The Kindle has done a lot for the e-book reader market. It’s taken it from a novelty device to a mainstream device. Amazon even managed to get Oprah excited about the Kindle 2. Of course Ellen prefers the Sony’s Reader but I digress.
The point is that e-readers are finally getting popular enough that they’re not just a fringe device anymore. While this is great, I have one complaint. As each of these devices are released they seem to pack more and more features. The newest device, Barnes & Noble’s Nook even includes a small color touchscreen at the bottom. Both the Nook and the Kindle have built in 3G so you can buy books anywhere.
I know the nature of gadgets is that they continue to get more complex and feature rich but I want the exact opposite of all this. We’re talking about a gadget that is essentially a book. Books are simple. You open them, read them, and close them. And they’re pretty cheap. Why can’t I have an e-reader like this?
I want a cheap ($99 or less) ereader that simply has a nice e-ink display and navigation buttons. No 3G, no touchscreen, no keyboard. Just me and the screen.
The reason for this is two-fold. One, I think there should at least be an option to get a simple cheap e-reader for people that just want to read. I can buy an simple cell phone, watch, etc. or an extremely complex one. I want that option for an ereader too.
The second reason is that switching to an e-reader means that I get this new device which is great, but I still have to buy books. So after dropping hundreds of dollars on an ereader I still have to pay for every book I buy. That’s fine when I get a discount on books but many e-books are more expensive than paperbacks. If I started with a cheap e-reader this wouldn’t be quite as much of an issue.
There’s a lot to be said for cheap simplicity. I do love that e-readers are getting more popular. I think they are great devices and a great concept but there need to be more options. Just because something is a gadget doesn’t mean you have to cram it with every possible function to make it better. Sometimes simple is best.
There have been a few recent experiments in digital product pricing lately. Most notably the “Free/Donate” or “Pay What You Want” models. First Radiohead then Nine Inch Nails tried this with their music. They made their albums available for download and didn’t ask listeners to pay for it, just donate or pay what they feel is fair. Even Microsoft is experimenting with an ad supported version of Office. The thought behind this shift is that some people will pay nothing and others will pay more than the normal cost. In the end it should all even out. In addition, even those who didn’t pay for the music/software will be promoting it by spreading it around.
Although I know these models aren’t perfect I think they should be given a try. I recently bought a fantastic video game called World of Goo that retails for $20. They’re currently having a “Pay What You Want” sale and so I only paid $1 for it. Now, before you call me cheap let me explain why I paid this price and what I also gave the video game maker that may be worth more than that other $19.
The reason I paid only $1 for the game is because I had already bought the game for my Nintendo Wii. I was just getting another copy for my PC. I could have only paid $.01 but I thought $1 would be more than enough to cover the cost of the bandwidth of me downloading the game.
But the other thing I gave the video game maker that I think is more valuable in this situation is feedback. I went to their Contact page and wrote a two paragraph explanation of why I chose to pay $1. This way they understand that I’m not trying to rip them off. Even if they think I am, at least they understand why i did what I did.
As distributors of digital content experiment with pricing like this I encourage everyone to take it seriously. The most valuable thing you can do in these situations is give your feedback to them. This way they can get a feel for how it’s working. If you download an album like this and don’t pay for it, let the artist know why. If you download free software and then donate to the developer let the know why you picked that dollar amount.
Below is the trailer for World of Goo. It’s available as a “Pay What You Want” download until October 19th. I encourage you to buy it but more importantly, tell them why you chose your price.
UPDATE: The sale has been extended until October 25th.
Sometimes a comic has a way of expressing how technology is affecting the way we look at the world. XKCD is one of the comics that does this for me constantly. If you’re not familiar with it check it out. He has some great commentary on technology, science, and just life in general.
I’ll be the first to admit that I think Google is an extremely innovative company and they make some great products. Google is a great search engine, gmail has some great features, adwords is making them a ton of money, analytics is fantastic, etc. And if you’ve never heard of their 20 percent time rule you should, it’ll probably make you want to work for them.
But I have a major problem with Google. It’s their follow through. Google works on so many different projects that it seems like they only do a few of them well. They do make a ton of money with a small amount of their projects but they just can’t seem to focus on anything else.
Take Google’s latest project, Google Wave. There have been a few videos that try to explain Google Wave but even those admit they only show about 3.5% of what it can do. And the official Google video is reeeeeaaaallllyyyy looooooonnnnnnggggg. If you’re going to announce a new amazing product that you expect the public to use you can’t create a video that is an hour and 20 minutes long to explain it.
And getting a Google Wave invite is nearly impossible. Even the people that have access to Google Wave don’t know when the invites they’ve sent out will actually get to the people they’ve sent them to.
This is a common problem with Google. They have so much going on and so many great products that they just can’t seem to focus on the important ones and tell us why we should use them. I’m all for innovating but not when those innovations aren’t explained or when you don’t follow through on them. I mean, gmail was in beta for FIVE YEARS. Seriously Google? Five years?
Look at Google Books (which is also still in beta). They’ve already scanned over 7 million books. How many can we actually read? Nowhere near 7 million.
So Google, I know you are an enormous company but please, please, just learn to control your A.D.D. a little and focus.
The Kindle has done a lot for the e-book reader market. It’s taken it from a novelty device to a mainstream device. Amazon even managed to get Oprah excited about the Kindle 2. Of course Ellen prefers the Sony’s Reader but I digress.
