Why Amazon's Kindle Should Use Open Standards

Tim O'Reilly wrote in Forbes a while back that he thinks the Kindle only has another two or three years of life left, unless Amazon wises up and embraces open standards. He came to this conclusion, in part, because of his experience deciding how to publish documents on the web back in the mid-1990s. "You see, I'd recently been approached by the folks at the Microsoft Network. They'd identified O'Reilly as an interesting specialty publisher, just the kind of target that they hoped would embrace the Microsoft Network (or MSN, as it came to be called). The offer was simple: Pay Microsoft a $50,000 fee plus a share of any revenue, and in return it would provide this great platform for publishing, with proprietary publishing tools and file formats that would restrict our content to users of the Microsoft platform. The only problem was we'd already embraced the alternative: We had downloaded free Web server software and published documents using an open standards format. That meant anyone could read them using a free browser. While MSN had better tools and interfaces than the primitive World Wide Web, it was clear to us that the Web's low barriers to entry would help it to evolve more quickly, would bring in more competition and innovation, and would eventually win the day."

Comments

I wouldn't publish on Kindle if it was Open

[drmemnoch]

No way on Earth I would work hard writing or creating something to have it passed around the Internet for free. I create for my own profit, not your entertainment. Once the Internet community stops (I know it isn't everyone but it is enough to be a major problem) stealing content created by artists for profit, we will finally be able to embrace the open standards we all truly want. Until then DRM will live one in some for or other.

Re:I wouldn't publish on Kindle if it was Open

[selven]

I create for my own profit, not your entertainment

Good luck profiting or entertaining with that mindset.

Once the Internet community stops (I know it isn't everyone but it is enough to be a major problem) stealing content created by artists for profit

This statement, especially with the word "once" in it (implying that it's inevitable) is the epitome of the "goodluckwiththat" tag.

we will finally be able to embrace the open standards we all truly want

We will be able to embrace open standards only when the entire internet agrees to do things your way. Nice.

Until then DRM will live one in some for or other.

Given that file sharing is not going to vountarily go away, this statement becomes "information will continue to be locked down until the entire internet is locked down", which is probably true. We can't stop DRM any more than you can stop piracy.

Re:I wouldn't publish on Kindle if it was Open

[davester666]

They also 'helpfully' keep 70+% of the price end-users pay.

Maybe if authors made a bigger stink about getting the shaft from Amazon, they just might get more sales.
Maybe if authors didn't bitch and moan about how they should get paid extra because a machine converted text to speech, they just might get more sales.

The world has changed, maybe consider doing something new instead of trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle.

Re:I wouldn't publish on Kindle if it was Open

[bcrowell]

How many colleges are using your book as their primary text? My guess is that you are doing it as a hobby, haven't ever been paid for it and if any students are using your text they are probably your own because you run a course and set the textbook to your own.

57. Here is the list.