PDA as eBook Reader: Frosting the Cake

David Rothman points out that we often take a PDA-fixated approach to ebook reading and devices inTeleRead: Tobisha exits U.S. PDA market, raising questions about PDA-fixated approach for e-bookers

One paragraph caught my eye:

"Needlees to say, ignorance of the usefulness of PDAs for e-book reading didn't help Toshiba. It's not that e-bookers should give up on this platform. But whatever the reason, ignorance or others, PDAs as e-book readers have not lived up to their promise so far."

It seems to me we have two problems going on here and both revolve around proprietary format issues:

1. Lack of marketing PDA's as eBook Reading devices: even though the hardware manufacturers generally include ebook reading software with the PDA they do not publicize the PDA as an ebook reader enough to the public - it is mentioned but not emphisised. I showed my Palm Zire 71 to a friend last night at a party and told him there were over 40 books on that device, many of them free. He was amazed and went and showed it to his wife. This despite the fact that I had been telling him about PDA's and ebooks for months on an online forum. Like so much in the computer world, seeing a live demo can be worth a thousand words. (Take your PDA to your next party.)

2. Another problem is in showing the value of the supplied ebook reading software to the PDA buyer so they will actually use it. To do this, the ebook reading software should make it easy for people to retrieve free ebooks either directly from Project Gutenberg or from one or more of the other free ebook collections such as Blackmask or Manybooks.net. The system we have now has each ebook reader only trying to push people to their own proprietary stores filled with over-priced DRM'd ebooks. (eg. eReader pushes people toward the eReader store, Mobipocket pushes people to the Mobipocket ebook store, etc.) I think a lot more people would get excited about the PDA as a reading platform if they saw all the free, public domain, ebooks that were also available and make it easy to upload them. I think long term it would increase the sales of both PDA's and even DRM'd ebooks to readers.

What we have now is like TV manufacturers making TV sets that are preset from the factory to only receive that manufacturer's own TV network station - and tries to ignore all the rest. To the consumer it looks like the ebook reader does not do much.

This is also an area where 3rd party reader software could improve, with iSilo, Plucker, uBook and the rest tying in access to Fictionwise, Blackmask and/or Manybooks.net via their desktop clients. I am not a programmer, but I know a bit about linking and the Web, and I know the more interconnected, useful and transparent you make things the more people will find utility in them. Book readers are not always the most tech savvy, so you have to 'prime the pump' and make it easy for them.