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The media buzz on the Amazon Kindle continues at mid-week, following a Citigroup analyst’s positive estimates of 2008 Kindle sales on Monday.

The Top Stocks Blog over at MSN Money staked out somewhat of a contrarian position. Under the headline, “Amazon’s Kindle unlikely to set world on fire,” the blogger noted that although some think the Kindle will have a first-year sales record comparable to that of the Apple iPod, “[o]thers believe it’s wishful thinking to assume John Grisham will ever be as popular as Jay-Z.”

After noting some features of the Amazon Kindle — ability to download books over the wireless Whispernet network, the glare-free screen and enlargeable screen fonts, the Top Stocks blogger held firm to the notion of print-and-paper books: “Doodling in the corners and turning the pages into a flipbook, alas, can still only be done in regular books.”

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The potential usefulness of ebook reading devices for travelers has not escaped the attention of bloggers and journalists. For example, we’ve recently noted a review from a Sony Reader user who was about to take the Reader along for a week at the beach, another review about taking an Ectaco jetBook along on a cruise vacation, and the Amazon Kindle’s presence on Time Magazine’s list of “gotta have” travel gadgets.

Concierge.com has also weighed in on the topic of ereaders for travelers. Tom Loftus recently explained why he views the Amazon Kindle as the “most important piece of travel technology since the inflatable neck pillow”:

Say you’re on the road and you suddenly realize that you must have–must have!–Oprah’s new book. All you need to do is turn on the Kindle and connect to the store. (The connection is through Sprint’s EV-DO network. It’s free.) You’ll have to pay for the book, but it will be cheaper than the dead-tree version. Or, if you wish, you can download sample chapters for free.

Earlier, a gear review at Concierge.com discussed the value of the Sony Reader to travelers. Noting a perceived tepid response to the Sony Reader in some quarters, the reviewer had this to say:

To these arbiters of judgment, I offer a single and uncontestable fact: My 80-day circumnavigation would have been much less pleasurable without my Sony Reader. Thanks to it, I was able to take part–whenever I wanted, and for long, memorable stretches–in one of my most favorite of activities: reading.

So if you have a getaway planned for these last few weeks of summer or the upcoming Labor Day weekend, you might want to think about giving the ebook reader of your choice a “field test” during your getaway.

Is the competition between the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle ereader devices a repeat of the competition between the Sony Walkman and the Apple iPod?   That’s the position staked out by Financial Times columnist John Gapper.

Noting that Apple managed to integrate the iTunes store, and device hardware and software better than Sony, the article says that in the sphere of ebook reading devices Sony “has just made the same mistake all over again. It has squandered an early lead in a new field because another company was better not just at inventing an electronic device but also at linking it to a wireless network and making it easy for consumers to use.”  Amazon, the FT article says, “has swept past Sony with the Kindle, a rival e-book reader that is showing every sign of becoming the iPod of this nascent market.”

Sony was first on the ebook scene with its Reader, the article adds, but a year later Amazon launched the Kindle, with links to the Amazon online store via a wireless 3G network.  There are indications that the Sony Reader may also incorporate wireless connectivity, but “[t]he danger for Sony is that it is already too late. Amazon has grabbed the market-leading position from Sony and established a stronger brand, which is what happened with the iPod and the Walkman.”

A recent post at Blog Shop Review states a preference for the Amazon Kindle over the Sony Reader.

I have owned the first generation Sony Reader since last December, and read over twenty books on it, and just recently purchased the Kindle. While the Kindle is not perfect, it is superior to the Sony Reader in several meaningful ways that make it a far superior choice[.]

The first reason listed for the Kindle preference is available books: “[T]he number of books available for purchase for the Kindle is at least triple the number available from Sony.” (We have noted here at eReader Central that Sony did recently announce support for the EPUB format in the updated PRS-505 Reader, which serves to increase the number of ebooks that are compatible with that model of the Reader.)

In addition, the Blog Shop Review stated that with the Kindle, “[b]uying books is far easier; they are transferred directly to the Kindle without having to be downloaded first to a computer.” Other features listed as in the Kindle’s favor include screen contrast, available font sizes, the ease of changing pages, and the number of books that can be held in the device’s memory.

People who are users of ereading devices and software like things to be simple, says a recent article at Teleread. The bottom line? “The only people who understand ebooks are Amazon (and Fictionwise). Everybody else doesn’t get it.”

The writer reached this conclusion after using the Sony Reader and Adobe Digital Editions, and apparently finding the process cumbersome.

Hey, people read ebooks and people like things simple.

I’m a people, too, and I like things simple as well. This hit me like a fish in the face when I installed Fictionwise’s eReader on my iPhone. Want a book - go to Fictionwise on the phone and download one. It hit me again, more like a whale in the face, when a I told a colleague about a free ebook being offered by Amazon. He has a Kindle and, while I watched he fired it up and downloaded the book while standing outside in the sunshine. No computer, no USB cable, no card reader, no Sony software, no Adobe software, no Calibre software, no conversion programs, no WiFi router.

Ugolino’s Teeth recently examined e-books and ereading devices, and the effect of PDF book giveaways on hardcopy book sales, from the perspective of the working writer.

E-books, in other words, are not books and those who have suggested that giving away free novels will increase sales have yet to prove their case. Pdfs are like the little samples of food they give away in supermarkets — good for publicity, but not enough by themselves to fill a belly. They are not product.

A real test will come with the mass arrival of e-ink readers. With devices such as the Sony Reader, or the Amazon Kindle, we are entering a world where, for the first time, the e-book experience is every bit as valid as the printed page. Sure, there are a proportion of people who collect physical books and have to have them at any cost. But most of us, just want to lose ourselves for a few hours in Carribean Steampunk. Giving away an e-book to the owner of a Sony Reader, is the equivalent of giving them product and makes it very unlikely that they will buy the real thing. In fact, the offer of a free softcopy of something they had already been considering, might well lead to a slight dip in sales.

Last week there were rumors that the Sony Reader would soon be available in the UK. This week there’s an announcement. ITProPortal reports:

Sony has rolled out its renowned Sony Reader, in the UK market and is available on a pre-order basis from today.

The device which is intended to store and show the electronic books is all set to hit the market with a bang and it will be launched in collaboration with Waterstones Stores.

The e-books are expected to be cheaper than their paper version, and a number of key publishing houses, including- Random House and Penguin, are already transferring their content into ebook format.

Which? notes that the Sony Reader “will come with a free CD containing 100 classic ‘ebooks’ and you’ll be able to choose from a further 25,000 books through the Waterstone’s online store.”

The Sony Reader is getting a lot of media buzz heading into the weekend, all resulting a Thursday announcement from Sony that its model PRS-505 Reader will be “the first eBook reading device to support the EPUB format, the International Digital Publishing Forum’s XML-based standard format for reflowable digital books and publications.”

Beginning in August, Sony continued, the PRS-505 “will be able to access and accept secure and non-secure ebooks in the EPUB format.” In addition the PRS-505 Reader “will support Adobe eBooks with digital rights management and have the capability to reflow standard text-based Portable Document Format (PDF) eBooks for improved flexibility and readability.”

Continue reading about the Sony PRS-505 Reader . . .

Several Christian book publishers have announced that they have committed to making the majority of their catalogs available to owners by the end of 2008.

The book publishers include Augsburg Fortress, Crossway Books & Bibles, David C. Cook,Gospel Light, Group Publishing, NavPress, Strang Communications, Thomas Nelson, Tyndale, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. and Zondervan.

“Of the 135,000 books available on Amazon.com as a physical book and on Kindle, Kindle books already account for over
12 percent of units sold,” said Ian Freed,Vice President of Amazon Kindle. “We’re pleased that so many publishers are seeing this success with their Kindle titles, and that more publishers like the Christian book publishers are getting on board.”

Are digital reading devices such as the and revolutionary? Not until costs come down, says Kiplinger.com.

These devices have some nice features, the writer says: Both the Kindle and the Sony Reader are “surprisingly easy to read, even in sunlight, and mimic ink-on-paper pages. However, he adds, the cost of the devices and the e-books is a limiting factor.

But our main gripe with digital-book delivery is the cost. These  devices are too expensive given their limited advantages. A portable reader in the $100 to $150 ballpark would persuade us to overlook a lot of drawbacks.

Plus, the electronic books themselves could come down in price. Featured titles on Sony’s eBook Store range from about $5 to $19, and Amazon sells most digital bestsellers for $10. Given the significantly reduced publishing and distribution costs, all e-books should cost about $5. Maybe someday.

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