eReaders Come of Age - Christmas 2009

Does the world really need another eBook reader? Perhaps not, but in the opinion of this ereader I believe a new one can be accommodated. It has been long anticipated. An eReader with access to a major bookstore of titles, a very readable color screen and a dozen slick and useful features. The debutante? The eReader Nook from Barnes and Noble.

eBooks, read on eReaders, are a very intriguing concept. Dramatic developments in small screen readability have occurred in the past several years. eReaders now feature a 6” screen that makes eBook reading much easier and more enjoyable than before. The mechanisms for flipping pages is far more refined now. To achieve maximum readability, you can also adjust font size to match your eyesight, and well as change the eReader’s background to make eBooks readable on the commuter train or on the beach.

What is the appeal of eReaders? First of all, they are very small, like a tablet computer - about 9 inches long, 5 inches wide, and very thin – some are less than a half inch thick. Remarkably, you can store an entire bookshelf of books on them which is very handy. Most them also store and play music through headphones.

Secondly, the eBooks that you read on eReaders are dramatically cheaper than so-called ink-and-paper book counterparts. Less expensive to make, and thus buy. In fact eBooks are less than half the cost of most traditional books.

Thirdly, you can order eBooks over the Internet using your eReader from the convenience of your bed, and then begin reading them immediately. No more looking for the car keys, and driving out in the dark to your library or bookseller. You can buy books and begin reading them without getting out of your pajamas. Talk about cozy.

Perhaps what is most important: publishers have become attracted to eBooks as a means to deliver their books and periodicals to customers far more inexpensively and conveniently.

This Christmas eReaders are making their move, and they are primed to score. Even at $250-300, they are projected to be one of the most coveted items under the tree. eBooks, as the follow-on product, are almost uniformly $10 each, a perfect Christmas gift item for owners of eReaders.

Who are the big players in this market? As you might expect, the two largest booksellers in the world, Amazon and Barnes and Noble, are in the game. But Sony has also made its bid.

What’s the difference between eReaders?

Amazon was first into the market with its original Kindle. This has been mildly upgraded and a text-to-speech feature added to create the Kindle II. Amazon has achieved reasonable success with its eBook market-making venture. However, the Kindle only allows you to read Amazon eBooks, something that could prove limiting for their owners in the near future.

Barnes and Noble, on the other hand is about to release its Nook for the Christmas season. Unlike Amazon, Barnes and Noble have taken their time, not rushing their eReader into the doldrum Christmas of last year, and instead stretching their product development well into 2009. It shows.

At demonstration, the Nook immediately captured attention with its beautiful color display panel in the lower part of the screen, and the crispness and clarity of the black and white reading area above. One could actually read quite pleasurably on this. Barnes and Noble is even offering a novel eBook sharing process by which eBook owners can give a friend an eBook to read for 14 days, for free.

Sony’s eReader, sold in independent chains such as Borders, is the third main player. However, Sony’s standard machines in the Kindle II/Nook price range continue to lack wireless access, a very serious deficiency. But Sony’s eReader is easy to use, and offers a stylus for taking notes, a great feature. Kindle and Nook on the other hand offer a keyboard, physical in the Kindle’s case, and virtual on the Nook, for note-taking.

Technologically, eReaders have arrived at a familiar new-technology juncture – a war over standard file formats, reminiscent of the video tape file format battle between VHS and Beta. On one side is Kindle’s proprietary format AZW, which forces its eReaders to buy their eBooks from Amazon. On the other side are all the other major eReaders, including Barnes and Noble’s Nook and the Sony eReader, which have adopted the ePub file format most widely adopted by publishers.

So which eReader should you pick? In short, I believe it will just come down to who offers the most and best eBooks to read on the eReaders - least expensively, and with greatest convenience. One cannot underestimate the market-making strength of a massive electronics behemoth like Sony. But I see Amazon’s Kindle II and Barnes and Noble’s Nook quickly becoming the Mac and PC of the eReader business. They’ve got the books!