Gemstar Ebook Crashes, Burns

Robotech_Master writes "In a lengthy announcement on its ebook catalog page, Gemstar, owner of TV Guide and the Rocket/Gemstar eBook, has announced it is going out of the ebook business. Gemstar will not be selling any new devices or ebook content after July 16th. Of particular interest to those who purchased the newer Gemstar eBook models that eliminated the ability to install free content directly on the devices: 'We will also continue to provide the newly released Personal Content feature available through the web bookstore at least through July 16, 2006.' It's too bad, really; I've heard that the Gemstar has one of the most legible displays of any of the ebook alternatives available. They could have done quite well as general-purpose reading devices, if Gemstar had not locked them directly to its own overpriced content in a stunning demonstration of self-proctology."

Comments

Term of the week

[r84x]

I would have to say that I have not heard a better term for stupidity in a while. "...a stunning demonstration of self-proctology." is a wonder of the english language. I applaud the author.

What's the point..

[Anonymous Coward]

... of ebooks when you've got handhelds?

Re:eBooks

[The_dev0]

What stops anybody of scanning a book in plain, good ol' ascii text and releasing it on the internet

Not much at all, I suspect. Even if you just enter the term ebook (not even author or title information) on your favourite P2P software you'll see literally hundreds of titles out there already in plain text. Unfortunately I downloaded the Metallica autobiography and ended up with Battlefield:Earth instead. Bastards.

Re:What does this mean for GuildePlus+?

[millette]

Is your ATI card an ebook reader?

When bad ideas attack

[MrLint]

The thing that strikes me most about this article is not the fact that ebooks have gone no-where, but the reason why. As the one linked article states they were trying to lock everyone into their content only. Anyone with a clue could ahve told you this wasnt going to end well, unless you had the sun and the moon and the stars to offer.

However, I'm trying to look at the bigger picture here. In our recent memory there seem to be a bunch of really bad business ideas that some how make it thru the tedious corporate 'bad idea expeller'. Please recall 'divx' (caps not withstanding) the time limited psuedo-rental dvd scheme from Circuit City and a law firm. And now we have its successor, self-destructing media.

I have to ask myself have any of these clowns done any market research? How do they manage to ram thru these dumbass get rick quick schemes with no one noticing? I have to wonder what the pie charts look like at these meetings. 20% wont care what we do, 20% will be alienated, 30% arent customers anyway .. and so on. It feels like decisions made on the least negative instead of most positive.

Re:When bad ideas attack

[richie2000]

These people probably read the Daily Dilbert as they would their horoscope and regard the PHB as a shining beacon of good management practice. There should be a big, red, blinking warning sign saying "WARNING: SATIRE - DO NOT TRY THIS AT WORK".

Re:awkward evolutionary spur in the handheld world

[yppiz]

Find me a 2lb $600 laptop that can output ... Dolby 5.1 and DTS, and we might be in business.

Find me a person who packs those speakers in their luggage, and I might believe there's a market for a portable DVD player with Dolby 5.1.

--Pat

proctology?

[nightranger]

(self-)proctology

n : the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the colon or rectum or anus

And you can do this yourself?