Potentially very disappointed

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by SUSGOD

Mobipocket Reader Desktop 6.1 Beta claims it can group book titles by author or group icons by genre. Does the Cybook library allow a reader to choose books by author or genry or does one have to scroll through every title in the library to locate a specific book?

You can currently only sort by Title, File Size, File Date, File Name or File Path. Once you sort you have to scroll through every page. I have mine set to 20 items per page and with 133 books it's 7 pages to scroll through to locate a book. I'm hoping that Bookeen will allow additional sort options via future firmware releases.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by SUSGOD

Mobipocket Reader Desktop 6.1 Beta claims it can group book titles by author or group icons by genre. Does the Cybook library allow a reader to choose books by author or genry or does one have to scroll through every title in the library to locate a specific book?

A user can *sort* by Title, File Size, File Date, File Name and File Path. However, if your title is "Middle of the Road" by Jack Logan, then there's probably a pretty good chance it will be in the middle of the Library pages - so you'd better make sure you have cover graphics on the file and switch to the 25 titles per page mode. Of course, if you've got an SD card in there with a thousand titles, you're pretty much stuck with lots of paging to find it.

Derek

[HarryT]

This is why I'm now making sure that I add a cover picture to any Mobi book I create, since the Gen3 relies so heavily on them. For books for which no cover picture exists (eg the anthologies and omnibus editions I create) I've started creating my own simple cover picture with the title and author on it.

[tompe]

Is there some way to take a mobi file downloaded from here or from manybooks and add a cover automatically? Or to change the title?

I had to start using the mode with five books per page to be able to find things. I downloaded short stories from Cory Doctorow's Overclocked and the all had the same cover image and the title started with the same text for all the stories. Also the Wodehouse books from manybooks did not have any covers. It is a bit irritating to select among 100 books using this method.

[HappyMartin]

I don't know much about US antitrust laws but are amazon not sailing a little close to the wind in this regard? That assumes, hopefully incorrectly, that amazon will throw all there weight behind the kindle and shut down mobipocket as some are suggesting on this forum and in this thread.

[HarryT]

I think there is absolutely NO chance that Amazon will shut down Mobi? Why on Earth would they? The Kindle is a US-only product which can't be used by 95% of the world's population; MobiPocket is a world-wide business most of whose business is (I'd guess) outside the US. What on Earth would be their incentive to shut it down?

[fugsly]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think there is absolutely NO chance that Amazon will shut down Mobi? Why on Earth would they? The Kindle is a US-only product which can't be used by 95% of the world's population; MobiPocket is a world-wide business most of whose business is (I'd guess) outside the US. What on Earth would be their incentive to shut it down?

Going on that information even if for some strange reason Amazon do shut it down someone else will take it up.

From looking around fictionwise seems cheaper and holds tons and tons of books. Mobipocket does have a good range, I'll get my dictionary from there for instance but the prices are quite off-putting.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by fugsly

Going on that information even if for some strange reason Amazon do shut it down someone else will take it up.

From looking around fictionwise seems cheaper and holds tons and tons of books. Mobipocket does have a good range, I'll get my dictionary from there for instance but the prices are quite off-putting.

hahahaha. You're funny. If Mobipocket shuts down, no retailer will be able to sell DRMed Mobipocket. They all rely on Mobipocket's servers. This point failure was made crystal clear back in summer.

Mobipocket thought they were being hacked, so they shut down as a safety precaution. While they were down, no one could buy any new Mobipocket ebooks, nor download old ones.

[fugsly]

Fair enough, guess we're all screwed if that should happen again / amazon shut it down.

All I was trying to say is that if amazon do shut down mobipocket it most likely won't be the absolute end of the world - other files can be read / converted to work on the gen3 and one of the other retailers will have them.

Glad it made you laugh

[bøø]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think there is absolutely NO chance that Amazon will shut down Mobi? Why on Earth would they? The Kindle is a US-only product which can't be used by 95% of the world's population; MobiPocket is a world-wide business most of whose business is (I'd guess) outside the US. What on Earth would be their incentive to shut it down?

I agree, I also think that Amazon with the Kindle and its locked DRM is going to have problems with the Marketing Control Act in some European countries. And this might be the reason for only launching it in the US.

The Norwegian Consumer Councils complaint against iTunes Music Store(I think this might apply to the Kindle/Amazon too):
http://forbrukerportalen.no/Artikler/2006/1138119849.71
http://forbrukerportalen.no/Artikler/2006/1149587055.44
As far as I know the Swedish Consumer Council has also lodged a complaint against iTunes.

[nairbv]

wmaurer: You have every reason to be angry and disappointed, but not with your decision. Be angry with Amazon, not yourself. Amazon just shit on you. Why does that make you think you should have bought from Amazon? I used to buy a lot of books from Amazon, but I'm going to look for somewhere else to buy paper books now.... and I'm not even someone who owns mobipocket books. I don't trust them anymore. I used to like Amazon.

If you bought the Amazon device they'd just shit on you later instead of sooner. You now see that they're obviously willing to do it. And your bike trip? You can't use a Kindle outside the US. Cybook was the right decision.

If you bought the Kindle, and Kindle books, and then your Kindle got rained on or broken or lost somewhere along the way, you'd have to buy a new Kindle to read your books. If you lose your cybook, you can buy a new cybook, or a palm, or a computer, or a hanlin v3, or an iliad, or even a phone and still have your content.

If the kindle isn't successful, it'll be dumped, and you'll be left to fill your bike panniers with paper books.

To all of you saying "Amazon will/won't dump MobiPocket." They don't have to "dump" mobipocket, but they're just not going to be as motivated to hire the best people to seek out the best content for a service that competes with their own. Of course they'll keep selling whatever books they sell (as long as it's bringing in money), but they'll always have more titles available in the more proprietary Kindle format. They also have no reason to lower prices for mobipocket formated books or really try to compete, unless an actual competitor in the same market comes along.

Also, I agree with what jasonkchapman said about the contracts. Amazon negotiated to distribute books in kindle-format. They didn't negotiate them for mobipocket format, and so don't have the rights to distribute them as such. They probably couldn't legally sell kindle books on a non kindle device even if they wanted to. Negotiating for mobipocket distribution will be up to some other manager in some other department operating in some subsidiary that amazon doesn't care about anymore. Amazon bought the technology, and wants to sell books on Amazon.com. Sure if a few extra bucks come in from mobipocket.com that's great but it's not as important to them.

Some of you are saying Amazon/kindle loses 5$/book. I've read that typical wholesale price of ebooks in that range around about 10$, and that typically ebook resellers sell them for around $18. This would suggest that Amazon just doesn't make a profit on bestsellers, not that they lose money. We hear from the publishers that Amazon isn't getting some special deal, but it still might have come out to a price of $9 instead of $10 based on volume and such, not a significant negotiation but giving them *some* revenue. This also suggests that the profit margin on best sellers on sites like mobipocket is $8. This probably currently makes sense given ebooks are still fairly new, still low volume, and that they have significant development costs to recoup. Amazon might be hoping to be high-enough volume and long-term enough that low-profit margins can be overcome with high volume.

It is quite frustrating that more content isn't available. This is the fault of Amazon. Amazon has worked to cripple the ebook market, and it takes away my confidence in the mobipocket book system that otherwise would have been a good way to buy ebooks. I'm tempted to think that amazon is intentionally disrupting and delaying the widespread adoption of ebooks, to maintain their primary revenue source.

Someone should come out with yet another DRM content system to be the next mobipocket, running on all available devices like mobipocket did, but not being owned buy a company that wants to shit on it's customers. Hopefully this will happen, and it will either replace mobipocket, or the amazon people will be forced to keep mobipocket competitive. Either way, if there's a mobipocket format AND a competing format, both of which run on a plethora of devices, (and internationally) the consumers will be OK. I can dream that someday we won't have DRM, and that might just be a dream... but I'm quite convinced that one-format-to-one-device services will not be the future of DRM.

Anyone want to start (or fund) a company? As others have said, the publisher deals with Amazon are not exclusive. Mobipocket was successful and a lot of people (like me) will be afraid to buy from them now. I don't think companies like cybook or hanlin or irex have *exclusive* deals with mobipocket do they? I can write code (or hire cheap Chinese programmers, I'm in China now) :-P. We'd have to act fast... hehe.

I also feel like what Amazon did with mobipocket aught to be illegal. There should be some kind of antitrust laws protecting us from that kind of behavior. The US legal system needs some serious reevaluation to take into account the ramifications of the current digital age. We should at a bare minimum be protected from companies completely dropping support for DRM products as has happened more then once, when some company says "download your music for the last time" and it will never play on another device again. They're should be some kind of consumer protection or contractual obligation of the company that "sells" you DRM content.

Actually, now that I've finished (reading as I write this) the whole thread, I see that it is illegal in some countries. Good to hear.

Maybe in a few years Kindle will just fail, and Amazon will forget about trying to be a hardware/service company, will fully adopt Mobipocket, and will work to make more titles available for mobi and just fully utilize that revenue stream. When/if that happens, it will make the current cybook purchases still the right decision. I can't imagine a one-format-one-device service could possibly be successful in the long term, and as long as they dont' go so far as pulling the plug on mobipocket DRM servers, mobipocket still has the best DRM service out there. Too many unsuspecting customers of devices like the kindle or sony will buy the device, be angry, and tell their friends to buy from the competitor. These lame systems will all have to disappear eventually.

I want the option to buy DRM content. I never have though because I don't trust any of the people who sell it. There's no incentive for them to be nice to us. If Amazon had played nice with mobi as I expected, I would have been thrilled and bought mobi books (as soon as I had a mobi-reading device). Now I might end up buying something that doesn't even support mobipocket, like the hanlin v3. It's that or the cybook.

-brian

[wmaurer]

I sent Amazon an email and I got a response saying that my comments have been forwarded to the Kindle team. I've spent a lot of money with Amazon over the years, but until they change their current policy, I won't be spending any more with them. I'm even disinclined to buy anything from Mobipocket, or even mobi files, given the fact that money goes back to Amazon.

I've also sent emails to a number of publishers, but haven't had any response yet.

I've appealed to publishers of ebooks on the Mobipocket forum to not lock themselves into Kindle format:
http://www.mobipocket.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9152

I think the real problem is, though, is that any outcry is from a relatively small community. Most Kindle buyers will probably think that the Kindle is a first of breed e-book reader, and will happily buy content from Amazon without realising that Amazon is attempting to kneecap competion. It may also be the case that publishers will think that publishing on non-Kindle formats isn't worth the effort.

-Wayne

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by wmaurer

I think the real problem is, though, is that any outcry is from a relatively small community. Most Kindle buyers will probably think that the Kindle is a first of breed e-book reader, and will happily buy content from Amazon without realising that Amazon is attempting to kneecap competion. It may also be the case that publishers will think that publishing on non-Kindle formats isn't worth the effort.

-Wayne

I think that you underestimate the financial sense of the public. There is a reason commercial e-books have been a bust until now, and it ain't the lack of a device or of the wireless delivery. Kindle brings nothing essentially new, it costs a lot, e-book prices are still high, content is still locked, and people ain't stupid.

Kindle may double the e-book market though I doubt it, but it would still be a minuscule thing, so I would not worry about Kindle cornering the market. And if Mobipocket dies or withers down, all the better, just to teach again the lesson that drm is bad and people should avoid it if not convertible.

On the other the positives (more exposure, competition on e-book prices) the Kindle already brought are tangible and are a step ahead.
Now I am more and more inclined to the view that dedicated e-book devices are dead on arrival, or at best a niche market, and something like an open iPod touch or a cheaper umpc a la Raon will be the first to break out the e-book market

[hidari]

Well. said. You hit on all the vital problems that Amazon have yet to address.

[hidari]

agreed. The Amazons of the world still look at profit first and not long term.

I keep to my POCKET PC in hopes that a ebook reader device will enthrall me enough to buy it..yet I have only been disappointed thus far.

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

I think that you underestimate the financial sense of the public. There is a reason commercial e-books have been a bust until now, and it ain't the lack of a device or of the wireless delivery. Kindle brings nothing essentially new, it costs a lot, e-book prices are still high, content is still locked, and people ain't stupid.

Kindle may double the e-book market though I doubt it, but it would still be a minuscule thing, so I would not worry about Kindle cornering the market. And if Mobipocket dies or withers down, all the better, just to teach again the lesson that drm is bad and people should avoid it if not convertible.

On the other the positives (more exposure, competition on e-book prices) the Kindle already brought are tangible and are a step ahead.
Now I am more and more inclined to the view that dedicated e-book devices are dead on arrival, or at best a niche market, and something like an open iPod touch or a cheaper umpc a la Raon will be the first to break out the e-book market