| Good e-Reader has hit another huge milestone today with ten million views on our YouTube Channel! This is where you will see unboxing videos, e-reader reviews, comparisons and drop tests. Ten million views on a channel devoted to e-readers and the process of reading is a big accomplishment. We have made it a big point over the years to attend big product unveiling’s and give a first look at the latest Kindles, Kobo or Nook e-Readers. In the last six months we have revised our entire video setup. We invested on a mixing board, SLR Dynamic Mics, studio lights, and a new camera. In the past, most of our videos were hands on reviews of the e-readers, now Michael and Peter are on camera, giving you our take on the news and opinions on new devices. We have developed a ton of new segments such as Peter’s Drive Time, News Blasts and App Reviews. If you like free e-readers, phones and tablets, we have stepped up our game, giving away many different goodies every single month. Lets look at some statistics! We have 10,031,99 video views, 28,092,606 minutes watched, 15,000 subscribers and 26,307 LIKES! Thanks to everyone who has shown has support by commenting and participating in discussions.
Good e-Reader YouTube Channel hits 10 Million Video Views is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Good e-Reader YouTube Channel hits 10 Million Video Views
RIP Diesel eBooks
| Diesel eBooks has been selling digital content for the last ten years. They have seen the industry grow from simple PDF file sharing to the boom period of 2011. The company is unable to compete against the juggernauts of the industry, such as Amazon, Apple, B&N and Kobo. Diesel has announced that starting April 1st, the store will close. Diesel eBooks originally launched in 2004, but it wasn’t until 2010 that they dramatically revised the website, and made it accessible. Diesel introduced social elements, a better search engine and the ever popular 'Deal of the Day.' One of the biggest deals they signed was with publisher Macmillan, who contributed titles from Lora Leigh, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Lisa Kleypas, Robert Jordan, Orson Scott Card, Robert A. Heinlein and Jonathan Franzen. In a statement on their online website, Diesel stated “Diesel eBooks will be closing at the end of this month. It’s been a great ride! We’re exploring our options – eBooks are still in the infant years and there are many opportunities opening up now and in the future. We want to thank you for being such loyal customers. Understand this doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t see Diesel in another form in the near future. IMPORTANT: you must download your eBooks here by month end. Downloads will not be possible on April 1st.” RIP Diesel eBooks is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Students Revolt Over Mandatory eTextbooks
| Digital Textbooks may not change the educational industry as much as Amazon, Google, Inkling and other companies would hope. Students in five San Antonio colleges are revolting due to policy that would phase out textbooks and move entirely digital. Students at five Alamo Colleges have been staging protests over the schools plans to abandon physical textbooks and embrace digital ones. The students claim this move would prevent them from buying used ones on the secondary market or buy them from friends. The chancellor of Alamo Colleges has argued eBooks would actually be cheaper for students and can be delivered straight to their tablets before the semester starts. The crux of the issue is choice. Local businesses will not be able to sell textbooks anymore, because they will be irrelevant to students. Students won’t be able to comparably shop to get the best deals anymore, in any primary or secondary market. Digital textbooks continue to disappoint. Over 75% of college students surveyed by the National Association of College Stores say they would rather read print over digital. Amazon and Google both offer textbook rental programs, but are just aimed at people living in the USA. You never hear about how the companies sales are doing or see press releases on breaking any records. Amazon is very well known for issuing press releases on almost a weekly basis, when have you heard anything about textbooks? It is very telling. Other companies are abandoning the market altogether, such as Inkling. Instead of selling books, they are licensing our their platform to people who want to try and make a go of market penetration themselves. Students Revolt Over Mandatory eTextbooks is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Overdrive Suspends Library App for Blackberry
| Overdrive has officially suspended support for their Media Console app for Blackberry. The company confirmed that less then .3% of their users actually have a Playbook or Blackberry 10 device, not enough to warrant further support. Starting April 10th 2014, Overdrive will remove their app from Blackberry World. If you borrow an audiobook or eBook from your local library, chances are you are dealing with Overdrive. They have the largest market share in Australia, Canada, UK and other countries. The company tends to focus the largest amount of their development effort towards iOS and Android. Users only have a short amount of time to download the Overdrive app for Blackberry. The Good e-Reader App Store will continue to support the App, so you will be able to always download it for BB10 and the Playbook. Overdrive Suspends Library App for Blackberry is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kobo Starts to put a Priority on Customer Service
| Kobo has never had a stellar customer service record when it comes to support for their digital bookstore or their line of tablets and e-readers. This is starting to change as the Canadian based company is putting a heavy priority on developing new technologies and changing the way they go about solving customer issues. International expansion has been the primary focus at Kobo for the last few years. Their template is making agreements with the largest bookstores in the country to get the hardware in the hands of serious readers and strike publishing deals. Kobo customers statistically buy four books a month from the online bookstore. The Kobo expansion into international markets has subsided and they have recognized that customer service often played second fiddle. Marc Hollenberg is the current VP of Customer Care at Kobo and has been on the job for six months. His focus is aligning the various hardware, software and book departments into a unified customer service department. One of the new initiatives Kobo has developed is a platform called Virtual Que. This allows people to fill out an online form, such as what device they have, where they purchased it from, nature of the problem and their Kobo account. They can talk to a live agent or instead of waiting on hold, get a call back. This saves time, because the agents have all of the customer data and don’t have to spend the first few minutes of the call confirming a million details. Technical problems with tablets or e-readers used to raise customers dander. Often, the first point of contact was the Tier 1 representative, who was able to solve most common problems. If the situation was not something that could be fixed, Tier 2 agents would call the customer back. We have heard many stories about calls never coming or customers being given the runaround, when it came to returns or warranties. Marc is trying to change this by “eliminating the tier agent system, all agents now have the tools necessary to solve 99% of customers issues” Marc mentioned that “Kobo has initiated a cultural shift for customer service and all departments are aligning themselves with the new priority.” I think Kobo is in the position where they have expanded into almost every major market with a localized bookstore and the ones they haven’t can still easily buy books. With close to six million book titles in their library and millions of users all over the world, retaining those customers is a huge priority. This has been challenging for the Customer Care department because they have to deal with a myriad of new languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, Japanese and a ton of others. During the year you can expect the customer service program to get more refined. If you have had an issue in the last year, drop a comment below! Kobo will be dropping by to address specific customer issues and listen to feature requests. Kobo Starts to put a Priority on Customer Service is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Buy comics digitally – your patrons will thank you
| How much space does a physical collection of manga and comics take up? Well, to put it in perspective, I only got through buying physical copies of three different series of manga and half-way through one of those, I looked at the amount of shelf space it was taking up and audibly said, "Nope." It's bananas, really. I can only imagine how much space is taken up by these collections in public libraries. These series are popular content to be sure. Comics and manga have a devoted readership, as many librarians will point out. I repeatedly hear, "I just can't keep it on the shelf!" Well, there is a very good reason for this. For one person to collect and enjoy, manga alone is expensive. Absorbing the cost of an entire set is an investment, one that many individuals cannot justify today. Couple that fact with the tremendous strain the collection places on shelf space (and the shelves themselves in general), and many patrons, myself included, vastly prefer to get their content out from the local library. We comic and manga readers are pretty patient when it comes to getting our fix. (You have to be when most of the content you read is first released in Japan and won't be coming to you for several months. #hobbyhazzard) Furthermore, typically, we don't mind file restrictions like PDF-only. If we can get the content, we're going to read it – I for one am VERY used to reading on a computer screen. Furthermore, buying manga and comics digitally is much more economical and cost effective. Getting it digitally is a huge bonus – both for the readers of comics, as well as for the libraries who make the content available to their patrons. No more massive amounts of shelf space! For anyone! Ever! Everyone wins. Your patrons get the content they want in a convenient format and your library makes a great investment. Finding comics and manga in Marketplace is easy, too. Simply log in and click on "Advanced Search." Then for subject, enter Comics and Graphic Books, or just "Comics," and the search engine will finish it for you. Happy Reading!
Kate Seivertson is a Collection Development Specialist at OverDrive.
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ASCD 2014 rocked!
| March 15-17 ASCD rocked Los Angeles (literally) with their 2014 annual conference. Over the course of three sunny days, educators from around the world gathered to explore new ideas and techniques to reach students. At the OverDrive booth, there was a lot of talk about Pearson textbooks. Now your OverDrive digital library can be the place that students go when they forgot their (very heavy) math textbook in their locker. Not surprising at this conference, we also discussion about Professional Development playing a role in the digital library. OverDrive offers many of the leading PD publishers, including: ASCD, ISTE, Corwin Press, Jossey-Bass, and many more! (Here are some highlights in Marketplace). Overall, ASCD 2014 was a great show in a beautiful city. See everyone next year in Houston! 
Bailey Hotujac is a Collection Development Specialist at OverDrive.
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Lonely Planet eBooks Now Available on Scribd
| There was a time when Lonely Planet was the definitive travel guide when you would travel to a new city or country. The company has lost some of their luster as many people are using online services like Expedia and other travel websites to read reviews and find out the local scoops. Still, in the last few years Lonely Planet has been undergoing a resonance in the digital world, with the company remaining profitable. Today, Lonely Planet has announced they their entire travel guide library is now available via eBook subscription service Scribd. Scribd first started out as a document sharing service that many journalists employed to embed content into posts. Due it its open nature, there were many pirated eBooks on the site, which gave it some negative press. HarperCollins purchased Scribd in the hopes of turning the company around and launching a eBook subscription service. Now, readers can signup for around $9.99 a month to download unlimited books. The Lonely Planet deal is the first travel service that Scribd has signed and it should give new users a reason to signup. Now, instead of having to purchase a book every time you want to travel, you can just open a subscription and get full access to all of the travel guides and 300,000 other titles. Lonely Planet eBooks Now Available on Scribd is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Smart kegerator
| We first came across kegerators last year: it never ceases to amaze me how many of you use your Raspberry Pis to both simplify and massively overcomplicate your drinking. The kegerator is not a popular device here in the UK, but, judging by the emails I get from readers, there are enough of the things across the pond to get the whole continent of North America very drunk indeed. A kegerator, for the uninitiated, is a device that allows you to have chilled draught beer on tap in your house without a cellar – broadly speaking, a fridge with a tun of beer and a pump in it. Wikipedia says: “A Kegerator is sometimes used in a Man cave.” (As a beer-swilling, technology-fetishising woman who would love the space required for a cave and kegerator of my own, and who does not believe that caves of any sort should be gender-segregated, I am reminded that sometimes I kind of hate Wikipedia.) Phil Harlow has a kegerator in his house. He shares his beers with friends and roommates, and it’s hard to work out who’s drunk what when splitting the bills for a new keg. So (you knew it was coming), he came up with a Raspberry Pi solution. You can read much more, including a parts list, references and all the code you’ll need, at Phil’s website. We love it: and we’re wondering if we can squeeze one into the office somewhere. For research purposes, of course.
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Renewed Focus on Books from BBC
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The BBC is contributing to this reading revival with more dedicated coverage to books than it has provided in the past from both its radio and television networks, as well as from its online locations. According to an in-depth report on the new book features in The Bookseller, BBC director general Tony Hall said: "This is the strongest commitment to the arts we've made in a generation. We're the biggest arts broadcaster anywhere in the world – but our ambition is to be even better. “I want BBC Arts – and BBC Music – to sit proudly alongside BBC News. The arts are for everyone – and, from now on, BBC Arts will be at the very heart of what we do. We'll be joining up arts on the BBC like never before – across television, radio and digital. And, we'll be working more closely with our country's great artists, performers and cultural institutions." Over a dozen new programs or features are anticipated over the course of the coming year, across the various BBC platforms and from different events. Those readers who do not have access to BBC’s live programing can access a number of these features from BBC Arts Online and from BBC iPlayer.
Renewed Focus on Books from BBC is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Sony Says No To Android Wear
| Sony has stated it will continue using its own proprietary software to power its smartwatch lineup. They don’t seem to care about Google launching Android Wear, the platform designed specifically for use in smartwatch devices. The Japanese conglomerate had earlier stated it is channelling their resources heavily towards mobile devices, such as phones and tablets. The above development is interesting, as Sony isn’t the only company to ignore Android Wear, at least for now. Samsung has launched its revamped Galaxy Gear 2 smartwatch running Tizen. As things stand now, it's the Moto 360 and the G Watch from Motorola and LG respectively that have revealed Android Wear based smartwatch devices. “We’re excited about the potential of Android Wear to extend the mobile OS experience into wearable devices,” revealed Sony. “While we are currently focused on our in-market wearable offering, including SmartWatch 2, we continue to work closely with Google as a key partner and continue to evaluate opportunities across a number of areas as we extend our SmartWear Experience.” via cnet
Sony Says No To Android Wear is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Tesco Unveils Blinkbox Books
| Tesco is one of Britain’s largest supermarket chains and they have just opened up a brand new digital bookstore. Blinkbox Books is primarily aimed at existing customers who buy groceries, as they earn Tesco Club Cards with every eBook purchase they make. Blinkbox has hundreds of thousands of titles available from most major publishers. There seems to be a 30% deal going on from authors such as James Patterson, David Baldacci, Danielle Steel, and Jeffery Archer. How exactly do you buy and read books with this new platform? Basically you have to download Blinkbox Books app for iOS and Android. You can register a free account and buy and read books directly in the app. If you shop at the grocery store you can tie in your loyalty card to earn rewards. Tesco Unveils Blinkbox Books is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Barnes and Noble Announces eBook Refunds
| Barnes and Noble has sent out an email to customers who have purchased eBooks from April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012. The Nations largest bookseller has said that credits will be available in customers accounts within the next few days. Anyone who has purchased an eBook from Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster will have $3.17 for New York Times Bestsellers and $0.73 for a normal eBook. The credits can be used to purchase any eBook you want for B&N and the credits will be adjusted to the total purchase price. You might not want to wait too long to use the credits, as they expire next April. The B&N email will outline exactly how much you can expect to receive. For a list of your book purchases that qualified for a credit, please visit our Title Lookup Page. The eBook Settlement is the result of an antitrust lawsuit filed by the State Attorneys General and Class Plaintiffs about the price of electronic books (“eBooks”). Settlements were reached with publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin in 2013. Barnes and Noble Announces eBook Refunds is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Kindle Credits Now Available from eBook Settlement
| Amazon has dispatched eBook refunds to millions of readers living in the USA. Anyone who has purchased a digital book from Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin or Macmillan between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012 gets a credit of $3.17 if that book was a New York Times bestseller and a credit of $0.73 if the book was never a NYT bestseller. Amazon is the first company to begin offering credits to customers. The Seattle based e-commence giant has begun to send out emails today, informing customers that they have refunds are available. Customers don’t need to do anything special to get the credits, they are automatically available in your account. Under the terms of the agreements, you have until March 25 2015 to use the credits to buy content. Canadian customers that purchased eBooks from Amazon, before they opened their dedicated .ca store, now have credits available. The credits are only available if you basically bought eBooks from the main .com address between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012. Why is there credits available between these particular dates? This is primarily due to “Agency” pricing, which had published collude with Apple to have a fixed price. This model was best for competition, because Amazon lost the ability to undercut the competition into oblivion. Last year all major publishers agreed to settle with the Justice Department, instead of fighting it out in court. Sadly, when agency was abolished, Kobo and Sony abandoned the US market and B&N saw record loses. Kindle Credits Now Available from eBook Settlement is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Ray Ban and Oakley to Launch Google Glass Compatible Frames
| Google Glass hasn’t proven to be as successful as its makers may have expected it to be. To make matters worse, wearable tech users are even open to charges of invasion of privacy. Nevertheless, Google has hit upon new ways to make its wearable tech more appealing to the masses, such as its recent deal with Luxottica, owners of the immensely popular eyeglass brands Ray Ban and Oakley. This will hopefully push wearables into mainstream fashion rather than being seen as a niche product. “We believe that a strategic partnership with a leading player like Google is the ideal platform for developing a new way forward in our industry and answering the evolving needs of consumers on a global scale,” said Luxottica Chief Executive Officer Andrea Guerra. According to the new agreement, a special team of experts from Google and Luxottica will be tasked with designing a new range of frames that will be compatible with Google Glass. This will help ensure mass availability of the internet connected eye wear, which so far has been restricted to the US. The price is expected to drop a bit, which is extremely important in order for smart glasses to grow. Google will also have the advantage of Luxottica's extensive market presence in its efforts to make its smart glasses more alluring to buyers. As of now, only the Ray Ban and Oakley brands are included in the Google Glass plan, though it's not known when the first frames are expected to hit the streets. In any case, these will supplement Google's own line of frames that launched earlier this year. However, some key aspects pertaining to Google Glass still need to be resolved, including battery issues.
Ray Ban and Oakley to Launch Google Glass Compatible Frames is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Apple iTunes Now Includes NPR’s 24 Hour News Channel
| Apple's iTunes online radio service had it all, except a daily news feature. Now, the addition of NPR will bring 24 hour live news to listeners, including shows like Morning Edition and All Things Considered. The Washington, DC-based non-profit media organization hasn’t stated what the business aspect of the deal will be like or in what ways it could generate revenue for NPR. Typically, Apple offers licensing fees to the artist or record companies whose music is streamed online via iTunes. "The public radio audience is very digital savvy, but there are certainly some of the millennials and other folks who are looking for their listening experience exclusively on digital,” said Zach Brand, NPR’s VP of digital media while speaking to Recode. “So we want to reach them wherever they are.”
Apple iTunes Now Includes NPR’s 24 Hour News Channel is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Glock around the clockenspiel
| Are you a primary or secondary teacher in the UK? Do you want some free CPD? Apply to join our free Raspberry Picademy here at Pi Towers in Cambridge with our amazing education team: closing date for applications is March 28. Ivan Roulson from RPi Kitchen (really worth some of your time this afternoon if you fancy browsing your way around some rather excellent Pi projects) was at the local recycling centre earlier this year, when he came upon an abandoned glockenspiel. There are so many places this story could go from here, but you’ve probably already guessed what happened next. Ivan took that sad glockenspiel home and gave it a Pi for brains. He designed and built some hammers, and hooked up a motor mechanism and some rubber bands to make the hammers snap back up once they’d made contact. Ivan then proceeded to make the whole apparatus dingle-dongle its way through some sweet, sweet music using Python. The motors are hooked up to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins using two ULN2803 Darlington driver ICs – Ivan’s plan is to build a dedicated PCB to do the job. This is not the first glockenspiel project we’ve seen (Mike Cook produced one a couple of years ago, with instructions you can follow to reproduce the project at home), but we very much liked the mechanism Ivan built to make his setup work. We’re dying to see a project where someone adapts Sonic Pi to interface with GPIO: seeing some of you replace the |
Amazon Issuing Credits for eBooks Antitrust Settlement
| Amazon has started sending out emails this morning notifying customers of credits being issued as part of the eBooks Antitrust Settlement. According to the eBooks Settlement website, other ebook retailers are also going to start issuing credits and sending out checks (Sony and Google) to customers who bought ebooks from the big 5 publishers during […] |
Marketplace updates: Moving titles between carts
| If you've logged into Marketplace recently, you may notice that things have changed a bit. On March 12, we released Marketplace v2.5, an update chock-full of new features that addresses some of the most common requests from our library partners. One of the most asked for features: moving and copying titles between carts. With the update, you can now easily move or copy one title or a bulk of titles from one cart to another from the Carts details page. This will help those libraries and schools with multiple content selectors or those that rely on our Select Express tools such as Holds Manager and RTL for title recommendations. If you are working on an order and would like to transfer a title from one cart to another, please follow the steps below: Copying titles
Moving titles
Check back soon for information on other new enhancements to Marketplace. If you have any questions, please contact your Collection Development Specialist, or email collectionteam@overdrive.com.
Rob Mooney is a Collection Development Specialist at OverDrive.
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Amazon Offered Shares in UK Delivery Firm Yodel
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According to an article on the deal for The Guardian, Amazon was offered the shares at an eyebrow-raising discount, but that news isn’t all that alarming considering that Yodel has been voted the worst delivery service in the country for two years in a row. Even independent bookshops have reported horror stories of trying to work with the company, including late deliveries, damaged shipments, and outright failure to deliver products. Its status as one of the worst shipping options is sad, considering it’s the number two shipping company in the UK in terms of volume. Amazon has come under fire in the US for acquiring companies but still remaining distanced and silent when it comes to consumer demand for improvements. A growing number of authors held out hope that Amazon would intervene on the author bullying issue after Amazon acquired book review and discovery site Goodreads, but that hasn’t come to pass. One thing that Amazon is passionate about, though, is customer service and experience. If this deal translates into using Yodel to maintain its high standards of delivery–especially in light of charging consumers for a Prime membership and offering stellar delivery options as part of that membership–it’s not likely that Amazon will let Yodel remain this low in the public perception for long.
Amazon Offered Shares in UK Delivery Firm Yodel is a post from: Good e-Reader |
