As for the Kindle, not so far. I’m in a wait and see mode. Because it irritates me to no end that Amazon is charging for content that I choose to let people read for free, I am not inclined to offer up the blog for that. I do want more people to be tortured with DA but I don’t know that they should be paid to be tortured.

If you are talking about the liability issues – I thought that those were pretty standard. I.e., if Amazon is going to get sued for something that I said, I would get sued for it anyway, right?

I nearly bought the Sony a while back with the credit card deal but I happened to find my old Clie that Sony stopped supporting without any warning and between that and remembering the rootkit debacle I decided– no. Between Sony and Amazon, I have to say Amazon has given me more reason to trust it.

I don’t know if the Kindle is ungodly popular or they only have the capability of making a few at a time or if they are attempting a Grey Goose Vodka campaign of scarcity, but I ordered a week ago and I still haven’t been notified of a shipment date and in fact my order page shows that it won’t arrive before Christmas. I’ll be very interested in finding out how many Amazon actually sells this year.

I read everything I could find on the Kindle before I ordered to make sure that if Amazon went down tomorrow I would still find this device useful.

And I don’t trust anyone to keep my library for me on line. I keep all of my media on an external harddrive (I have four or five now) with a back up to CD or DVD– I have several large albums of these. While audible is very good about keeping things online, if you lose your iTunes library all music or shows purchased through iTunes is gone for good.

Just meant it’s a no brainer and the books are totally available to read on the device. The only real difference between the devices is the ergonomics, the Kindle’s direct access to the store, and the chosen DRM, so it’s just a matter of preference but users face the same negative issues and enjoy roughly the same benefits.

For eggs: I have a suggestion. Consider saving your books with the last few digits of your cc number at the end. If you can remember the first set of numbers, the rest will be there. Depending on where you bought them, you might also be able to re-download the books with your latest cc number. Then you can delete the old ones. Or, if you’re organized, you could make a list of the last 4 digits of the cc numbers and when you changed them, and save the books with the date at the end.

I know none of those helps you if you ever have to re-download everything without being able to update the cc numbers.

I love Bob’s idea of a central e-book “repository”. But…who would run it? Would it be like insurance that e-book buyers could purchase? I remember when SimonSays stopped carrying eReader format for a year or two. If I remember correctly, they said they had to find a new “distributor” for the eReader format. Fictionwise made a big deal that they still offer those in the Booklist, but that they cannot be updated with new cc numbers like the ones available from the newer distributor. How would such a situation be handled by a centralized repository?

I have both an eBookwise and a Sony Reader 500. But if only read non-DRM’d books on either of them. If I have to buy DRM…okay, if I choose to buy DRM…I only buy eReader. I feel it’s the most versatile at this time (without hacking the DRM, like many do with the Microsoft Reader version).

Oh, and I think the IDPF has been trying for some time to get some commitment for a universal format. Emails from us would support their vision, but I don’t think they have the power to enforce anything.

I used to like unsecured Adobe, but then it got annoying and I stopped. And MS Reader was okay, but it was a pain to keep having to reactivate everything whenever I’d reformat my computer. So now I just use the html and convert to whatever format I need. Like to be read on my Reader. If/when I get an iPod Touch (damn Apple for only using one wireless provider for the iPhone), perhaps I’ll read on that, as well.

Why can't somebody come out with the perfect reading device and the perfect format for the books? We put men on the moon, have distantly explored different planets, can do amazing medical things and we still can't get one ereader that's perfect? How hard can it be?

I guess it’s about as hard as getting healthcare for everybody in the country. I didn’t even get started with Mobipocket so I’m glad that I don’t own many books by them. I’m a devoted ebook reader and it’s my preferred format. I hadn’t walked into a bookstore in two months. I went Friday to get the Lara Adrian book since it’s only available in the Mobipocket format right now. I notice that many books are now coming out in Mobipocket before any other format. What gives?

Re: Mobipocket – At BooksOnBoard, we believe that the Mobipocket format is here to stay, although we believe the proprietary Kindle format (Mobipocket with special DRM for the Kindle) is a fairly high risk choice for end users.

BooksOnBoard would like to propose an idea we’ve talked about here. We want to recommend the creation of an industry “download pool.” In this model, if an ebook company closed its doors or shut down its bookshelves, there would be convenants in place that would move the ebooks into a repository where customers could continue to have access indefinitely to those titles. The Assigned Risk element of the insurance business has something like this in which the insured is protected when an insurance company goes out of business. The policy is automatically assigned to another insurance company.

The “download pool” would be the kind of proposition that IDPF could entertain and for which it could seek industry consensus. In that event, readers would not have to be concerned about the longevity of the particular retailer’s ebook business. Others would argue that customers should maintain their own back-up, an understandable position, but even with that, customers currently need the e-tailer to handle re-sets, etc.

Thank you again for the balanced coverage of the ebook space and all the commentary from your readers.

Best,

Bob L.

I’d love to walk off in a huff and go back to print books, but I travel a lot and the ebooks are just too convenient.

This is the reason I fully support the major ePubs like Samhain or Loose-Id or Ellora’s Cave even (No DRM) but do not review Harlequin or other traditional publishers that depend on DRM.

This is also the reason I can not recommend buying any of the current e-Ink devices that usually only support one DRM. At least Palm OS supports three different DRMs. Which to me means it will be useful longer than the one trick models.

Amazon is switching their entire Mobipocket library over to the Kindle proprietary format. This could possibly mean they will eventually do away with that format entirely. So where does that leave these single DRM eBook Readers that depend on Mobipocket?

Technically the problem is not so much the DRM but the eBook reader software supporting the DRM does not work across all OS.

Mobipocket eBook Reader DRM never created an Apple OSX reader and only recently has provided a Linux version to only certain units.

Microsoft eBook Reader DRM only works on Windows.

Adobe eBook Reader DRM again never really has supported Linux.

Sony, eBookwise, and Kindle DRMs which represent the latest market offerings are all proprietary to their eBook hardware.

A bunch of small publishers do the same thing. You can find some of them in Fictionwise. Fictionwise usually has several titles available as free downloads, which gives you something you can download to play with and see how it works.

As someone who still owns some extremely rare to find Betamax movies, I’m not keen on getting into yet another technology that’s just as likely to disappear after I’ve invested money, time, and effort into it.