MobileRead's Tenth Birthday Giveaway!

[Alexander Turcic]

Lo and behold, it's been ten years since the launch of MobileRead. Details are a bit hazy on the exact date, but according to our super-secret spatiotemporal uncertainty model, October 23rd, 2002 seems to be a good estimate.

I started this website ten years ago with one goal in mind: I wanted to make new friends with whom I could share my crazy-obsessed interest in mobile reading. Ten years ago — that was when you could count on being considered a cave dwelling nerd when waving around a handheld organizer. It was the time when the e-book was the sole domain of salivating tech geeks and self-confessed bedroom pirates. As I look back on everything, I can say I'm very proud of what we've accomplished. I've been able to witness so many changes in how we perceive technology and how e-books have become a common, accepted way for consuming content.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you. This has been a magical decade, with friendships that have grown, with good and utterly silly jokes that have been told, with great generosity that members have shown one another. It's what has brought us all together here. All of you who come here day after day to find out more about e-books, to share your own experiences, your views, rants and rave - you are who truly make this community what it is. Thank you for that trust, the confidence and the continued support through the years. And remember to join us for the next decade as we strive to keep this community new and exciting for years to come!

Last but not least, my big thanks and hugs to the amazing MobileRead team. You have done an incredible job in making this community a safe, vibrant and supportive place. There's no doubt, you're the best team in the world, and I am humbled and blessed to have you by my side.

The Giveaway

We are celebrating our tenth birthday by launching this little giveaway.

The following prizes are up for grabs:

• An e-book reader of your choice from the following selection: Kindle Paperwhite (valued at US $139), Sony Reader PRS-T2 (valued at US $130), NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight (valued at US $139)
• Five e-book vouchers (each valued at US $30) either from Amazon or Kobo

It's really easy to win...

How to win

Leave a comment below with a link to your favorite MobileRead forum section. Tell us why you like it. And finally, tell us how you think it could be made even better. If you're new to MobileRead and don't have a favorite section yet, link to the forum in which you believe you'll be spending the most time and tell us what interests you about that particular forum.

The drawing will be random, so don't worry about writing a Pulitzer Prize quality entry. Just briefly share your thoughts with us.

Down to the details:

• This contest is open to anyone anywhere as long as at least one of the main prizes (Kindle PaperWhite, Sony Reader PRS-T2, or NOOK Simple Touch with Glowlight) is officially available for sale in your country.
  
• To enter, leave a comment below. We want to hear what your favorite MobileRead forum section is. Tell us why you like it and how you think it could be made even better — and feel free to be descriptive!
  
• This giveaway begins now, October 30th 2012, and ends on November 6th 2012, at 11:59 PM EST.
  
• Amongst the eligible entries one winner will be randomly drawn for the grand prize (Kindle PaperWhite, Sony Reader PRS-T2, or NOOK Simple Touch with Glowlight) and 5 winners will be randomly drawn for a US $30 e-book voucher each. The chosen e-reader device must be officially available for sale in the winner's country.
  
• If you are chosen, you will be notified via private message. Winners must respond within four days after being notified. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.
  
• Full rules can be found here.

Thanks and good luck to everyone. And stay tuned for our upcoming Winter giveaway!

PS: From a former New Yorker to everyone on the East Coast and everyone else affected by this storm: My blessings and prayers to all of you. Stay safe!

(screenshots of "former" MobileRead courtesy archive.org's Wayback Machine)

[ciruelo]

Hello and congratulations for your tenth birthday!
Thanks for offering this giveaway.

My favourite section of the forum is the dedicated site for the different readers, especially the one for the Kobo readers, being the owner of a Kobo Touch myself.
The information is easily accessible and there's a great community with an open mind for development and improvement within those boards.

Something that would be helpful though, would be creating a specific part inside each of the forums including the official firmware releases along with the threads created for them.
This would simplify the search for a firmware and the users concerns, ideas and complaints that don't belong to a firmware related issue would be separated from it.

Hope this idea gets considered!!
Thanks!!

[red_phoenix]

Congratulations on 10 years Mobile Read!!!

I originally came here when I was trying to find an e-reader. The forums and other members are very helpful.

My favourite area is the Lounge where games are played and everyday life is discussed. It's a great place to hang out.

Alex and the Mods do a wonderful job. I cannot really think of anything I would suggest as an improvement.

I am looking forward to another 10 years.

[AnneT]

Happy birthday!
I don't really have a favourite section in this forum, but tend to spend quite a lot of time in 'Which one should I buy', and, over the last few days, in the Onyx-section.
However, I have found tons of valuable information in the Calibre-section too.7

I guess the last one might be my favourite!

[melmac]

Wow ten years congrats double digits !! My favourite section is of course The deals and freebies section saved myself a small fortune and grown my library to ridicules proportions.

Improvements not much really I love you just the way your are
But if I had to say something then I suppose it would be duplicate threads. I have an OCD like aversion to them and I notice sometimes there's a thread in news and then a nearly exact replica in the relevant hardware section with similar conversations taking place in both. Cutting down on this where possible would be good

[ApK]

Happy Birthday, MR!

I discovered MR when I was investigating our first eReader purchase, and immediately found it tremendously useful, with a friendly, helpful and knowledgeable community.

As much as I've gotten out of the Kindle forum, the Calibre forum, the News forum, and many others, I think I have to admit that my favorite section is Deals & Freebies.

Thanks to that section, I now have enough backlog in my reading list to last me through a zombie apocalypse (which, as it happens, I have no interest in reading about).

Thanks for the giveaway offer!

p.s. Survived Sandy relatively unscathed. Power was out all night, but came on just in time for a hot breakfast and shower! Yea!

ApK

[fum]

Congratulations on the first 10 years.
My favourite is the Reading Recommendations section.
I started out with a Hanlin, but have since gone through the kindle's, and now my reading device is so stable, that I no longer care about the tech, but is after new reading experiences.

[Rich_D]

Congrats on 10 years!

I think my favorite section is the News section. It's a quick and dirty breakdown of what's going on in the tech sector and saves me from browsing numerous other sites.

[Nyssa]

Wow, 10 years! Congratulations & and best wishes for many more. In the, not quite, two years that I've been here, Mobileread has become another home.

My favorite section is Reading Recommendations. I love finding new books and new authors, I love seeing what other people are reading, and I love recommending a good book when I can. Reading Recommendations is also the official home of the Book Clubs, which I enjoy.

There are usually 3 main reasons people go to the Reading Recommendations section. 1. To ask for specific types of books/authors, 2. To talk about a specific book/author, 3. To talk about a specific series.
I would like it if we could make each type a little easier to find.

Suggestion: Having either a WCIF (Where Can I Find) subsection or a Dedicated Book, Author, and/or Series subsection.

I have two thoughts on this: Since it is called the Reading Recommendations forum, we could leave all of the WCIFs as the main area and make a subsection for discussing specific books, authors, and/or series. However, since I've noticed (from other sites) that people tend to specifically look for a WCIF area, it may be more user friendly to have that as a specific subsection instead.

I, personally, would love to have a place dedicated to WCIFs and a place dedicated to Series.

Thank you so much for the site, for offering the give away, and for giving us an opportunity to weigh in.

[treadlightly]

Congrats! This site is fantastic and I am impressed with the quality of the posts and the generousity of the members every day. The most valuable section for me is the Deals forum, closely followed by Reading Recs and the specific Devices forums. My suggestion for the Reading Recs is to divide the "What are you reading" section into genres or to have genre-specific reading groups.

[harcalion]

Well, time goes by very very fast. I remember registering just to have a look at the e-book reader comparisons on the wiki and writing *one* single post over the course of the years.

As I was afraid the color technology for e-ink has been slow coming, so I read with attention the News section, always hoping Mirasol or another company could surprise us with a vibrant display to read comic books on. I find it perfectly appropriate, with only breakthroughs being in the hotspot and not excessive noise.

Congratulations MR!

[holymadness]

Congratulations on 10 years. I could hardly imagine all that we have now back in 2002. I've since given away my hundreds of paper books and gone completely digital.

My favourite forum is News, where I enjoy reading commentary about the latest developments in technology, publishing, and the legalities of the ebook industry. I think it could be improved with some aggressive pre-emptive moderation to curb threadjacking and trolling, particularly in emotionally-charged threads (e.g. Apple product announcements).

I've also greatly benefitted from the deals section (love the Kobo coupon thread) and the free ebook forum, where skilled amateurs have put together public domain works of exceptional quality, growing my collection in the process. It is also a major bonus to have Kovid Goyal posting here to respond to any questions about Calibre.

[AJ Starr]

Happy Birthday, MR

(Coincidentally, today is my older son's birthday!)

One of the happiest day I've had was when I first found MR. I don't "socialize" on the social media, MR is the only site I go to.

I have found friends, help for my problems, suggestions and just plain laughs.

MR is to be credited with my chosing my first ereader (the often overlooked but still great Astak Personal EZ reader thanks to the late Robertb.) I also chose the Sony T1 for myself, my husband and one for my younger son. We are all happy with them.

I originally started gathering ebooks back before most of you even thought of it. I was scanning them into my WordPerfect format back before Stephen King allowed one of his books into ebook format (before there were ebook formats). I purchased several books in the old pdf format that has a DRM scheme only a few of you knew about. Thus all those books are long useless. Which is why I never allow the DRM scheme to interfere with my current purchases.

My favorite sites are: originally the Astak PP, but now I go to News, General Discussion, Sony specific, and of course Calibre.

Keep up the Great site, MR. We love you.

AJ

[Prest0]

Congratulations on 10 great years! Like the previous posters, my favorite section is the device-specific forums. The Sony Reader forum is by far the best place to get information about my device-- better than Sony's own site. I really can't think of anything that would make it better. You already have tags to filter posts by a single model, which is incredibly helpful.

[orlok]

Well I've only been a member for nearly two of the ten years, after receiving my Kindle for Christmas 2010, but I can safely say that MR is the first place I come to after checking emails every morning. It has become embedded in my way of life.

Very difficult to choose a single favourite - I really enjoy the Writers' Corner, lurking for tips and contributing if I can; The What's In Your Cup thread in the Lounge is a great place to drop in for a chat; and the General Discussions forum is always good for a browse when all my subscribed threads have gone quiet.

But I guess my overall fave has to be the Reading Recommendations forum, which has guided me to books and authors I would never have considered reading otherwise (my current Chelsea Cain kick in one such case in point - thank you poohbear_nc). How to improve on this forum ? That's a difficult call. You could potentially add sub-forums to cater for genres, but this could be a mistake, as I would never have read some of the fantasy or YA books that I have done over the past two years, as I wouldn't have looked into these sub-forums. Perhaps some form of notification system that automatically prompts you if a certain author is being posted about, or a new reading challenge thread is opened? I have missed a couple of challenges because I have not checked the new posts quickly enough.

But fundamentally I'm extremely happy with the way the site functions, and hope to stay for a very long time...