Visitors to Kensington Olympia for the Online Information conference in December 2009 could be forgiven for wondering about the long-term future of the event. 
MPS is proud to be working with the Sri Rakum School for the Blind in India. The school was opened in June 1998 by Acharya Sri Rakum and was founded
As the publishing giants fine tune their digital strategies replete with Chief Digital Officers and a large online presence, medium and small publishing houses are in a quandary.
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Alex Schrijver speaks five and a half languages. The last, Bengali with a smattering of Hindi, |
has proved especially useful over the last few months. Born and brought up near Amsterdam, Alex joined
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Iliad or Mills & Boon? Whether its a standard electronic reader or one of Sonys themed ones choose between the pink romance version and a James Patterson crime special - eReaders are this years hot ticket item.
The eBook reader market has seen many devices since they were first launched but its only recently as prices have dropped and technology has dramatically improved that eReaders have found popular acceptance. Love them or hate them, eReaders are here to stay.
2009 was a particularly busy year for eReader manufacturers there are now more than 30 eBook readers available in the market, including the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Barnes & Nobles Nook (below), Intel Reader and iRexs iLiad. Several others, like Plastic Logics Que, will be introduced very soon.
Not only does this present an overwhelming range of options for potential buyers, it also gives publishers lots to think about. Should you convert all your books into ePub, the current industry standard which both the Nook and the Sony Reader support? If you want to sell on Amazon, you also need to convert your print PDFs into Amazons proprietary format, while mobiles (including the iPhone) require different formats again. Publishers also need to think about which, if any, eReader is best suited to their market. Some are designed for specific users - such as college students (the Amazon DZ) or the visually impaired (the Intel Reader) others for specific types of content, such as the Que which has a large screen for reading newspapers.
Evolution of the eReader
The first eReader, the Cybook Gen 1, was launched in 1998. It came with an LCD screen which made it hard to read under bright light. Todays eReaders come with e-ink technology that is static and easier on the eye. E-ink is designed to make the screen look and read like a printed book and its introduction, with the Sony Libre in 2003, is one of the main reasons eReaders have become a viable alternative to the printed book. Oprah Winfreys endorsement of the Kindle as her "favourite new gadget" in 2008 made Amazons eReader one of the most sought-after holiday gifts of that year and brought eReaders into the headlines.
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