Amazon is considering the launch of a subscription service for e-books and is currently in talks with book publishers, a Wall Street Journal report said on Sunday.According to the report, “people familiar with the matter” describe Amazon’s plan as “a Netflix Inc.-like service for digital books, in which customers would pay an annual fee to access a library of content.” Users would be able to download content to their computer, smartphone device and tablet.
It’s not certain how much progress has been made with the talks, the source said. Also, it seems that not everyone is behind the proposed service, with some publishing executives worried it might “lower the value of books and because it could strain their relationships with other retailers that sell their books.” The WSJ report says that the online retail giant would begin with a digital library of older books. The service would be rolled out to Amazon Prime customers, who currently fork out $79 a year for fast shipping, as well as access to a digital library of thousands of movies and TV shows, which can be streamed to a computer or mobile device. The plan is to offer a limited number of free e-book downloads per month.
Why did the beautiful CIA operative seduce the handsome yet ruthless former KGB agent in Chapter Four? And why didn't the mysterious clairvoyant use her psychic powers to pinpoint the serial killer's location?Questions arise when you're reading a book. Many readers--if the author were near--would likely seek additional clarification on key plot points or characters. And non-fiction readers might pepper the writer with questions pertaining to the book's thesis, or to correct a factual error. A new Kindle feature makes this reader-author interaction a lot easier. Called @author, it allows readers to ask questions while reading a Kindle book, or from an Amazon Author Page.
Amazon will tweet your question to the author, and post it on his or her Amazon Author Page. Brevity is essential, however, as questions from the Kindle are limited to just 100 characters. For longer inquiries, go to the writer's Author Page.
The @author program is in beta release, and a few well-known writers are participating, including Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief) and Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad). Amazon has a list of participating authors here. Sorry, you can't query dead authors--not yet, anyway.
Many people believe that the Kindle is a simple e-reader which retrieves its books from Amazon.com. However many people are not aware of the unique features that this simple device offers.On top of just being able to download books and magazines, this device can actually browse the internet. No it can’t handle video’s or any extensive web elements, but simple websites with mostly text on them are easily pulled up. Googling is a snap as you browse about on FREE 3G internet, and other sites work great as well.Want to find out when the next movie is playing, or search for a great restaurant? Check on your Kindle! Many people underestimate the 3G capabilities of the Kindle and would be pleasantly surprised to see that it can do most of the functions that smart phones can without having to pay the monthly bills associated with them.
What Kindle Should I purchase?
You will see that there is a slight price gap between the Kindle 3G with ‘special offers’ and one without. These special offers are actually ads that appear when your Kindle is not powered on, and for some people they can be quite annoying. If you want to save money, then purchasing the Kindle 3G with special offers is the way to go especially since there is a hack that can remove those pesky ads (as seen below). If you don’t want to deal with jail breaking your Kindle, then purchase the one without ads and save yourself the headache.
What else can my Kindle do?
If free 3G internet access and unlimited e-books/magazines wasn’t enough, then you can satisfy your greedy appetites by indulging in the Kindle’s other features. For one, this e-reader has an incredibly long battery. It’s advertised to have a battery life of two months, but really the battery lasts for only a few weeks with continuous use, which is still a significant amount of time for any wireless device.Another unique feature is that you can store/play music files.
If you can’t beat the rules, go around ‘em. That seems to be the idea behind Amazon’s new Web-based Kindle Cloud Reader, a transparent attempt to give iPad readers direct access to both their Kindle books and the Amazon bookstore without cutting Apple a 30-percent slice of the pie.
Amazon’s launch of the iPad-optimized Web service is the latest blow in a battle that has been brewing since February, when Apple announced it would take a 30 percent cut of sales made through in-app purchases of books, periodicals, music, and movies—and that sellers couldn’t use their websites to offer better deals than available through the apps. Cupertino later relaxed its requirements a bit, but still mandated that Amazon and other ebook app vendors scrub their apps of direct links to their online stores. And the Financial Times showed a new way forward in June by offering one of the first subscription-based iPad-optimized websites.
Amazon is following the Financial Times model with the Kindle Cloud Reader; while its new read.amazon.com site is also compatible with the Chrome and Safari desktop browsers, the site is clearly aimed at iPad Safari users. (An iPhone version isn’t available yet.) When you log into your Amazon account from within the app for the first time, you’re shown your entire library of ebooks—and prompted to add the page to your iPad’s home screen. The Web app claims 50MB of storage space on your iPad, which in turn gives you the ability to store cloud-based books for offline reading.
The Web app comes with a number of downsides; it simply doesn’t offer as alluring a reading experience as the official iPad app. For one thing, there’s no access to periodicals: If you recently started subscribing to newspapers or magazines through Amazon, you’ll need to stick with the iPad app. The same goes for the ability to share book quotes via Facebook and Twitter. And there’s no highlighting or note-taking enabled—though you can see the highlights and notes you’ve made using Amazon’s other Kindle apps (or actual hardware Kindles). Even the page-turning is little bit uglier: Readers merely tap to change screens instead of “swiping” back-and-forth. If anything, the experience is closer to the desktop Kindle app than the iPad app.
The only clear advantage to the Web app, in fact, seems to be the easy access to Amazon’s store. The iPad-optimized store is beautifully designed, with a narrow-but-total focus on Kindle publications instead of the vast grab-bag of products and services available at Amazon.com. Unless or until Amazon can match the elegance of its new iPad-friendly ebook store with its cloud-based reading experience, though, the Web app won’t become a true page-turner.
