Skip to content

Monthly Archives March 2010

TKC 88 David Risher

News – Amazon announces Kindle for Tablet Computers including the iPad. CNET’s Tom Merritt has some video fun with reasons For and Against buying an iPad.  Citi’s Mark Mahaney doesn’t think the iPad is going to make much of a dent in the Kindle’s dominance of eBooks. My anonymous source says the Kindle App Store [...]

Posted 26 March 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

TKC 87 Joshua Tallent

News – Item 1: Amazon announces the release of Kindle for Mac software. Item 2: The New York Times reports on the latest round in Amazon v. Apple and the Publishers. Item 3: Two reading features of the iPad I hadn’t heard about yet, and an estimate that 200,000 iPads were presold in the first week.

Tech Tip – In which I transfer to Kindle for PC and Mac a screenplay I’m reading, written by my nephew Jesse Betlyon, graduating this month from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. Hooray!

Interview – Joshua Tallent, founder and CEO of eBook Architects, spoke with me in person on March 14, 2010, in Austin, where I was attending South by Southwest Interactive. We discussed the iPad, eBook prices, and how authors can succeed in publishing for eBook formats, especially the Kindle. Click here for Joshua’s last appearance on the podcast, 65 episodes ago.

Content – John Grisham has a change of heart regarding eBooks. Doubleday announces that all 23 of his novels are now available in Kindle and other eBook formats. Via Techflash, click here for his Today Show interview, back when he had little good to say about eBooks.

Your Comments – Allen MacDiarmid on the iPad, Alan Morris on Kindle for Mac, and Ronald Molnar on Apple’s job listing for an Independent Publisher Account Manager.

EBooks for Troops Update – I’m partnering with Ken Clark (who blogs here) to create a nonprofit to continue our work providing Kindles to active-duty troops. We’ve settled on a new name, EBooks for Troops (EB4T), which is not as pleasingly alliterative as the original Kindles for Kandahar, but more descriptive. M-Edge Accessories donated the first Kindle and accessories, to Army Sgt. Andre Corbin, who will soon be deployed in Afghanistan, ready to identify troops to receive the next Kindles. We have raised approximately $1,000 in contributions so far. Thank you to everyone who has participated, especially M-Edge!

Still Time to Win A Kindle – I will be awarding a Kindle and accessories to a fan of my Reading Edge facebook page at noon Mountain Time, April 1, courtesy of a sponsorship by Octovo.

Posted 19 March 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , , , , , ,

TKC 86 Elif Batuman

News – A Lab 126 job posting for a browser engineer prompts David Coursey of PC World and Peter Kafka of All Things Digital, among others, to speculate on exactly what sort of “innovative web browser” may be in the works for the next version of the Kindle.

Tech Tip – My personal system for active reading, in this case to prepare for an author interview. The secret sauce is this handy cache of all your highlights and notes on books you’ve bought from Amazon.

Interview – Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, found herself in the midst of a Kindle Kerfuffle which she handled gracefully on her blog. In this interview recorded on March 8, 2010, she considers how literature is different on a Kindle.

Content – The New York Times plans to offer its great Book Review section as a separate digital eReader product for the Sony Reader, Kindle and nook.

Your Comments – My friend Kes Woodward reports on a wintry stress test for his Kindle in Denali Park. Listener Gib Wallis helps listener Bob Anderson with a tech problem. Two questions from Patrick Scott.

Kindles for Kandahar – What a week! More than $600 in contributions will enable the purchase of at least two Kindles to be distributed in Afghanistan to active-duty troops by Army Sgt. Andre Corbin, who will be in country by the end of the month. Listener Ken Clark is helping me set up a nonprofit and a web page. Click here for the genesis. M-Edge Accessories CEO Patrick Mish and his team are planning their sponsorship activity to support the project.

HOW TO WIN A KINDLE AND ACCESSORY – Click here to check out out my new Facebook “Reading Edge” page. If you become a fan, you will automatically be entered to win a 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo. The drawing will take place at noon Mountain Time on April 1, 2010.

Posted 11 March 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

TKC 85 Andrys Basten

News – Will the next Kindle cost less than $150? Reports from Bloomberg and Silicon Alley Insider raise that happy prospect. Also, via Kindle World, a new comparison by WalletPop of eBook prices shows that Kindle is still the best priced, but Sony and Barnes & Noble trade places for runnerup and third.

Tech Tip – How to check your Evernote account on your Kindle, using the mobile version. Via Evernote’s latest podcast, we learn the CEO has three Kindles, and the team is looking at the Kindle API with an eye to closer coordination between the Kindle and Evernote. Click here for Abhi’s Start Page Tool post if you’d like to streamline your Evernote access on your Kindle. Click here for the bookmonk tool. If you haven’t tried Evernote yet, check out Walt Mossberg’s rave review.

Interview – Andrys Basten’s “A Kindle World blog” had its debut on March 19, 2009. In this interview recorded on March 2, 2010, we talked about what a difference a year has made in the world of the Kindle, especially in the hoard of competitors to the Kindle that has arrived on the scene. Click here to subscribe to Andrys’s very useful blog on your Kindle. One non-Kindle eReader she mentions, depending on your reading needs, is the Sony Pocket Edition.

Content – Amazon announces how you can find lots of free content for your Kindle in places other than the Kindle Store. Click here for the great copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I found at ManyBooks.

Your Comments – Maurice Lawles buys a Kindle. Jim Jones loves Stitcher. Kevin Roher tests the Kindle’s battery. Glenn Blinckmann is not happy about the big increase in Kindle subscription price for Time Magazine. Blair Slavin thinks I may love reading my iPad in my favorite chair. Kevin Parsons puts flesh on the economics re: eBook pricing. Mike Detlefsen gets an unacceptable answer from Amazon.

Note: I will be in Austin, Texas, next week for this little gathering. If you’re in the halls, twitter me and maybe we can rendezvous to say hi or have a coffee.

Posted 05 March 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

Array