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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) ° Also tagged: , ,

TKC 84 Scott Stossel

News – An interview with Army Sgt. Andre Corbin, who is headed for active duty in Afghanistan next month. His gear will include a new Kindle and accessories in a sponsorship by M-Edge Accessories. Andre describes how well-suited eReader technology is for military personnel serving in remote areas, and he announces his intention to blog about his experience in Afghanistan at Corbinistan.com . Also, comments by M-Edge CEO Patrick Mish on why he and his team were so enthusiastic in their support for this project.

Tech Tip – Click here if you have not yet received the latest slight update for your Kindle or DX software. Listeners’ comments on my Facebook page indicate the update is a pretty good tuneup for the Kindle’s operating system, increasing reliability and speed for some actions.

Interview – Scott Stossel, deputy editor of The Atlantic magazine, describes the genesis of an innovative partnership with Amazon to provide two high-quality short stories each month for $3.99 each. Scott also tells what reaction to the program has been so far from readers and authors alike. If you’d like to provide feedback to him on the program, you can email Scott directly at ScStossel AT TheAtlantic.com – and feel free to let him know you heard about The Atlantic’s Kindle short stories on The Kindle Chronicles!

Content – I’m holding over until next week’s show a good way to organize your Kindle comment using Instapaper AND Calibre. For an advance peek, check out Dave Slusher’s blog post describing his method.

Comments – This week I’ll post your comments as a separate episode.

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. Thanks to Octovo for sponsoring this contest!

Posted 26 February 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (3) ° Also tagged: , , , , , , ,

TKC 82 Steve Garfield

News – Item 1: Will Random House align with Amazon in the Great eBooks Price War? Bufo Calvin does some sleuthing on a Random House executive who worked for 18 months on the Kindle team, then returned to Random House. RH’s Madeline McIntosh actually spoke out against the idea of publishers’ setting of retail eBook prices, so maybe there’s hope that the biggest of the Big Six publishers will break ranks with the Apple Five. MobileRead and Gear Diary have more, including links to the Random House Twitter stream and Facebook page, places you might want to add words of encouragement. Click here for members of the Apple Five. Item 2: Is Amazon planning to give free Kindles to every Amazon Prime member? Michael Arrington of TechCrunch thinks so.

Tech Tip – Inkmesh is checking each hour for new non-public-domain eBooks content. Sweet!

Interview – Steve Garfield of SteveGarfield.com has been videoblogging since January 1, 2004, and as of January he is now a Kindle author. His new book, Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business, came out in Kindle and other eBook format as well as paper, published by Wiley. We spoke on February 9, 2010, by Skype (including a video recording I’ll post separately) and discussed how eBooks in the future may succeed in providing what I found myself describing as Engaged Social Reading. Steve’s next event promoting his book will be February 25 at 6:30 p.m. at Fenway Park, Boston.

Content – Amazon and the British Library team up to offer for free 65,000 newly scanned literary gems from the 19th century. Coming this spring to a Kindle near you! Note: I was only off a hundred years in referring to the 18th century on the podcast.

Comments – From anonymous, Jean Remple, Greg Montague, James T. Atkinson, and Sean Adams.

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 brand new 6-inch Kindle and one accessory from Octovo. The drawing will at noon on April 1, 2010. Thanks to Elle Moran and Octovo for sponsoring this contest! And thanks to all 165 of you who have signed up as fans of the podcast.

Note: For a guest blog post I wrote at e-ReaderFeeder, titled “How I Learned to Love the Kindle and Start a Podcast,” click here. Thanks to James Zakaria for the invitation!

Posted 12 February 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (6) ° Also tagged: , , ,

TKC 80 Brad Stone

News – Amazon beats expectations by reporting a whopping 71-percent increase in net income for the fourth quarter of 2009 and offers its first-ever information on how many Kindles the company has sold. Apple presents to the world its gorgeous tablet, the iPad. In the long-running soap opera known as “Who Will Kill the Kindle?” Steve Jobs’s presentation had plenty of pundits declaring “game over.” Not so much on Wall Street, or among four leading Kindle bloggers – Andrys Basten, Stephen Windwalker, Abhi, and Bufo Calvin.

Tech Tip – How to keep track on your Kindle of words you’ve looked up using the built-in Oxford American Dictionary or another dictionary which you’ve set to the default dictionary.

Interview – Brad Stone, New York Times technology reporter in San Francisco, is one of the lucky few who not only touched but had a chance to try out an iPad at Apple’s debut extravaganza on January 27. I spoke with him that night about his impressions of Apple’s new creation, and about what he thinks the impact will be on the Kindle and other dedicated eReaders. This episode contains the first portion of our conversation. The conclusion is posted here, at my new companion podcast, The Reading Edge.

Content – Harvard Business Review and Amazon launch an innovative use of the Kindle Store, selling HBR titles by chapters as Short Cuts. I sampled the $3.16 book summary of The Innovator’s Dilemma: Why New Technologies Cause Great Companies to Fail, by HBS Professor Clayton M. Christensen.

Comments – Because of the volume of terrific comments prompted by the release of the iPad, I have created a separate episode for the comments this week. Click here to hear from Pastor Mark Pierce, Mary McManus, Bob Anderson, Jim Jones, Kipp Poe, Jean Remple, Marie Sotiriou, Dan Meyers, John Halkias, Candy Yates, and Stace Wile.

Posted 29 January 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (4) ° Also tagged: , , , ,

TKC 80a Your Comments on iPad

I’ve been reading nonstop this week about the iPad’s impact on the Kindle and eReaders, and some of the smartest commentary so far comes from listeners of The Kindle Chronicles.

So this is a special episode comprising just your comments. Many thanks to those who joined the conversation, namely Pastor Mark Pierce, Mary McManus, Bob Anderson, Jim Jones (in photo at right), Kipp Poe, Jean Remple, Marie Sotiriou, Dan Meyers, John Halkias, Candy Yates, and Stace Wile.

There’s more to be said, so please feel free to email me at PodChronicles AT Gmail DOT com, or leave a comment here on the show notes page. You can also leave an audio comment by calling 206-666-2713.

You might be interested in a Wired.com article titled “Apple iPad Raises the Stakes for eReaders” by Priya Ganapati. I’m proud to be quoted by her as a die-hard e-reader fan, and I thought she did a good job reporting a complex story in a fair way.

Posted 29 January 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (3) ° Also tagged: , ,

TKC 79 Seth Harwood

News – Amazon announces it will open the Kindle to application developers. Abhi has some ideas on good candidates. Authors and publishers using the Digital Text Platform for Kindle will get a sweeter deal as of June 30. David Pogue goes ballistic when his daughter discovers that Barnes & Noble has been lying about the true weight of the nook. Stephen Windwalker’s homerun headline on the matter (and his savvy take on the DTP change.) Amazon’s Kindle marketing department comes up with the equivalent of free beer.

Tech Tip – Via listener Bill Carson, a tip for sharing web content with someone in a place like, say, China, where not everything is available the way it is in the U.S.

Interview – Seth Harwood talks about his experimental and successful journey via podcasting to publication of his crime novel, Jack Wakes Up, and his new collection of well-honed stories available in Kindle edition, A Long Way from Disney.

Content – Via Jean Remple, a great explanation in The Times of Apple’s whatever-it-is, to be revealed next week. Two new Kindle books worth checking out: One Way Journey by Dean Whitbread and Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business by Steve Garfield.

And your comments…

Posted 23 January 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (3) ° Also tagged: , ,

TKC 78 Harvey Chute

Intro – How was Las Vegas? I ruminated on our stay for CES here.

News – Can the Kindle really account for 90 percent of all eBook sales? TBI Research says yes, according to unnamed sources. Abhi says it’s not totally crazy. Are you getting tired of HarperCollins delaying eBook releases? Some of us got rowdy at the Amazon listing for Game Change, leaving one-star reviews that maybe will get someone’s attention. Stephen Windwalker notes the book is still selling well. Marion Maneker muses about how much easier it would be to match supply to demand if publishers took advantage of the eBook platform instead of delaying eBook versions. The National Federation of the Blind settles with ASU. Amazon makes it easy to send support to Mercy Corps to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti.

Tech Tip – Via Andrys Basten, here’s the official word on whether you should turn your Kindle all the way off at the end of the day, or simply put it in sleep mode.

Interview – Harvey Chute, webmaster and owner of the fast-growing Kindle Boards forum, sat down for a visit at CES in Las Vegas. He was busy learning about all the rival eBook readers, and he told us about what surprised him most in the eBook TechZone. Check out some of his photos and commentary on eBooks here.

Content – Thoughts on Michael Seringhaus’s recently published “E-Book Transactions: Amazon ‘Kindles’ the Copy Ownershhip Debate” in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology.

… and lots of comments!

Posted 15 January 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (3) ° Also tagged: , ,

TKC 77 Patrick Mish

News – Kindle DX goes global.

Tech Tip – Can’t delete an item from your Kindle using with the 5-way controller? Rick Askenase to the rescue…

Interview – Not everyone with an eBook entrepreneurial mission is making eBooks. Patrick Mish, CEO of M-Edge Accessories, tells how he and his wife reacted early to the eBook boom by focusing with laser-like intensity on covers and other accessories.

Content – I can’t say I’ve managed to get this new source of newpaper content to actually work on my Kindle, but I’ve gotten close enough to know that PressDesign is worth checking out.

Comments – Lots of great comments on covers, the mysterious 311 command, and more. Including an audio comment on content from Linda Hopkins.

We’re headed back to CES for more interviews in the eBook TechZone. I’ll be uploading them to the new podcast I’m creating, The Reader’s Edge, which will cover eBooks in a more general way than The Kindle Chronicles. Stay tuned!

Posted 08 January 2010 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (6) ° Also tagged: , , ,

TKC Extra – CES 1

We are about to head over to the Las Vegas Convention Center to check out the eBook TechZone at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

This episode contains audio clips from last night’s opening keynote speech by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. They let the blogger/press contingent in first, so we found ourselves in front row seats, which was great except that it meant it would not have been easy to slip out early, which we were tempted to do. The photo was taken by Elias Tsang, who sat to my right. He blogs at Rotpod.

The Microsoft presentation included comments about the new Blio eReader software and a couple of mentions of the Kindle.

Today I hope to get my hands on a Plastic Logic Que, an Alex, and maybe an eDGe. Stay tuned!

Posted 07 January 2010 † Len Edgerly § About ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , ,

TKC 76 Deb, Darlene & Tom

News – Eric Engleman of TechFlash reports that Amazon’s no-numbers announcements of record Kindle sales are getting on Wall Street’s nerves. One of his sources is this item from Reuters.

Tech Tip – It’s New Year’s Eve. Do you know the IP Address of your Kindle? Thanks to Kevin Warner, I learn how to find it.

Tom

Interview – Darlene and her sister Deborah talk about how they share Kindle books using the same Amazon account. Separately, I talk with Tom, the third Kindle buddy sharing Darlene’s account. He lets us know that a Mighty Bright XtraFlex2 may not necessarily meet with your bed partner’s approval.

Content – On listener Allen MacDiarmid’s recommendation, I spent $4 to purchase Why Is This Hill So Steep?, a very promising analysis of the history (so far) of eBooks, by Steve Jordan.

Comments – Greg Montague on a new game for the Kindle via the 2.3 update, Kevin Warner’s Whispernet troubles in western Australia, Patrick Scott’s link to “And the word was KINDLE,” an excellent profile of the Kindle in FLYP featuring a video interview with Jeff Bezos, Jonathan Bloom on DTP, Jim Jones on the difference between the story and the book, Kathy on why she bought nooks instead of Kindles for her sons, and David DeMorest on why he sent his nook back unopened and kept the Kindle.

Next week – Darlene and I will be in Las Vegas to cover the International Consumer Electronics Show, checking out all the would-be Kindle Killers. Stay tuned!

Posted 31 December 2009 † Len Edgerly § Kindle ‡ Comments (12) ° Also tagged: , ,