HEADLINE NEWS: AMAZON SELLS MORE eBOOKS THAN PAPER BOOKS!!!
The World Public Library Blog Newsletter
Volume 1, Number 3
Monday, May 23, 2011
Published Twice Weekly
by Michael S. Hart
Founder, Project Gutenberg
Inventor of eBooks
Well!!! We hardly thought just two weeks ago as we wrote in our very first issue:
"Not only that, but the news that Amazon had sold more eBooks than of the hardback paper variety last July was severely understated. . . .
"It turns out that if they had sold just about 10% more eBooks that a headline would have read that they sold TWICE AS MANY eBOOKS!!!"
that it would be only TWO WEEKS until we were telling you an earthshaking eBooks story about eBooks outselling ALL! paper books on Amazon, not just paperbacks!!!
Here are the details:
"As further proof of how digital media dominate today's entertainment,Amazon announced Thursday that its customers now buy more e-books for its Kindle device than all print books --
hardcover and paperback -- combined."
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadgets/05/19/kindle.outsells.books/index.html?hpt=Sbin
"It's the Year of the eBook!!!"
"Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books.
We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly -- we've been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years,"
according to Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos.
According to the Association of American publishers eBook sales for March were just about 2.5 times [in dollars] what they were in March, 2010.
And now back to our regularly scheduled broadcast:
We have a "new" video this week from YouTube and it is quite literally the very first thing I ever saw on YouTube with an added feature that I only saw it because my Mom, turning 99, in two months, emailed me that I simply HAD to see it.
SPOILER ALERT: You might want to watch the video before you read further.
First of all, here is what I think is the original blurb for this video, please forgive that neither my browser nor email seems to know how to do Norwegian:
[Yes, we know the video was originally produced in 2001, and we mention it below, but this is the original YouTube blurb, as far as we know. If you have an older one, let us know!]
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Medieval Norwegian Helpdesk Support
This is a fantastic video about helpdesk support back in the day of the middle ages with English subtitles. Original taken from the show "Oystein og jeg" on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK)in 2001. With Oystein Bache (helper)and Rune Gokstad (desperate monk). Written by Knut Num. YEHHAA!
[As you may have noticed, I did SOME research on the names-- but I'm sure they could be done still better.]
This is obviously a spoof on the idea of eBooks not being as easy to read as paper books, and I am sure that something on this order actually took place when various cultures took on the bound book "codex" concept instead of scrolls.
The funniest part of all this is that even after changes all the way through history from one medium to another, we still
say: "Written in stone."
Even though The Gutenberg Press was SO successful right away that it created more copies of books than had been made in a whole previous history of humanity in its first fifty years, there were obviously the conservative Stationers, or scribes and monks, etc., who were very much against it. So much so, literally, that they tried to pass laws against it.
In this video is depicted a poor monk confronted with a very new product called a "book," and he is a little dumbfounded, so he calls the "helpdesk" to assist him with such brand new technology, as has undoubtedly happened millions or billions of times during our current computer revolution.
The helpdesk representative quickly, perhaps too quickly, is able to run through the basics of "book" reading, mentioning as he leaves that there that there is a help manual with it, but, of course, it is also in the new "book" form and it not easy enough to use unless you already know how, kind of like the programs you buy today that don't come with any manuals, but have them inside the digital media, and if you don't see them or know how to use them, they are not much use.
It's very cute, and got a million YouTube hits back in a day when YouTube was still YouTube.
It's just as ironic that my mother, who turns 100 next year, was the one who said I had to get on YouTube. . .hee hee!
You just never know where your new technology comes from!!!
Hi Mom!!! Thanks so much!!!
eBooks in the Wild
I stopped by Borders the other day and noticed someone using and eReader I hadn't see before which turned out to be nook, the new color version.
WARNING: If you don't want to hear good things about color, or about nook, don't read this!!!
I asked him what it was, and he not only told me, but gave a rather spectacular tour of the thing, using a number of pics from National Geographic as examples.
WOW!!!
That's pretty much all I can say about nook and color pics!
The pictures literally jumped right off the screen into eyes that were just plain amazed.
As for the rest of it, I'll have to gain more experience, so I can tell you more of the details, and perhaps you will put a few comments in an email to us here to help.
Thanks in advance!!!
Michael