What does it mean for dedicated ereaders in the face of flood of tablet PCs (specially android-based) after the success of iPad? Some might think it’s a threat to iPad, not ereaders. I think the other way around. There are huge number of MP3/MP4/MP5 devices; but that didn’t announce the demise of iPodTouch. Similar way, a lot of iPad-like devices wouldn’t mean to die out iPad crave. As more and more people adopt 7″-10″ Tablet PCs with Pixel Qi or mirasoul screen in the coming year, the attractiveness of dedicated ereader will decline. I think B&N understand this fact better. That’s why B&N is allowing as many Android tablet PCs as possible to be partner in distributing ebooks. Already Pandigital Novel and Cruz Reader, both android-based 7″ tablet PCs, have announced B&N partnership. Even though Amazon didn’t partner with any device distributor or manufacturer, it has ereader application for all platforms. This means that you really don’t need any dedicated ereader for ebooks. For a long time, Amazon tried to restrict the content not to be delivered on any devices other than Kindle. It’s obvious now, Amazon failed in that attempt.
It needs to be recognized that people do not necessarily read only books (in tradition sense). They read news, magazines, blogs, do social networking, participate in community discussion, share knowledge with each other. The digital space is as big as the sky with no limit unlike a physical book. The word “READING” should encompass all of these in this digital era. The lack of understanding this phenomenon is making all content providers including book publishers either rigid or unsettled as to what to do. With this in perspective, the role of dedicated ereaders will shrink day by day as it limits the space of “READING”. Amazon has really understood this, and that’s why it has recently integrate the Facebook and Twitter with Kindle so that book-lovers can share their favorite part of the book with others. This is the limited use of social networking with book-lovers; but it’s useful. However, it needs to remember that once you come up with some new idea related to ereaders, it is quickly replicated by others. This is like once iPhone came out, a lot other devices surfaced in the market those are similar or have similar functionality of iPhone. No way one can stop this process since it has become so easy to replicate those things so widely with so little cost. For an ereader to survive in a wider scale companies need to evolve continuously with new and fresh ideas implemented in the small device so that it gives you something more that can’t be done with a physical book, and it is costly for others to replicate that. I don’t think the dedicated ereaders will be dead; but the process of being evolved with the fast moving social media innovation to make the “READING” a meaningful end would always be a difficult task for ereaders. This would limit the use, and wider acceptance of dedicated ereaders.
The dedicated ereader will always be there as the display technology is being evolved fast, and the ereaders incorporate that for longer battery life, and give people pleasure of reading for long time without eye strain as it happens with traditional LCD screen. However, the current craze for dedicated ereaders will dissipate soon.
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