Ryan C. Miller.com - Social Media, Design, Tech, Commentary - broadcasting from Utica, NY

iBooks doesn’t have Sh*t but Amazon is full of it

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Miller4 Comments

Have you ever seen Shit My Dad Says on Twitter? Check it out. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Really funny stuff. Justin Hepburn, who set up the account as a place to share his father’s snippets of wisdom, currently has 1.4million followers, a TV deal, and a new book which is a collection of stories and essays (also called Sh*t My Dad Says).

I’ve checked out the preview on Amazon for the book and decided that it was something that would make for a quick and fun summer read.

I also picked up an iPad a few weeks ago and have been very impressed by how many things I use it for (full review coming next week). What I haven’t really spent a lot of time with is buying / reading full length books on it from the iBooks store. At the risk of not enjoying the experience, I figured Sh*t My Dad Says would be a good starter book.

However, the iBooks store currently doesn’t stock it. Not that big of a deal, right? I’ve heard that you can just grab a Kindle app and purchase / read any Kindle books on your iPad.

But here’s what I found when I went to Amazon to purchase the Kindle version:

Notice anything strange?

Here’s a quick observation on the difference between bytes and binding…

If you look hard, you’ll see that the new hardcover edition is priced at $8.79 and the Kindle edition (digital download) is $9.99. A brand new, hardcover book should NEVER cost more than an e-edition. Ever. Call me cheap, but the cost associated with moving a couple megabytes of text is infinitely smaller than the cost of printing and shipping a hardcover book. Never mind the antiquated royalty system between publishers and authors, I’m not going to touch that here. The whole purpose of e-readers is to (hopefully) do for reading what iTunes did for music (granted, there are some bad byproducts to this system as well) by making it convenient, instant, scalable, and cost effective.

But as the model stands right now, I think e-books in their current form and pricing structure are majorly flawed, no matter how cool the reading device is. Amazon is asking me to pay more for what is essentially the same experience as a paper book (without being able to share it with someone else when I’m done - another rant altogether).

Publishers need to either charge less because consumers recognize that there is substantially less cost involved with distribution and substantially more restrictions when it comes to sharing an e-book vs. a paper book - OR make the e-book a completely different experience than the paper book- one that is worth a premium price. How? I can think of a few ways:

• Ability to share chapters or the whole book with friends after completing it.
• The ability to annotate pages, add hyperlinks and share notes with everyone else who has bought that ebook.
• Enable book club style features where every reader can interact with other readers in real time through the book, commenting and suggesting other books.
• Allow for authors to have Q and As IN the book or allow users to peel back pages to see earlier drafts.

Things like this would differentiate the ebook experience, provide a kick ass way of interacting with other readers and essentially make each book come with its own built-in online community (not to mention sell a lot more Kindles, Nooks and iPads so more people could take part in that experience). Need more? Seth Godin has another awesome idea for  a paperback Kindle.

Am I asking for too much here? Do you think the problem is that the tech is in its infancy at the moment, or do you blame the publishers (or authors)? Do you have an e-reader device and has it made you read more - if so, how would you weigh in on the pricing, buying experience? Fire away in the comments, please.

Fixing News or Fixing Paper

Posted on July 21, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

In Utica, NY we have one daily paper that’s actually printed - The Observer Dispatch. When I was checking it this morning I noticed that they have launched an ‘online e-edition.’  I’m a curious creature - so I checked it out.

This is a paid premium service ($10 / mo. or $1 extra per year if you’re a paper subscriber).

My first impression was that it was basically a clickable PDF scan of the paper next to the text version of the article that you would normally see on the web. I was able to turn pages, zoom, etc.  But it left me scratching my head…how is this a premium product compared to the regular website?

Granted, it is kind of cool the first time you see it once you get the hang of navigating. And the PDF downloads on the sample looked great. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud them for trying something different, but I get a sense that they’re trying to provide an alternative to the tangibility of paper - and give people who read a newspaper the same layout they’re used to. I just think there are some missed opportunities. No stories had hyperlinks in them or commenting capability, just a link to the ‘full story’ with a graphic of the paper to the left of the text.

What about moving to the next level of a newspaper website, providing content as well features that make it highly sharable, mobile, and interacitve… Charge for that.

What kinds of features? First, allow people to comment on everything, from pictures, to each news story. Show the most popular articles on the front pages as determined by the users - above the fold. Feature local bloggers or most popular comments. Take submissions from the community- a la Huffington Post.  Use services like Facebook Connect or the TWitter API to let users tie their social profiles to comments and take the discussion across platforms.

Check out Gina’s piece on media transitions over at Save the Media (don’t stop with that one, she’s got a lot of great posts). She argues that through these transitions Something will be gained and something will be lost. Get over it. But trust your readers and users to help find ways to deliver the content they want at a fair price.

Take It Mobile

I should also mention that the New York Times is crushing the mobile gig. I’m super impressed by their iPhone app - everything from the layout, to search really makes reading the news on a mobile device feel natural (now if only I could tweet links instead of e-mailing them).  But the point is that they’re building something that’s got a slick design, good content, and mobile. Once they get the user connectivity down, it would be a service that I would glady pay a monthly fee for.

The same can be said of the way they are utilizing the Kindle to deliver content and make it a revenue stream (though I haven’t used it - it looks damn good).

I can only speak for myself when I say that I would gladly pay for quality content that is on-demand, easy to navigate, mobile, and can be consumed on a device of my choosing. If newspapers think that what will save them is giving people the digital version of thumbing through a paper, then they’re in bigger trouble than we thought. This isn’t a discussion about whether or not content should always be free. I’m just saying that all eyes are on the newspaper industry to try something bold. Starting with making a kick ass premium (but affordable) service for users, or finding a better way to create value for advertisers is a start.
What do you think? Am I way off base on this? What’s your opinion of the e-edition?