There are two competing factions in the ebook reading industry. No, not authors v. readers or readers v. publishers (that story is for tomorrow ;) ), it’s IDPF v. OpenReader. The idea is to create an ebook standard that would enable customers to buy any book from any online source and view it on any electronic reader. This is something that could really revolutionize ebook reading. One of my biggest disappointments with Sony Reader is the inability to view my existing ebook purchases at all or in the manner formatted by the publisher. The reason I don’t buy PDF books these days is because of my negative experience of losing several hundred dollars worth of books bought in Adobe format but were unreadable after computer upgrades because of DRM issues.
With the “read any title on any device” promise, I could even support some type of DRM because it appears that my books wouldn’t be “lost” because of device going out of business or better technology appearing. My books purchased for the Sony Reader today could be read on a Apple device next year or a Toshiba …
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