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Amazon Kindle Fails First College Test
theodp writes "If Amazon hoped for honest feedback when it started testing the Kindle DX on college campuses last fall, writes Amy Martinez, it certainly got its wish. Students pulled no punches telling Amazon what they thought of its $489 e-reader. But if Amazon also hoped the Kindle DX would become the next iPhone or iPod on campuses, it failed its first test. At the University of Virginia, as many as 80% of MBA students who participated in Amazon's pilot program said they would not recommend the Kindle DX as a classroom study aid (though more than 90% liked it for pleasure reading). At Princeton and Reed, students complained they couldn't scribble notes in the margins, easily highlight passages, or fully appreciate color charts and graphics. 'The pilot programs are doing their job — getting us valuable feedback,' said Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener. Martinez notes that Reed, Seton Hall, and other colleges plan to test the iPad in the fall to see if it can do better."
The tried and true method of doing things that is known to work outdid the new shiny?
Amazing......
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
Using the Kindle, iPad, or any other electronic device is not going be wildly accepted by the college crowd. I find it hard to imagine studying without being able to mark in the book, fold pages, constantly flip through entire sections, or any of the features that make physical books great. Not to mention resale of DRM is non-existent.
The fact that Amazon wants to be able to reach inside your kindle and remove things, even things you put notes in sort of destroys the value of the Kindle as an academic tool.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The greatest "advantage" to e-readers, or whatever the hell they are being called this week, is that publishers will be able speed up the scam of planned obsolescence in the college textbook scam/game.
Now my kid buys a $300 "required" book only to be told it has NO resale value come next semester because it is the "old edition". With Kindle, et al, that planned obsolescence can take place FASTER.
Now get off my lawn.
I am surprised anybody buys it. You can buy an iPad for about the same price, and the iPad does far more.
Arguably the kindle is better for just reading - still.
Sears has the "Aluratek LIBRE eBook Reader PRO" for $99, and buy.com has the "Ectaco jetBOOK LITE e-Book Reader" also for $99.
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00309013000P?vName=Computers%20&%20Electronics&cName=PortableElectronics&sName=MP3%20Players&psid=FROOGLE01&sid=IDx20070921x00003a
http://www.buy.com/prod/ectaco-jetbook-lite-e-book-reader/q/listingid/84607877/loc/111/213401968.html
1st trial: kindle (fail)
2nd trial: ipad (will fail)
3rd trial: pen & paper WIN
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
the Sony Daily Edition perfectly fits the bill.
It sounds like it would be great, if anybody but Sony made it. Sorry, but after they rooted my PC there's no way I'll buy anything with a Sony logo, ESPECIALLY computer gear. A company that would put rootkits on legitimately purchased music CDs would stoop to anything.
Free Martian Whores!
Students aren't the only ones who find textbook prices monumentally absurd. Most of my professors no longer require a textbook. However, they are required by the University to specify a textbook, so every student who buys it before the first day of classes gets royally screwed.
There also exist moronic profs who require you to buy the textbook, purchase a code for the online help, AND buy the study guide/homework guide, and then NEVER USE IT. I've found this in the English department more than once. These people need to be burned at the stake.
My other sig is clever.
That is all in your head.
How do you work?
I look at a pair of LCDs all day, then I go home and use another one as a TV. Then I read books on my droid. I have none of these problems.
I have the ideal solution for students, or for anyone who might want to enjoy reading a book and then sharing it with others when you're done, or if someone wanted to study a book and quickly switch back and forth between pages, highlight to your heart's content, and scribble notes between the lines or in the margins.
There is this newfangled substance called "paper." If only books could possibly be "printed" on uniformly-cut "sheets" of this paper, and then "bound" together with glue and yarn, and perhaps be encased in a protective cardboard or lightweight wood or even plastic "covers." Then, you could turn the pages without having to fiddle with gestures or buttons, you don't need to worry about batteries, and since you OWN the book and cannot connect it online, no one can decide the book needs to be recalled and remotely delete it. Not only that, you can lend the book out to others, or even sell it when you no longer find any use or enjoyment from it. DRM would not stand in the way of exercising either Fair Use or your first sale rights.
I know my idea seems somewhat quaint, but who knows - - it might just catch on!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
"It seems we need to make the next Kindle large, with at least 20-50 flexible sheets of e-ink "paper", and a highlighter/pen wand that allows for easy e-ink marking. Soon we'll have the perfect format. Ten years after that, we'll lock it into a one-ebook to one-kindle setup so that we sell more kindles. Who wouldn't spend $400 per novel?"
and I have awful vision.
Perhaps there's a reason for that.
Everyone is trying to create their own iPod/iTunes like market for eBooks. It's a silly strategy that has little future because books and multimedia are very different technologies.
* The killer application is actually publishing your book as a computer file instead of inked on dead trees, not creating a device that is only remarkable in that it is compatible with your DRM scheme.
* Finding ways to sell your books to the largest market possible should be the goal.
* The only thing that differentiates and the sizes of the walled garden markets is the number of devices that are compatible with their DRM schemes.
* DRM is defective by design for most eBooks as it can be defeated a touch typist with some time on their hands. Music and movies actually require a much higher level of skill to crack.
It's like everyone missed Apple's secret weapon with iPod: $1 songs and $2 TV Shows - and tons of free podcasts. Pricing on eBooks, aside the occasional sale at O'Reiley is nuts.
In short, book publishers need to rethink the need for walled gardens. They add little value, given that portable devices that can read open formats have existed since the 1980s, and the current crop of slates and ePaper devices are not much different than a regular computer anyway.
-- $G
Maybe Amazon should be targeting the smaller, single-use books in some way. Maybe buying individual chapter
Not a bad idea at all. Unfortunately, Amazon's impetus here isn't to make academia easier for students - it's to drive more sales of Kindles and Kindle media. Amazon loves the Kindle because they have a fat profit margin on books (shipping costs less than bandwidth, no material cost), and tighter control over distribution and dissemination. Combining your idea with Kindle content doesn't address the main complaint that was documented by the article. Namely, textbooks are not often read linearly. They require more random access, and that isn't as easy on a Kindle than in a physical textbooks (or chapter pamphlets as you suggest).
when you're looking for something specific in a textbook you're most likely going to flip through looking for a picture, diagram, or a certain page layout. You may even remember approximately how far in from the front or back of the book the section is you're looking for (ie. you may remember it's about half an inch or one finger's thickness from the back of the book). None of these visual cues would work as well with an ebook reader, and as Roesner said, would be a lot slower.
you could search for it.
Not always. I love my paper versions of old AD&D material. I got some rtf and MS helpfile versions of some AD&D material with a Core Rules CD a long while back. It was neat to search for specific text until I realized my spacial memory is stronger than my textual: I couldn't remember what certain things were called "Tome of Infinite Magic? Libram of Unending Magic? Oh well, I know it's in the misc magic items section..." I know which section of the book I'm in just by the pictures. I bet you could give a text-redacted version to any D&D nerd and they'd tell you what chart is on what page, but they might not remember what the exact words are to search for them, or what page numbers they are.
Hint: Not everyone cares about the politics of china, graphic designers or flash.
In mechanical engineering my books were/are invaluable. There is yet an online resource (and I've searched) that has as much material laid out as well as it does. Equations for four bar linkages, friction disks, thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer, etc haven't changed much in the last decade (or longer).
One HUGE regret I have is selling some of my books for pennies on the dollar. When referencing material that you spent a semester learning, nothing beats opening the exact book you used to help you remember.
Heck when I had to retake a course because I transfered schools I kept my original text book and used it in the new class along side my new book.
One thing that did irk me is that we did never use the full book, even in follow up courses.
ME 352 would have Book A and we'd use chapters 1-10, but ME 452 would have Book B and we'd use 10-20. Even though they were the 'same material'.
If I had the cash and was a professor I you could make a killing off of leasing books to students. Estimate that over the next 5 years you're going to have no more than 300 students / semester. Figure that 100 books will be stolen lost or damaged and you won't change from said book.
So you buy 400 books at 100 each, you're out $40,000. Lease books to students for $20* a semester. After 5 years you'll have made $20k profit and still have usable books.
My private elementary school had the some of the same books for close to 15 years. Each year you HAD to cover your books with grocery bags and take care of them. If a 3rd grader can take care of a Math book for an entire year, a college student can do it for a semester.
*$100 with $80 refund. They're going to come out better than if they bought and sold from the book store. You're going to turn a huge profit.
The kindle can search "page with multiline graph on the upper right, and weird diagram below it that has the equation I need"?
I agree that the ability to search is killer. The downside is what the GP was trying to say - often you remember what a page looked like that had information you needed on it. It's far quicker to turn to the section of the textbook it's near and just flip through a dozen pages than it is to try to come up with a keyword which will be on that page, and no other pages.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I don't see the iPad being especially more useful since students can hardly take notes like a two year old finger painting. Even attempting to type on the thing is hardly practical either, and certainly worse than using a regular netbook.
Nope.
Give me a 8.5" by 11" screen. Sorry but for textbooks I want a full page not something I have to scroll. Why dont these companies make one that is the size of a full printed page of text?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It is disappointing to see Amazon finding out only now that engineers will want to scribble on pages, highlight items, need color, etc.
Amazon employs hundreds if not thousands of engineers, most if not all of which could have told senior executives this.
Unfortunately, many companies in Silicon Valley are being run by executives who have forgotten their companies were built by engineers, and consulting with them once in a while might be useful.
This is not meant to be flame-bait. It is from personal experience and the experiences of other engineers, e.g., Bob Colwell and the inability of Intel to acknowledge the failure of the Itanium processor line before it wasted billions of dollars and several years of engineering time (read Bob's book The Pentium Chronicles for more detail.)
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
What kind of shitty places have you lived in that you had to pay to use public libraries? I've lived in several different counties of several different states, and I've never paid one cent just to have a library card and check out books.
Further, since your complaint about campus libraries is their lack of fiction, you really want to set up the interwebs as better for that? Are you one of those guys that gets off to furry Harry Potter/Pokemon crossover fan-fics? Because other than really piss poor erotic fan fiction, the internet really sucks for fiction.
The internet kicks ass, but real books have a very valid place in society and academia. This e-reader experiment proves that.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
IMHO a fat book is still the BEST way to lay a bedrock of knowledge in some general area for further study. Once you know the basics, THEN you can graze. Granted, many people never bother to lay a foundation and still manage to wing it.
Pretty much anybody who has used an e-book reader for more than five minutes could tell how this marketing effort would end. Fanboys excluded, because no doubt a Kindle lover or an iPad tit will be along any minute to relate how they now use only their device of devotion, and say how great it works for reference material.
E-BOOK READERS ARE SHIT FOR REFERENCE MATERIAL!!!!
Learn it.. Live with it. The electronic backpack is not here yet.
A paper book has every reader device beaten hands down for text books. Novels are a different story.
In all honesty, they are great for pleasure reading. I've gone through I can't remember how many books in the year and a bit I have had mine. Never a second of buyer's remorse. But for reference material, forget it.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
They didn't scrap it, they never had a project in the first place. It was just a mockup to deny apple some mindshare.