
31–40 of 189 posts
Re: Kindle MatchBook
#32I thought it was going to be a really tiny e-reader.
That might have a market.
(http://www.theblogismine.com/2010/05/30/eroll-concept-unroll...)
(http://www.quora.com/eBook-Readers/Why-did-the-first-rollabl...) (http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=2651) (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-gadgeteer/mwc08-hands-on-wi...)
I also remember a cylinder with a few lines of text. As you turned the cylinder the text would scroll. Not sure if that ever got beyond the CGI prototype stage.
Re: Kindle MatchBook
#33I thought it was going to be a really tiny e-reader.
So much for the 1" Kindle.
Re: Kindle MatchBook
#34I came away from this confused thinking some Kindle versions of books were now cheaper. Amazon is horrible at explaining what things are supposed to do. Every product landing page I've seen from them is confusing, especially all of their cloud services.
yeah, I had a hard time figuring out what it was until I read the comments here.
Re: Kindle MatchBook
#35That's one of the best product names I've come across in a long while.
I was thinking the opposite. They've taken the analogy too far (Kindle, Kindle Fire, Matchbook).
With the historical associations that come with "burning" and "books", I've always found the analogy awkward.
Re: Kindle MatchBook
#36I am turning on Amazon, it just feels fundamentally unfair that they destroyed the brick and mortar book industry precisely because they operate on the principal of never having to turn a profit. Its almost a monopolist abuse of the market...
> the principal of never having to turn a profit.
There should be no barrier between a writer, and a consumer. The margin, everywhere in between, should be effectively zero.
The only value adds, any more, are Discovery, and sharing Reviews. Oh, and having a decent printing process, for people who like physical books.
Re: Kindle MatchBook
#37This is awesome for the consumer, absolutely. And it's only made possible by the recent DOJ trial that effectively allowed Amazon to set prices of ebooks (wholesale vs agency model). Recall that agency model, the publisher sets the price (the same as apps on the app store). But now that Amazon can set any price they want for ebooks (and take a loss on them if they want to, which they have done before), Amazon can do…
I don't think the agency model was bad per se, it's just that all of the publishers decided to have the same prices with the agency model, which made it very unlikely that there wasn't price fixing, since with an agency model you're supposed to compete like in the free market, and vary prices.
I don't think they would've had any problems if they priced them at $10, $8, $3 and so on. But of course the greedy publishers would never do something like that. They wanted to use the agency model so they can move the prices upwards, instead of downwards.
Re: Kindle MatchBook
#38I am turning on Amazon, it just feels fundamentally unfair that they destroyed the brick and mortar book industry precisely because they operate on the principal of never having to turn a profit. Its almost a monopolist abuse of the market...
Funny, Amazon is becoming quite like Wal-Mart, but we don't complain. When Wal-Mart comes to a town, the stampede away from the old shopping areas to the new Wal-Mart is alarmingly clear. However, with Amazon, their brick and mortar competitors are slowing fading away like apparitions as they are outmoded by new technology and trends.
Further, with Amazon we don't have to notice the low paid hordes that run the machination as these Morlocks are now in some unknown warehouse out of view toiling away to mail me my case of toilet paper so that I don't have to leave work early to purchase it through direct human contact.
Re: Kindle MatchBook
#39This is awesome for the consumer, absolutely. And it's only made possible by the recent DOJ trial that effectively allowed Amazon to set prices of ebooks (wholesale vs agency model). Recall that agency model, the publisher sets the price (the same as apps on the app store). But now that Amazon can set any price they want for ebooks (and take a loss on them if they want to, which they have done before), Amazon can do…
Whilst the way Amazon has been doing business is very distasteful (and I was on Apple's side in the recent DOJ trial), I can't see a problem with this offer and in fact am very pleased that a company has finally offered it. The majority of consumers are unlikely to purchase both an ebook and physical copy of the same material, so offering a slight increase in price for both seems like a win for everyone.
Re: Kindle MatchBook
#40This is a phenomenally important move; now, being an "ebook reader" or a "traditional reader" doesn't have to be an either/or proposition.
I think it's an interesting move, but not a "phenomenally important move". If I like print books but not ebooks, how does this affect me? It doesn't - not in the least. If I like both, I'm sort of happy - "Uh, I guess that's cool." I'm struggling to think of the person who needs both a printed copy of a book and an ebook version. The only person I can think of is someone with a textbook/learning book - you read the print version (that's why you bought it) and you use the ebook to quickly search and have at your fingertips. But for fiction? I can't see how this helps.