E-book sales rose by 183% during the first half of 2010 compared to the equivalent period of 2009 according to the Association of American Publishers. It was predicted that 11 million US citizens would own some form of digital reading device by the close of September 2010.
It seems that e-book readers are actually encouraging people to read more. Owners of the Amazon Kindle Reader are estimated to buy 3.3 times more books after they buy their Kindle than they did prior to having their own reader.
Right now, Amazon is the biggest seller of e-books by a country mile. They currently have 700,000 Kindle books for sale on their website – and there are a further 1.8 million out of copyright books that are free to download. Amazon has made a wide range of free apps available to allow users to read Kindle books without a Kindle reader. This could conceivably impact upon Kindle reader hardware sales – but Amazon are clearly happy to accept this in order to secure sales of Kindle books.
E-book readers really took off in 2009 – a phenomenon triggered mainly by the launch of Amazon’s Kindle 2.0 in February of that year. They should probably still be regarded as a niche product – but they are starting to spread beyond the early adopters. Recent price cuts, prompted by the launch of the Apple iPad which can, amongst many other things, be used to read e-books, have helped to make e-book readers more appealing to the buying public.
Over the festive season of 2009, the Kindle reader became Amazon’s most gifted item ever. It is currently their number one selling item – and it has held this position for some time. The launch of the third generation Kindle at the start of August has been a good response to the iPad – and the Kindle is now selling faster than ever.
The public has clearly become accustomed to the idea of e-book readers and e-books by now. At the moment it seems that there is enough room in the market for both the specialist Kindle and the multi-functional iPad. It remains to be seen whether this will continue, or if there might be a move to more versatile e-book readers when Amazon eventually develop color e-ink technology displays. However, e-books are going to be a permanent feature of the publishing landscape going forward and seem likely to make up an increasing percentage of total book sales in the near future.
This week, you’ll be able to control your Western Digital set-top box with a free Android app. And you’ll love it. Only days after releasing an equivalent app for iOS, Western Digital has just released WD TV Remote, a free Android app that connects to your Western Digital set-top box over a WiFi connection and allows you to control it from any Android-based device. The app includes one-touch access to every online service available, keyboard entry using Android’s on-screen keyboard, a gesture pad for quick navigation and the ability to connect multiple Android devices at once. WD TV Remote requires Android 2.1 or later to install, as well as a WiFi network and third-generation WD TV Live Hub or TV Live system to run. In other news, development on an Android app to paint your house via gesture controls is proceeding quite nicely.
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