The iPad v Kindle battle shaking up global media and publishing is about to send some waves to South Africa’s shores. Experts say 2010 will be the year the e-book reader comes of age and at the moment there are only two main players in the ring: Apple’s iPad tablet computing device with web, multimedia, gaming and e-book functionality and the less functional but more established e-book reader from Amazon, the Kindle.
The battle between these two global giants is redefining the rules of publishing and content distribution and the big players in South Africa are watching the fray with an eye for opportunity. Already there are unconfirmed rumours that one major South African media house is talking to Amazon’s Kindle division and speculation that another is toying with developing its own e-reader device.
What the key players will say, however, is that they are interested in the market that is emerging on the back of this technology. And well they should be. Mobile phones have yet to come of age as a viable platform for media and publishing houses – even in South Africa where cellphone technology is pretty much ubiquitous at every level of the population.
The Amazon/Apple battle is fascinating not only because it involves two celebrity companies but because a new business model is emerging that could be a fundamental game-changer for publishers and creators of content. The new rules of the game for media houses could lead to dramatically higher margins as distribution and production costs plummet with content pushed through the ether on to mobile devices such as the Kindle and the iPad.
But with this revolution comes new gatekeepers demanding a charge for these mobile eyeballs. Amazon was taking 70% of revenue of book sales done through the Kindle until Apple came along with the iPad. After a recent face-off with book publisher MacMillan, Amazon has decreased its slice of the pie to 30% on MacMillan’s book sales.
But should South Africa’s print media be jumping on to the bandwagon when the take-up in this country will be quite slow? On the one hand these devices are reasonably pricey and there’s not just a wealth barrier. Many older people may not be keen to learn new tricks.
Clearly, this is the way of the future. In 20 years, e-readers could well be as ubiquitous as cellphones are today. The technology will improve and prices will come down.
New-media experts Matthew Buckland, who heads up the 20FourLabs innovation unit at 24.com, and Elan Lohmann, general manager of Avusa Media Online, say that newspapers should be on as many digital platforms as possible but at the moment it may not be worth South African publishers putting time and money into optimising content for the Kindle or iPad… TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE TO GO TO MY WEEKLY MEDIA COLUMN ON MONEYWEB.
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February 8th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
While paper books will never entirely disappear, the introduction of eBooks (electronic books) into the mass market is the future of books and book reading. An eBook can be published in many formats that are supported by various eBook reading devices and software applications.
The most popular reading devices are the Amazon Kindle, Sony eBook Reader and Barnes & Noble’s Nook and the most popular applications are Adobe Reader, Adobe Digital Editions and Calibre and there is even a Kindle app for the iPhone. The most practical formats that suit some or all of the above are PDF, Kindle, MobiBook, Palm Media, ePub and HTML.
In early January 2010 Amazon.com announced that they now allow foreign publishers and authors to publish their work in the Amazon Kindle Book Store via their Digital Text Platform (DTP). Amazon also released the code for the Kindle and invited developers to write apps for the Kindle. This was in response to the highly anticipated Apple iPad launch in late January 2010. By the time the Apple iPad starts shipping in late March, there should be an iPad and several other eBook apps available to run on the Kindle.
This key decision provides foreign, first-time or published authors and publishers access to Amazon’s massive global market and electronic distribution network. In December 2009, the sale of eBooks in Kindle format surpassed that of printed books for the first time. In January 2010, Amazon’s Kindle Store accounted for more than 70 percent of all electronic reader sales and 80 percent of all e-book purchases.
The Apple iPad is also an eBook reader and its iBook app uses one of the popular eBook publishing formats and fortunately not proprietary software such as the Amazon Kindle. The iPad with its colour widescreen multi-touch display plus the ability to run a Kindle app is set to revolutionise the publishing industry and will rival the Amazon Kindle with its limiting black and white screen.
In the first week of February 2010, Amazon countered Apple’s iPad by acquiring Touchco, producer of cheap, full-color, multi-touch panels. Amazon will merge Touchco with its Kindle group and Microsoft marketing veteran Mike Nash is leaving the company to join Amazon, reportedly to work on the new Kindle, grasping at the long tail of the Apple iPad. Fortunately the winners in this technology war will be the authors, publishers and ultimately the readers.
It means that for any author that has his/her book in MS Word it can be converted to the Kindle format, published on Amazon’s DTP and will appear for sale in the Amazon Kindle Book Store within 72 hours of uploading the Kindle file.
Alexander Greyling
Author of “Face your brand!”