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Break Kindle's DRM
I'm just noticing this now, despite the fact it's dated 01/01/2010, because I only just saw a link on lifehacker about it. But here's a semi-complex method for stripping the copy protection and access-control from Kindle books. I'm guessing that very few people could be bothered with something that's still reasonably involved. But if someone packaged up the software nicely and made it a one-click operation then maybe it would catch on. What do you'all think? Is this going to be like the downloading crazes of the early Noughties? Or are the book-reading public a bit too civilised for mass piracy?
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"Why Wasn't I Consulted?"
Some nice ideas from Paul Ford in this piece about the nature of the web and how publishers could/might/should relate to it. The web, apparently, is a customer service medium. And what people want most out of it is to be consulted. About everything. link
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Amazon Monopoly
The Amazon.com Kindle Store boasts "775,000 ebooks, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and popular games & active content". I'm not sure quite how to read that, because I'm much more interested in eBook sales than blogs and games. But Forrester Research have estimated that eBook sales were $1bn, just in the U.S., for 2010 and will be triple that by 2015. They also believe that 50% of recent eBook purchases were from the Kindle store*.
So, does that mean that the Kindle store is turning over half a billion dollars in the States alone? That sounds ludicrously high to me, but what I don't have a problem with accepting would be the idea that Amazon currently dominate the eBook market. It's ridiculously easy, once you're all set up, to buy an eBook from them. When I finished the 2nd Stieg Larsson book at 00:15 on New Year's morning, and realised I'd need to buy the 3rd book straightaway to find out what happened next, I think it's safe to say that I'd have been out of luck if I'd needed a paper copy. But it took less then a minute to find, purchase and start reading Book Three on the Kindle.