Have “social” updates ruined the Kobo app?

It’s no secret that Kobo, the e-reading company formerly owned by Indigo Books & Music, is betting big on the “social in-book e-reading experience” to set it apart from competitors such as Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBookstore.

Kobo made this much clear with the September launch of Kobo Pulse, a package of updates that effectively integrated social media within the company’s e-reader. The new features permit users to connect with other readers online, comment on an ebook’s content, view statistics about a title’s popularity, and post reading updates and passages to Facebook, among other functions. The new capabilities are in addition to Kobo’s long-established Reading Life program.

It seems, though, for some Kobo diehards, the updates have gone too far.

Just a year after naming Kobo’s e-reading iPad app the best on the market, digital publishing and tech blogger Chris Walters has come out swinging against it. In a post on his website, Walters says that, while he used to believe the Kobo app “ahead of the curve,” he now avoids using it altogether. Noting that the changes came about in response to restrictions against in-app purchases Apple began implementing last year, Walters says Kobo’s unrelenting attempts to make e-reading fun and connected have missed the mark and made the app unpleasant to use.

Regardless of whether or not users find the social features cumbersome, Walters’ main complaint is levelled against Kobo’s increasingly aggressive sales tactics. Now when the app is launched, it opens to a page of recommended reads that takes up much of the display screen. Moreover, Walters points out that when you do opt to make a purchase, the process has become much more time consuming and involves multiple website redirections.

Walters ends his post by putting these changes in context. From Booksprung:

Part of me wonders if this is the first sign of the New Face of Kobo, now that it’s been bought up by Rakuten. Software updates don’t happen overnight, so this was likely something Kobo had in the works for a while. Rakuten surely had enough time to kill this update but chose to release it anyway, which is a good sign that this is the way things will work with Kobo from now on. Who knows? By the time summer comes around the Kobo iOS app may be nothing but an impenetrable billboard of book samples, Facebook alerts, infographics, help screens, pop-up windows, slide-out sheets, and “share this” badges.

Has Kobo’s e-reading app gone too far, or are we asking too much of retail-based companies? What can Kobo do to win back Walters and other disgruntled readers?

What if the Kindle were free?

What would happen to print and e-book sales if the Kindle e-reader were distributed for free? The idea that e-readers could come with no cost in the near future isn’t out of the question, given that Kindle prices are dropping precipitously – today, the cheapest (ad-supported) Kindle costs only $79 in the U.S., down from $359 in 2009.

Bloggers and tech sites have speculated about free Kindles from the beginning, some pegging the date for the change as early as next month. This week, San Francisco Web 2.0 blog GigaOM suggested that free Kindles could be a good thing for writers.

For example, content like Kindle Singles – “not-quite-books [that] can be written and uploaded by anyone” – could get greater exposure if more people owned a Kindle. From GigaOM:

Offering a free – or ad-supported – Kindle would presumably just provide even more of an avenue for these kinds of books to reach readers, and that in turn could (theoretically at least) make it possible for more writers to make a living from their writing.

There’s also the argument that free Kindles could boost the use of new apps and services – for a price. GigaOM writes:

A free Kindle could be just the beginning of an explosion of book-like content from Amazon and others: The company is already talking about a “Netflix for books” that would offer content for a monthly fee. Why not offer a subscription to an author, so I can automatically get whatever he or she writes, regardless of length or format? … I’d be willing to bet more people would read more as a result.

Amazon launches new family of Kindles

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled a new lineup of four Kindle e-readers this morning at a press conference in New York City. All will streamline the process of buying and reading books, with the capstone device being the WiFi-only tablet, Kindle Fire.

The Kindle Fire ($199) provides access to books, movies, TV shows, magazines, newspapers, games, and more with a colour touch screen. It uses a new browser called Amazon Silk, designed to load Web content rapidly, and provides free data storage in the Amazon Cloud. Kindle Fire also costs less than the iPad.

Other devices unveiled today include:

• The latest generation Kindle ($79), weighing under 6 ounces and designed to fit in your pocket.
• The Kindle Touch ($99), with a touch screen for turning pages or interacting with the new X-Ray feature, which instantly pulls up pre-downloaded reference material such as Wikipedia entries.
• The Kindle Touch 3G ($149), with all the elements of the current model as well as free wireless Internet access in 100 countries without a monthly fee or contract.

Prices are in U.S. dollars, with no word yet on what the new Kindles will cost or when they will be released in Canada.

Scotiabank Giller Prize jury announced

The jury for the 2011 edition of the Scotiabank Giller Prize was unveiled today. American novelist Howard Norman and U.K. writer Andrew O’Hagan will join B.C. author and former Giller nominee Annabel Lyon on this year’s jury. Lyon was nominated for the prize in 2009 for her novel The Golden Mean.

Following in the footsteps of the Man Booker Prize, this year for the first time Giller jurors will be offered digital versions of the books in addition to traditional hard copies. From the press release:

The Scotiabank Giller Prize will ask publishers this year to provide digital copies of its submitted titles in addition to hard-bound copies. We’re pleased to announce that we’ll be partnering on this initiative with Kobo who will be generously donating three Kobo Wireless E-Readers to the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize jury panel.

The longlist for this year’s Giller will be announced on Sept. 6. The shortlist will follow on Oct. 4, with the winner being announced at a gala dinner in Toronto on Nov. 8.

Daily book biz round-up: e-readers read you; manga crackdown; and more

Today’s book news:

• Your e-reader knows too much
• Oprah’s Dickens picks not flying off shelves
• Sorry boys: Japanese cracking down on “extreme sex acts” in manga titles
• Orange Prize judges announced
• Room and The Imperfectionists make B&N Best of 2010 list

Reviews sabotaged on Amazon U.K.

The U.K.’s Daily Mail (via MobyLives) reports authors and publishers who are accusing each other of skewing Amazon star ratings by creating fake reader reviews:

[PR firms] provide favourable reviews of new books, at a price. Nathan Barker, of Reputation 24/7, offers a service starting at £5,000. He said: “First we set up accounts. For a romance novel we’d pick seven female profiles and three males. We’d say we like this book but add a tiny bit of criticism and compare it to another book.” Mr Barker claims this is common practice among publishers.

The article goes on to describe hostile reviews received by authors Polly Samson and Rosie Alison.

Daily book biz round-up: Borders pop-up stores; Kobo goes wireless; and more

Today’s book news:

• Borders comes up with terrifying new strategy: seasonal pop-up stores
• Kobo finally introduces wireless e-reader
• Annabel Lyon names the top 10 books on the ancient world
• News flash: Canadian athletes willing, able to read books
• Chapters.ca banner finally comes down

Daily book biz round-up: Borders closure; B&N closure; and more

Special death-of-bookselling edition:

• Borders closes major San Fran location!
• B&N closes major New York location!
• Borders cuts price of Kobo e-Reader to $129!
• Staples to start selling Kindle!
• And finally: Dick and Jane and Vampires

Price drop rumored for Kobo eReader

When it launched in May, one of the Kobo eReader’s big selling points was that it was one of the cheapest e-reading devices on the market at $149. But now, with Barnes & Noble selling the new wi-fi Nook for $149, and Amazon selling the new wi-fi Kindle for $139, the Kobo eReader – which requires a Bluetooth connection – suddenly has a lot less to recommend it. No surprise, then, that a Kobo price drop appears to be in the works. Though nothing has been announced officially as of yet, a current online-only piece in The New Yorker suggests that Kobo will be lowering prices very soon.

Reporting on a swanky rooftop party Kobo recently hosted in Toronto, The New Yorker had this to say:

Kobo is perhaps the scrappiest and most focussed player in the e-book war. Its online store has a vast and rapidly expanding catalogue of e-books that can be read on almost any mobile device (notable exception: the Kindle). And its own e-reader’s simplicity and affordability (it will reportedly be down to $99 in time for Christmas) has spawned a cult following. In Amazon’s rear-view mirror, Kobo is quickly gaining ground.

When asked by Q&Q to confirm the $99 rumor, Kobo vice-president of content, sales, and merchandising Michael Tamblyn said he wasn’t currently at liberty to comment on future pricing.

British e-reader company Interead folds

Interead, the British start-up that created the colourful Cool-er e-reader, is folding just over a year after it launched. The Guardian reported that a Liverpool high court ordered the company to “wind-up” over a month ago.

According to Wired, which reviewed the Cool-er in May 2009, the device sold for about $250 U.S., was thin and lightweight, but had no “truly stand-out” features. “Its appeal is in that it is a reasonably good looking e-book reader at an attractive price.”

As for the companies recent troubles, The Guardian reports:

Earlier this year Interead reportedly said it had 20% of the e-reader market in Britain and before Christmas claimed it had already broken into profit. Since then, however, the business has failed to win essential support for its expansion from its bank, HSBC, under the government’s enterprise finance guarantee, according to sources close to the company.

Meanwhile, Interead claims an order for 17,000 Cool-ers from a high-profile American retail group was cancelled at the 11th hour, plunging relations with its Taiwanese manufacturers into crisis.