Are you someone that likes to read? Or perhaps you are looking for that fantastic gift item for someone who is a reading enthusiast. There are many excellent gift suggestions in the marketplace currently for those who get pleasure from reading. There’s everything from your standard gift card to the local book retailer to the very cool Kindle Fire which can be great for someone that is also extremely tech wise, enjoying the most up-to-date and finest in gadgets.

The e-reader sector has skyrocketed lately. First the popularity of the Kindle reader struck, then the Nook and Sony e-reader.  Nowadays these devices are found in the residences of many individuals since rates have come down and gadgets have gotten smaller sized and may include a lot more special features. You’ll be able to virtually take your entire choices with you in a system which weighs in at less than a common paperback book. Envision exactly what that can mean for people who travel a lot for business or pleasure.

The Amazon Kindle Touch is an example of an original gadget that has had a good overhaul. No longer should you mess with a bulky keypad like with the initial if it is something you did not really utilize. Making your alternatives is now as easy as pressing the screen. You’ll find these kinds of gadgets getting more and more sleek as they rise in acceptance. The Kindle Fire is in fact similar to a smaller version of an iPad as you can obtain full Internet connectivity with this gadget also.

When you have a look at Amazon nowadays, you’ll notice a huge rise in books which are available today as Kindle versions. Ebook sales are on an upswing which signifies an amazing potential for freelance writers too. Ebook publishing as a widespread occurrence makes it increasingly simple for any person to self publish their particular titles. If you look into the Kindle Ebook store, you will notice several popular titles and writers that you might have never been aware of before. Most of these writers are able to become recognized for their publishing since this particular market currently exists.

If you have young children or teens who like to read, an e-book reader could be the ideal gift idea. Picture their shock when they open up their new Kindle or Nook which is totally packed with their favorite writer or series of books. Many mothers and fathers would certainly rather see their children with the Kindle in their fingers rather than the newest hand held gaming system. It can be a good way to promote a love for reading.

Many individuals who love to read may think that reading from a device similar to this would be difficult to get accustomed to. Genuine book fans may resist because they adore the feel of actually curling up with a great book to read. It may be somewhat tough to imagine the same sort of sensation curling up with your Kindle, but it is not really that difficult to get used to and many people really love it after they give it a shot.

Cloud-based gaming company OnLive is taking another big step in its evolution, with the launch of apps for mobile phones and handsets that will turn them into gaming devices. By introducing apps for iOS and Android devices, users will now be able to play even high-quality games on devices that have a fraction of the processing power included in most high-end gaming PCs.

OnLive let users watch streams of others gaming through tablet apps in the past, but the newest apps take the experience a step further: OnLive users will now be able to natively play games on devices like the iPhone, iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and Amazon Kindle Fire through a new generation of apps.

The gaming service will have more than 20 games specifically adapted for tablet-based touch control, including Rockstar’s hit L.A. Noire, with virtual game pads built in. It will have an additional 150 games that users can play if they have an OnLive Universal Wireless Controller, which sells for .99.

OnLive’s latest release makes gaming more accessible to users — even those who don’t have gaming consoles or high-powered computing equipment. Because gameplay is processed in the cloud and streamed over the Internet, devices need just a limited amount of power to enable engaging gaming experiences.

Those streams are also relatively low-bandwidth, with the average bandwidth required for TV or PC gaming about 1 Mbps to 5 Mbps, which isn’t much different from watching an HD movie on Netflix. Streams sent to mobile devices are even lower bandwidth, at about 0.5 to 2 Mbps. As a result, it works on WiFi, 4G LTE and even 3G networks.

With the launch of its new mobile apps, OnLive is now available on TVs, PCs and Macs, and a wide range of mobile devices. The company launched its services about a year ago in the U.S. Since then, the company has expanded to the U.K. and added more than 200 video game titles for users to choose from.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• What Amazon’s new Kindle line means for Apple, Netflix and online media
• The Internet of Things: What It Is, Why It Matters
• Report: How Mobile Cloud Computing Will Change Tech

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

Apple may have reason to welcome, not fear, the growing popularity of the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is on track to become the No. 2 best-selling tablet. According to J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz in a note sent late last week, the Kindle could encourage, not take away from, Apple’s own iPad sales. But in order for that to be true, there are certain conditions that have to be met.

Moskowitz is mostly reiterating what he heard from Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppeheimer in a recent sit-down with them, during which they discussed the Kindle Fire’s role in relation to the iPad. Moskowitz came away with the clear impression that “Apple is not seeing much pressure from lower-priced tablets,” and that current Kindle Fire buyers “could gravitate to more feature-rich experiences” down the road based on their initial use of the cheaper Amazon device.

J.P. Morgan and Apple execs apparently aren’t all that concerned over Amazon’s new Android tablet, which is already projected to beat out the sales of all other tablets based on the Google mobile platform by the end of this quarter. And it’s true that the Kindle Fire could act as a sort of gateway drug, turning users on to the tablet experience but leaving them craving features missing from the Amazon device, like a full-fledged market of applications targeted to large-screen devices, a larger screen itself and cellular data access.

It’s an admittedly rosy outlook from a source with a vested interest in seeing this outcome come to pass, however. There’s another obvious possibility to contend with too: Users could find that the Kindle Fire provides everything they really need in a tablet experience (web browsing, media playback) for an acceptable price and look no further. Whether or not those users would’ve looked at iPads otherwise, or whether another, significant portion of Fire owners might not find themselves wanting more is another question.

I think Apple’s optimistic outlook should pan out, however, so long as one thing remains true: tablets continue to encroach upon and replace PCs as primary computing devices for general users. In that case, the Kindle Fire and the iPad likely will indeed enter into a mutually beneficial orbit, with the cheaper device drawing in first-time tablet users and the iPad acting as a sort of graduation gift for when they opt to use tablets as their main computers.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Forecast: the evolution of the e-book market
• Disruptapalooza 2011: how Amazon’s Kindle is changing the portable media game
• What Amazon’s new Kindle line means for Apple, Netflix and online media

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

It seems like ages since Amazon introduced us to the 9 Fire at a hectic New York City event, but in truth that was only about six weeks ago. Maybe our perception of time is warped because we’ve been hearing talk about this 7-inch Android tablet for months now. Maybe it’s because Amazon launching a tablet seemed like such a natural thing to do after Barnes & Noble paved the way with its Nook Color. Or, maybe it’s just because the gadget Amazon shipped looks nigh-identical to the 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook that we’ve had for, well, ages.

For whatever the reason, what Amazon has delivered is a device that is intimately familiar yet mysterious — a simple, minimalistic exterior design hiding a flashy, seemingly quite trick customization that’s sitting atop a decidedly ho-hum Android Gingerbread build. Our questions leading up to this review were many: How will it handle sideloading? Are the battery life and performance better than the PlayBook? Can a tablet that costs two hundred bucks stand a chance against those that cost two and three times as much? C’mon baby, click on through to find out.

Continue reading Amazon Kindle Fire review

Amazon Kindle Fire review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments
Engadget

The fact that writing of all kinds has been freed from the confines of the printed world isn’t really new. But while the Amazon Kindle has led to an explosion of e-book publishing, some people feel storytelling hasn’t really taken advantage of the social revolution that comes with going digital. Union Square Ventures partner Albert Wenger is one of those people, and in an interview with GigaOM, he talked about why USV is the lead fund in a .5-million Series A funding round for a Toronto-based startup called Wattpad, which has a created a simple service that allows writers of all kinds to share their stories and create a community of readers.

The Kindle has been a great success, says Wenger, and e-books have become hugely popular — to the point where sales of electronic titles have eclipsed sales of printed books for many retailers, including Amazon — but so far, this is mostly just a reshaping of the traditional book-publishing industry. Wattpad, he says, takes a “digital native” approach to the same idea: that digital tools allow anyone to become a publisher, that writing can be shared easily with users anywhere, and that writers can also connect with their readers. Says Wenger:

Wattpad didn’t start with the existing industry structure, where there’s a printed book and all sorts of existing rightsholders. It simply lets anyone tell a story and lets anyone read a story — so it taps into this fundamental human need for storytelling in a way that’s unique to the Internet.

The Internet — where anyone can publish

Wenger said Wattpad’s net-native approach fit with the investment thesis that has seen Union Square Ventures invest in Twitter, Tumblr and other social-media success stories. “The fundamental promise of the internet is that anyone can publish, just like anyone can tweet,” he says. “That’s what the internet is good at.” Unlike some other writing-oriented services, Wattpad doesn’t have any “big, heavy-handed editing process up front,” says Wenger. Writers simply upload their content and then tap into the community of readers. In some cases, users create cover art for other users’ books and stories.

While the Kindle and the disruption of the traditional book-publishing industry have gotten a lot of attention over the past year or so — with e-book authors like Amanda Hocking and John Locke becoming celebrities through self-publishing — Wattpad has more or less flown under the radar. Although it has been around in its current form since 2007, the company doesn’t get a lot of press, perhaps in part because it is based in Toronto. But its reading community has been growing steadily: The iPhone app alone (there’s an Android and a BlackBerry app as well) has been downloaded more than 5 million times, and Wattpad recently signed up its one-millionth user.

In a nutshell, the service makes it easy for anyone to write a story and upload it, and the mobile app and website then allow the writer to connect with readers through the Wattpad service. The company likes to call itself “YouTube for e-books,” because the focus is on self-publishing — not just by people who are professional authors, but by anyone who wants to write. The service sees more than 250,000 new stories uploaded every month, and Wattpad has more than 3 million already on file.

But doesn’t the Kindle Singles program allow writers to do the same thing with Amazon’s platform, as authors like Hocking and Locke have shown? Yes, says Wenger — but Amazon doesn’t make it easy for writers to connect with their audience through its platform (although it seems to be trying to move in that direction with the launch of features such as its @author program). In any case, the USV partner says there is room for both to co-exist as the market for writing of all kinds continues to expand.

Writing and publishing, plus a community

“I’m reading a book on my Kindle right now, but I’m also reading a story on my iPhone with Wattpad,” says Wenger. “On Wattpad you can interact directly with the author, which gives it a very different feeling.” In some ways, Wenger says, Wattpad follows the same pattern as Tumblr has. Despite the fact that there were already existing blog-publishing tools such as WordPress (please see disclosure below), Tumblr has continued to grow because there’s a “built-in feedback mechanism and a built-in community — as opposed to being something that’s just floating out there in the vast sea of the internet.” Adds Wenger:

What we’ve found is that platforms without that legacy structure [like the Kindle] tend to be more powerful in the long run. The Kindle leverages a large body of already published works, but it has to make tradeoffs in order to do that.

Other services that take a similar approach include Scribd, which began as a simple web-hosting service for documents but has expanded to try to appeal to writers and publishers. And much like other web services that rely on “user-generated content” — including YouTube — both Scribd and Wattpad have been criticized in the past for hosting copyrighted content that has been uploaded by users who don’t own the rights (Wattpad now has a system in place that allows authors and rightsholders to have content removed from the service). Co-founder Allan Lau says Wattpad’s main goal is simply to make it as easy as possible for writers of all kinds to find and connect with readers.

In addition to Union Square, the Series A funding round for Wattpad includes W Media Ventures — a Vancouver, British Columbia fund founded by Boris Wertz, who helped sell online book retailer AbeBooks to Amazon in 2008 — as well as a new Toronto fund called Golden Venture Partners and a number of Wattpad’s initial angel investors.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users Jeremy Mates and Zarko Drincic

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Building a better paywall: strategies for monetizing news content
• The state of the e-book lending market: Business models and challenges
• Cracks in the Spine of the Book Business

alt=''
border='0'
/>

GigaOM

E-books have become very popular over the last couple of years. A great deal of the credit for that should go to the Amazon Kindle reader which, whilst it may not have been the first reader to be released, has been a real driving force in the growth and development of the market for both e-book readers and the associated e-books.

E-books are predicted to make up somewhere between 12 to 15% of total book sales in 2011. The market is still developing, but e-books are becoming an ever more important factor in the publishing world. The importance of e-books may even be a little higher than the percentage sales suggest. At the risk of stating the obvious, it seems likely that e-book reader owners will be likely to buy, and read, a lot of books. They are, in other words, the target demographic for the major publishing firms.

So it’s important that publishers get the price of e-books right. Or else they run the risk of upsetting some of their best customers. So what, exactly, would a fair price for an e-book be?

E-books don’t use paper, ink or bindings. Also, since they are not a physical product, there are no fees associated with delivery. So you would expect them to be quite a bit cheaper than normal printed books, wouldn’t you?

Or maybe not. According to publishers, the cost of paper, ink, bindings and transportation is only a small part of bringing a book to market. There are editing costs, proof reading costs, marketing costs etc. All things considered, the lack of a few reams of paper is, according to a number of major publishers, neither here nor there.

To a certain extent, you can see some logic in this argument. But it begs the question why, if these factors don’t influence book prices, is there such a difference between paperback and hardback prices? The argument doesn’t ring true.

Until quite recently, Amazon had a publicly declared policy of setting e-book prices at $9.99 or less. Until the big publishing houses took issue with it at least. One publisher’s books were briefly withdrawn from Amazon’s site at one point.

The agency pricing model has now been adopted by many publishers. What that means that the publishers set the selling price instead of the retailer. You may, whilst searching Amazon for something to read on your Kindle 3, come across the notice “this price was set by the publisher” – which is just Amazon’s way of making it clear that they did not set the price for that particular book.

On the other hand, many business analysts have suggested that Amazon’s $9.99 target price was unsustainable in the long term and that this may have been a loos leader from Amazon to allow users to get accustomed to e-books whilst simultaneously boosting Kindle sales.

Unlike a printed book, you can’t pass on your e-book to friends and family when you’re done with it (Kindle owners can now “lend” e-books out – for a fixed period only). You can’t sell it to a second hand book store or donate it to a charity shop or local library. E-books offer fewer end of life options than a standard print book in other words. Considering that you have fewer options with e-books, shouldn’t the price also be lower?

Today, the selling price of an e-book is whatever the publisher dictates. Not that means that you have to agree with them and pay that price of course.You could just wait for a couple of months and the price of the e-book may, as is often the case with video games, reduce significantly following the initial launch period.

You could even decide to spend your hard earned dollars on something entirely different – a DVD, a video game, tickets to a concert. You could watch TV or listen to the radio instead of reading a book. Books are, for the most part, a discretionary purchase and need to compete with a number of other products and services for both your leisure time and your money. As with any other discretionary purchase, an e-book should be pitched at the price that you are willing to pay for it. Not a penny more, not a penny less.