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20% of all Canadians live in rural areas without a major bookstore and an electronics shop. Chapters/Indigo have been closing down locations and with Future Shop axing 65 locations, it will be difficult for Canadians to buy an e-reader on a retail level. This is a blow to smaller companies that depended on Future Shop for distribution such as Aluratek and the Boogieboard writing tablet. Likely Kobo will also see diminished revenue because of this situation but Amazon is unaffected, because they sell their e-readers online. Buying an eReader in Canada Just got Harder is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Buying an eReader in Canada Just got Harder
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Friday, March 27, 2015
Amazon is Experimenting with Selling Digital Content in Bulk
| Digital comics and manga are notorious for printing weekly issues for years. This is a massive barrier to new readers who want to start at the very beginning. Amazon is seeking to make peoples lives a bit easier with a new experimental program that bundles 25 issues into a single purchase. Amazon Japan has just launched the Kindle Buying Corner that bundles popular manga series such as Attack on Titan, Magi and Yowamushi Pedal. This is beneficial for readers because they only have to make a single purchase, instead of selecting each one individually. If a reader already owns a few issues in the bundle, the cost is dedicated from the overall cost. The Kindle Buying Corner makes sense to debut in Japan because Amazon has been heavily focusing on getting publishers to include them in their digital distribution pipeline and make their manga solution very competitive with the local market. It is expected that Amazon will likely debut the service in the US at some point in 2015. Industry experts are forecasting that Amazon will leverage the vast digital comic library from Comixology, which they purchased last year. The North American audience is obsessed with comics due to the massive success of the Marvel and DC franchises and new readers might find buying them in bulk very compelling. Amazon is Experimenting with Selling Digital Content in Bulk is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon Unlimited Cloud Drive – Not All it’s Cracked Up to Be
| Amazon is trying to compete with Dropbox, Google and Microsoft with it’s Unlimited Cloud Drive option. The new service goes beyond simple a simple photo storage solution and can now handle video, music and e-books. Amazon has nixed the free option with photo storage and now demands that their users subscribe to Prime in order to keep on using the service. You can store unlimited photos and up to 5 GB of everyday files. If you are not a Prime member, it costs $11.99 per year. The Unlimited Everything plan basically has no limits on storage and is $59.99 per year. Not everyone is excited about this new product offering. Serious video editors and film makers lament that Amazon only has a 2 GB file upload limit, which prevents them from storing their media properly. The only way to bypass this restriction is if you use the Desktop software, instead of the mobile apps. Other users have lamented that the Send to Kindle function for popular browser extensions no longer work unless you are a paid subscriber. This is especially troubling because Amazon used the free Send to Kindle function as a marketing ploy to get users to switch to their ecosystem. In the end, this move is to pick up users that want to store media and aren’t investing into other cloud storage platforms. Amazon is certainly not the first company to offer "unlimited" storage, but it looks like it's the first to market this as a service to anyone who wants it. Dropbox, for example, offers unlimited storage as part of Dropbox for Business, Google focuses on enterprise and small businesses. Its closest competitor, Microsoft does offer a user service, but it requires a monthly subscription fee to Office 365. I think Office 365 is still one of the better deals. $69.99/year but you’re also getting Office & Skype with your unlimited storage. You can also get access to the Outlook, Word, Excel and Powerpoint apps that have recently been developed for Android and iOS. Amazon Unlimited Cloud Drive – Not All it’s Cracked Up to Be is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Illustrated Edition of Harry Potter to be Released this October
| Scholastic has just released the exclusive cover image of the fully illustrated edition of J.K. Rowling's bestselling Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It will be available to purchase in major bookstores October 6th 2015. The illustrated version of the first Harry Potter book will not be the last, Scholastic plans to publish fully illustrated editions—one per year—of each of the seven titles. Over 450 million of the Harry Potter books have sold worldwide and the series continues to appear on bestseller lists in the U.S. The new book cover features Harry Potter on Platform 9 ¾ surrounded by witches and wizards, trunks and owls, about to board the Hogwarts Express for the first time. Illustrated Edition of Harry Potter to be Released this October is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon Has Removed 5GB Free Option for Kindle Personal Documents
| Yesterday Amazon announced new pricing plans for their cloud storage service, and with it comes some bad news for Kindle owners and Kindle apps users. In a highly-questionable move, Amazon has removed the free 5GB tier. This means that Kindle users can no longer add personal documents to their Kindle accounts for free using email, […] |
Boyue T62+ Has Upgraded E Ink Carta Display, Costs $118
| The Boyue T62 is one of the best options for an Android-powered E Ink ebook reader on the current market, and it recently got even better with the release of the Boyue T62+, a newer updated version. There appears to be only one main difference between the T62+ and the regular T62: the screen. The […] |
Digital Magazine Haqiqah Spreads Message of Islamic Beliefs
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Haqiqah, or “The Truth,” launched recently through the efforts of website ImamsOnline, aims to educate younger generations of Muslims about the dangers of fanaticism that pervade religious sectors around the world. This effort is specifically focused on combating the extremely tech- and social media-savvy group ISIS, or Islamic State, as well as other similarly intentioned extremist groups. In an interview with the BBC, Qari Asim, senior editor at imamsonline.com, said, “Someone has to reclaim that territory from ISIS, and that can only be imams: religious leaders who guide and nourish their community. But now that we live in a digital mobile world, some young people are not coming to the mosque so we must reach out to them – and this is the Muslims’ contribution to combat radicalisation on the net.” This digital effort is the latest in a long-awaited realization from publishers and content creators that the old standbys are no longer effective. Current studies and survey reports have shown that millennials are simply not interacting with print periodicals in the way they once did; if there is no digital edition or online interaction, how are readers to be affected? This is an especially important question that the editors at Haqiqah have worked to address considering “more than 100,000 pieces of information, tweets, and Facebook posts coming out of Syria and Iraq every day,” and that the number of pro-Islamic State Twitter accounts is anticipated to be close to 70,000. The editors of the digital magazine and the supporters of the ImamOnline website obviously hope this effort will be effective, and if comparable growth numbers for other publications that have made the leap to digital hold true in this case, it should be. The goal of not only spreading a more genuine message of Islam but also reaching out to younger believers through relevant social interaction is one that mobile connectivity can help foster.
Digital Magazine Haqiqah Spreads Message of Islamic Beliefs is a post from: Good e-Reader |
EU Looks to Dissolve Geo-Blocking for Netflix, Similar Sites
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In an interview with news site Independent.ie, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said, “I, for one, cannot understand why I can watch my favourite Danish channels on my tablet in Copenhagen, a service I paid for, but I can't when I am in Brussels. And it's not only me who struggles with digital borders. About one European in five is interested in accessing content from other EU countries. Geo-blocking prevents consumers from accessing certain websites on the basis of their residence, or credit-card details. It is very difficult to explain this to the people and, at the same time, make the point that we are all residents of the EU and consumers in the same internal market." While it might seem logical to blame internet service providers or the streaming companies themselves, a lot of the blame lies in how international rights are addressed for film, television, and video games, just to list a few. Just as in the world of publishing, the rights to books, movies, and other content are sold on a border-by-border basis. That’s one of those “this is how we’ve always done it” issues, and Vestager is tired of it. Unfortunately, international rights are not only a tremendous source of revenue for rights holders, they’re also a rather large bargaining chip when it comes to negotiating with television stations, streaming services, and film venues. While this battle could go either way, it also opens the door for a reexamination of how books are sold throughout Europe and how VAT penalties such as those currently imposed in France and Luxembourg could be reconsidered. After all, if Vestager’s point is that the EU now functions as one semi-borderless retail space, there’s no reason for different costs in different regions. “European consumers should be able to access goods, content, and other services no matter where they live and travel in Europe," said Ms Vestager. "It is high time we removed these digital barriers, which keep Europe's digital markets fragmented."
EU Looks to Dissolve Geo-Blocking for Netflix, Similar Sites is a post from: Good e-Reader |
LEGO model smart home
| I do love a good demo. The folks at PubNub have been showing users of their software how home automation with a Raspberry Pi works – on a itty-bitty scale, with LEGO. This little house is rigged up with seven embedded LEDs (representing things like the stove and the fireplace, as well as lights); sensors to measure humidity, barometric pressure, and temperature; and a stepper motor that remotely opens and closes the door. Scale the system up, and you could apply this ability to remotely control appliances in a full-size house. Joe Hanson at PubNub says:
Home automation, of course, is something you can do without proprietary software (you’ll find plenty of examples on our blog); but we really like the slick user interface that PubNub offers; and…tiny LEGO houses. You can learn more over at PubNub’s own site. And I am reminded that I still haven’t got that PIR sensor for the hall light hooked up to a Pi. |
Amazon Controls 95% of the eBook Market in the UK
| The president of the UK Booksellers Association, Tim Walker spoke at the Nielsen BookInsights conference yesterday and made some startling revelations. During a round-table discussion Tim said “I do a have a concern that Amazon’s dominance is causing problems. We estimate Kindle has a 95% market share of e-book sales in the UK and this is having a damaging effect… Consider the struggles of Barnes & Noble and the Nook platform, the problems of the established Txtr in Germany, and the decision here of Tesco to pull out of Blinkbox Books.” Txtr recently was put into receivership and the company for all sense and purposes is done. The company originally burst onto the international scene in 2008 with plans to capitalize on the e-reader boom. Production and design issues led to their first device never being released. The company flipped gears in 2009 and started doing development for online digital publishers and traditional book sellers. In 2010 and 2011 they quickly became one of the largest companies outside North America developing whitelabel eBook ecosystems. The company's former portfolio includes clients such as Vol Retail and Weltbilde, who is the largest EU book retailer. At the conference, Nielsen released data showing that online spending on books had overtaken in-store spending for the first time. E-books now account for 30% of book units purchased in the UK, and the sales of print and e-books together in 2014 stood at £2.2bn, up from 4% the previous year. There is no denying that eBook sales in the UK are booming and Amazon is reaping the lions share of the profits. Tim Waters basically said that they are dominating the landscape and not having to put in millions of dollars into advertising, they are so big now, they simply don’t have to. What does the future hold for the eBook market in the UK? Barnes and Noble has failed to erode market share from Amazon and homegrown starts are finding it hard to compete. Will Amazon be the only way we can buy books? Amazon Controls 95% of the eBook Market in the UK is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Onyx Developing 13.3 Inch e-Reader
| The six inch e-reader market is heavily saturated and many serious readers are looking for a large screen alternative. The Sony Digital Paper 13.3 inch e-reader fits the bill, but was only designed to read PDF files and is quite expensive at $999. Onyx is in the process of making a consumer grade e-reader using a 13.3 inch screen and employing e-ink Mobius that will be released this October. A source close to the situation has told Good e-Reader that “Onyx could have done a technologically sound big e-reader some time ago, but they are afraid the price would discourage the potential buyers. At the moment the Mobius screen costs around $600. The end product could cost 700-750 €/$. I don’t know why the company finally decided to run the risk, but Onyx now thinks there is a substantial market even at the higher price tag.” e Ink Mobius is perfect for large screen displays because it was developed to weigh less than 50% of an equivalent glass based TFT and maintain flexibility. This is particularly important for mobile products. The standard 13.3 inch screen has a resolution of 1200×1600 pixels with 150 PPI, which is fairly solid to read digital content such as books, magazines, newspapers and technical documents. The new Onyx 13.3 inch e-reader will likely be running Google Android 4.4 and this will allow users to install their own apps. This is particularly important because you can simply install the Kindle, Kobo or Nook app to buy and read e-books in a multitude of formats. Onyx Developing 13.3 Inch e-Reader is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Anime and Manga: What Pirating Is Doing to the Industry
| In 2014 Japan passed a new anti piracy law and had begun cracking down the whip on copyrighted materials and intellectual properties such as anime and manga from Japan. The Japanese government then commanded a lot of illegal streaming and hosting sites which has resulted in a lot of websites getting shut down. With the help and cooperation of fifteen major anime production companies and manga publishers, the Japanese government started a huge extermination operation against 580, and counting, foreign sites which have illegally uploaded anime and manga contents on the web without the copyright holder’s permission. As Japan has began supporting the genre as one of their important cultural exports, there seems to be no end of illegal uploading of anime and manga via pirating sites, mainly operated by the Chinese. In the year 2013, the Cultural Affairs Agency estimated a loss at 560 billion yen ( around US $5.5 billion) in China alone. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) revealed it’s Manga-Anime Guardians project, which will monitor and remove illegally uploaded copies of anime and manga. The project aims to create an environment where fans can truly enjoy official creations, spur creations and continue to support and cultivate new talent. The METI states that online piracy hurts Japan at nearly $20 billion a year. Over half of US anime and manga fans read and watch pirated works, according to the METI. The project is a part of the Manga-Anime Anti-Piracy Committee, which includes Aniplex, Kadokawa, Good Smile Company, Kodansha, Sunrise, Shueisha, Shogakukan, ShoPro, Studio Ghibli, Tezuka Productions, Toei Animation, TMS Entertainment, Bandai Namco Games, Pierrot, and Bushiroad. It’s certainly an interesting topic, growing up all through out high school, I certainly didn’t have much of an income so streaming from websites or reading online scanlations was the only way for me to keep up to date with a lot of anime and manga, not to mention at the time, the Western audience was definitely suffering from lack of material. Let’s face it, for the almost 100+ anime that get released each season, there are only so many official sites that do grab these shows or manga. Nowadays it’s a little different, we have official sites that are more accessible, Crunchyroll and Funimation being the two main contenders, and more and more anime and manga have begun getting licensed. Which is fantastic, but even Crunchyroll will have restrictions on which countries can view what. But all that aside, I do wholeheartedly believe we should be focusing our money on official merchandise and subscriptions to help the industry out. Can you imagine what kind of shows, licencing projects and possible earlier anime releases we would get if Japan wasn’t getting hit for $20 billion a year? It may seem like you are doing completely harmless by reading that latest released scanlation or downloading the newest episode of your favorite show, but please think of the developers, support the artist and it’s industry! And after all of this, what do you all think? As I noted earlier, I can see the pro’s and con’s for both but I know which direction I’ll be going towards from now on. If you’d like to view the METI document which has a list of which sites have been taken down, you can view it here. The site is all in Japanese but you can find the list of websites in English on pages 11 and 12 for manga scanlation sites, pages 13-15 for video hosting sites (Youtube, Dailymotion etc.) and pages 16-18 for torrenting sites. And those who’d like to support M.A.G, Manga – Anime Guardians, you can find them and their message here! Anime and Manga: What Pirating Is Doing to the Industry is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Digital Magazine Growth Reaches as High as 78%
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The February report looked at the combination of print and digital readers–both online and mobile device based–for US magazines, and found a 12.6% increase from February of last year to this year. The 2015 numbers showed a total audience of over 1.7 billion readers across the various pathways. “Audience growth was driven largely by increases in the total video audience, which rose 18.7%, and magazines' mobile audience, which soared 78% compared to the year before. “Mobile readers increased from 14% of the total audience to 22% over the same period. Their gross Web audience, including desktop and laptop, increased 6.9% over February 2014 — but in proportional terms, the Web audience actually shrank from 17% to 16%.” This kind of growth, when coupled with the report earlier this week on the trends impacting different age demographics of newspaper readers, should serve as an illustration of where publishers and advertisers choose to focus. The earlier report pointed out that millennials are not consuming print newspapers in anywhere near the numbers the industry once saw, and that more than half of the 1000+ survey respondents didn’t pay for any type of news, digital or otherwise. Instead, both newspaper and magazine publishers need to take a hard look at the current behaviors of their target audiences, namely that this kind of reading is happening online or on mobile devices, and then plan accordingly.
Digital Magazine Growth Reaches as High as 78% is a post from: Good e-Reader |
PocketBook Aqua Withstands Being Frozen in Block of Ice (Video)
| The PocketBook Aqua ebook reader is known for being waterproof and dustproof, and now you can add freeze-proof to the list as well. The PocketBook Aqua was recently subjected to a freeze test by a Ukraine-based tech site, Vido.com. The device was submerged in a plastic container and placed in a freezer for 16 hours. […] |
How digital libraries are helping prisoners across the country
| Recently we spoke with Cindy Mclaughlin of the American Prison Data Systems (APDS) about their OverDrive-powered National Corrections Library (NCL), a first of its kind digital library for inmates at correctional facilities across the country. In the short time since the NCL went live they’ve seen great success with prisoners of all ages engaging in digital reading as well as a decrease in violence in the facilities. What follows is her story of adoption and integration of their system.
Describe your situation and why you wanted a digital reading solution?
Describe how your set up process has been with Team OverDrive? Ours is a unique case, as we require both technical security – our users are not allowed to access the main OverDrive website, social media, or any other external website – and a curated book list that's both engaging to inmates, and non-threatening to our facility clients.
How have you implemented the service? APDS offers National Corrections Library to each of our facilities, free, as part of the broad service we provide. Each of our inmate tablet users has access to NCL. What type of training have you provided for your staff? Relevant APDS staff went through a phone- and PPT-based and online training to help us administer our library, and understand the features and tools available to us. How has the service been received? NCL has had tremendous acceptance both by our facility clients and the populations they serve. We've had thousands of checkouts across all our users since we launched NCL in September, 2014. We get ongoing feedback from facility staff, teachers, and inmates themselves with thanks and encouragement to continue this great program. Any specific examples of how it's being used? The Indiana State Department of Corrections uses NCL in a juvenile girls' maximum security prison. We've watched the girls checking out titles steadily, and increasingly, while violence in the facility has gone down substantially since our solution has been implemented. Corrections Officers attribute the reduced violence, in part, to increased recreational reading via NCL. |
PiJuice: portable power for your Pi projects
| Helen: some Kickstarter campaigns just jump out at you. When I took a look at PiJuice it was obvious it was the real deal – they’ve only gone and sorted out portable power for the Raspberry Pi, with bells on. Their Kickstarter runs until Tuesday, so you’ve got the weekend to jump on board. Here’s Aaron Shaw to tell you more. I started playing with the Raspberry Pi since the very beginning and after being involved in The MagPi and various other activities I am now fortunate enough to call Raspberry Pi tinkering my "work". The thing that got me hooked back in 2012 was the hardware and physical computing capability – writing code to do things in real life (probably because of my background in Automotive Engineering) and I still spend a considerable amount of my time just learning new things and playing around with everything the Raspberry Pi has to offer. It has been a fantastic opportunity and I want to share it with as many people as possible. Around a year ago I met Harry Gee from PiBot and we started by just throwing around our ideas for how we could help to make the Raspberry Pi even better. One of the things that we had both found difficult was creating portable or remote projects – it was of course possible, but it was just a lot harder than it needed to be. This ultimately led us to the idea of making a neat, safe, portable power solution for the Raspberry Pi to allow people to do even more exciting things with their Pi, whilst saving a lot of time and effort in the process. We've called this the PiJuice and it's the ultimate product for portable and remote Raspberry Pi projects. The idea with PiJuice was to remove a barrier to entry from portable Pi projects so that beginners and professionals alike could focus on building, making and learning rather than worrying about the complexities of lithium battery charging and other electronics issues, whilst reducing the costs in the process.
Maker Kits – Made for MakersPiJuice is more than just an add-on board. We are passionate about education and are keen to turn PiJuice into a modular project platform – a way to allow people to build their awesome ideas much more quickly and easily. To kick things off and provide some inspiration we have developed a number of exciting tutorials and projects including a Raspberry Pi games console, a compact camera, a Pocket Pi and more. We are calling these Maker Kits and they are already available to purchase in kit form from our Kickstarter page and are being uploaded as free guides on Instructables. These guides will soon be turned into high quality step-by-step guides that you can either use with our Maker Kits or to build and make your own. Free Off-Grid Power To the PiWhen creating Raspberry Pi projects outdoors we've also been interested in using solar power as it is free and renewable. We've worked hard to create an efficient and low cost solution that will open up new off-grid and sustainable applications for the Raspberry Pi. The PiJuice Solar has additional circuitry which adds functionality to enable truly autonomous, self-monitoring operation of the Raspberry Pi – perfect for weather stations, remote camera systems for nature watching and more. Additionally, we are actively investigating possibilities for affordable wind and thermoelectric power generation with PiJuice Solar for added flexibility. What would you do with yours?We are really interested in what you want to do with your own PiJuice. We want to create the projects that appeal to you the most, so please suggest us your ideas in the comments, or on Twitter (@ThePiJuice) using the hashtag #ProjectPiJuice to get our attention. We will turn the best of these into free projects for everyone to enjoy! We really hope to help as many people as possible create awesome portable Raspberry Pi projects as well as continuing to create beautiful guides for cool projects! We're currently coming to the closing stages of our Kickstarter and would appreciate any support to help make PiJuice even better – http://pijuice.com. – Aaron & The PiJuice Team |
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
“Fairy Tail of the Dead” Special Airing Manga & Anime In Same Week
| Fairy Tail’s creator Hiro Mashima is well known among his fans for putting out a lot of content. Not only does he write the weekly series, but the monthly spinoff Fairy Tail: Zero, and many omake chapters along the way. Just this week, one of said omake chapters ran in Weekly Shōnen Magazine, titled Fairy Tail of the Dead Meeeeeeeeen. Now, an announcement has passed that the omake chapter will be the subject of March 28’s Fairy Tail anime episode. The odd title of the omake comes from the content. The plot is set in motion by the notorious Ichiya Vandalay Kotobuki, notorious for his face and his habit of shouting “Men!” in a very long, drawn-out way. Ichiya also enjoys inventing perfumes. One of these perfumes spills into the drainage, travelling to Fairy Tail’s home town, infecting everyone who smells it. The result causes the inhaler’s face to be replaced with Ichiya’s. To put it simply: it’s a zombie apocalypse with Ichiya’s face instead zombies. Between zombies and Ichiya, it’s hard to tell which is more frightening. Fairy Tail’s anime has been stockpiling omakes and filler episodes in the past month, killing time before moving on to the next big arc. The Tartarus arc is set to begin on April 4th, although due to episode’s title “The Morning Of A New Adventure,” it is also confirmed that the smaller Sun Village arc will be completed first. The Sun Village arc acts as a prelude to Tartarus, one of the deepest, darkest, and dead-parents filled arcs Fairy Tail has to offer. Crunchyroll streams the anime as it airs. Funimation streams it and provides a well-received English dub. Be sure to check out this comedic episode when it comes, and appreciate it – with what’s coming next, it may be a while before Fairy Tail makes you laugh. “Fairy Tail of the Dead” Special Airing Manga & Anime In Same Week is a post from: Good e-Reader |
The Canadian Newspaper Industry is Consolidating
| The Canadian Competition Bureau has given the green light for Postmedia to buy 173 newspapers from Sun Media publications. This will make Postmedia the largest newspaper conglomerate in Canada. The decision by the Competition Bureau was seen by industry watchers as recognition of how rapidly and significantly the media industry has evolved in the last two decades. If this deal was trying to get done ten years ago, there would have been public outcries. Now everything is basically just attained with a quick Google Search. Ambarish Chandra, a professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management who has studied the effects of newspaper mergers, said the Competition Bureaus' decision makes sense. "The bureau is more likely to let mergers go through in industries that are seen as struggling, where growth seems to be slow or uncertain for the future. That's essentially what we see with traditional newspapers," Mr. Chandra said. "I'm not surprised that there's not really an outcry." Postmedia got a massive discount on the Sun Media purchase and with the added capital these newspapers bring in, will alleviate some of the financial burden. The big question from a consumers point of view, is what will change? Will the Sun Media properties continue to have new apps developed for them, or will their be a unified digital newspaper service, much akin to Pressreader? Will they fully embrace a digital paywall system to offset online advertising? Only time will tell. The Canadian Newspaper Industry is Consolidating is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Pocketbook Unveils New B2B Enterprise
| Pocketbook is best known for their distinct brand of European e-readers and the company is now getting involved in B2B solutions. Dubbed the Pocketbook Cloud, they are positioning themselves to offer a complete e-reading solution. Many e-readers these days do not have a built in bookstore for customers to make purchases. The PocketBook B2B Cloud Solution offers a white label development and customization of an e-book store or a recommendation online service. This option enables to integrate partner's brand, content and even color theme. Also PocketBook proposes development of a fully-customized reading application with partner's content both for Android and iOS. An e-reading application developed by PocketBook provides an extreme level of e-reading comfort with its multiple formats support, variety of settings and communication opportunities such as creating and sharing notes. PocketBook B2B Cloud Solution ensures partners with a wide range of opportunities to increase sales. The opportunity of purchasing from mobile devices will become the new convenient way of content sales. The push notification messages with content recommendations sent to e-readers, stand as an efficient promotion tool. This solution is free to businesses looking to get involved in the e-reader space and use Pocketbooks solution. Pocketbook Unveils New B2B Enterprise is a post from: Good e-Reader |
Amazon Mulling a Crunchyroll Acquisition
| Crunchyroll is the current market leader for anime, Korean drama and manga. The company has seen exponential growth in paid subscriptions in the last five years and they have generated close to $2.5 million in 2014. A source close to the situation has told Good e-Reader that Amazon is mulling over an acquisition of the company in order to create a brand new anime section on Amazon Instant Video. The online media service Crunchyroll has over 400,000 reported paid subscribers as of late November 2014 — doubling its total in about one and a half years. Crunchyroll previously announced that it had over 200,000 subscribers at Tokyo International Anime Fair in March 2013. It reported 100,000 subscribers in September 2012, and TV Tokyo reported that Crunchyroll had 70,000 subscribers in November 2011. Currently Amazon has a very paltry anime selection on Instant Video and they don’t have a dedicated section for it. Most of their content is movies and it is intermixed with other genres, making it hard to find. In contrast, Hulu+ and Netflix both have large catalogs and they both have television episodes so people can stay current in whatever season they are watching. Crunchyroll has the largest collection of anime in North America and they have built a ravenous following because they have anime on their system one day after it debuts in Japan. They also have one of the most polished apps in the business, with support for most gaming console, streaming media boxes, Android and iOS. They are a big proponent of of discovery, which they manage to do very well. Negotiations are said to be in the early stages and Amazon is the only company that is actively courting Crunchyroll. Amazon Mulling a Crunchyroll Acquisition is a post from: Good e-Reader |
