News from the Front Lines of "E-reader Wars" and other exciting news!

I was recently interviewed by a writer from CNN.com for a piece he was working on about the future of comics in the digital era. The article, iPad Boosts Appeal of Digital Comics by Henry Hanks, was just posted yesterday. Check it out!


Ron Adner predicts, "Kindle's Days are Numbered," over at the Huffington Post. While I think his declaration is a little premature, especially if the Kindle and other e-readers can incorporate color and touch-screens into their devices (which engagdet says might be coming soon). The piece does make a good point that whatever the future may hold for the device, Amazon is in an excellent marketing position for selling books as a application on other companies platforms.


Here's another article comparing various e-readers currently for sale: eReader War: iPad, Kindle, Nook, Which Will Win? It has an interesting breakdown of similarities and differences of all the major devices on the market. However, I think it's funny that it includes the Sony and the Kobo in the piece, but as the titles suggests, doesn't consider them a major contender. As I stated before, I don't have a degree in business or any formal training in market analysis, but I think that the concept of "winning the war" is less a commercial reality and more a byproduct of the martial lexicon being used by analysts and people reporting on it. While I think the various invested companies will contend for market share, I wonder if any will come to truly dominate the market in the near future. The three major players, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple, are in such different places that, while there may be overlap, none or currently positioned for complete control. The Ipad is cool but comparatively expensive, the nook has access to customers the neither Apple nor Amazon can reach, and the Kindle has the name and has in some ways become a type of commercial icon.  


Slate's Farhad Manjoo has an article predicting that the price of kindles might be lowered to $99 shortly. I think Manjoo might be proven right soon since, as he points out in the article, another company, Copia, is planning to release an e-reader for $100. Furthermore, since Nook and Kindle have been competing with each other so heavily, I wouldn't be surprised if Barnes and Noble's Nook 2 will be released with a price in that range. 




For those who are still in the market for an e-reader, the website, Best E-Readers, has some good reviews. 


In other news, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is planning to release an online newspaper for tablets and cell phones.