Swimming (or sinking) in a new world owned by device-manufacturers (who are, not coincidentally, store owners), publishers oft comfort themselves with the idea that the old will co-exist with the new somehow. Who knows, perhaps it will, but for a moment let's test the strength of the logic on which the most commonly advanced co-existence arguments are based, including this beautifully illustrated infographic from Mashable via Ilex. Read more »

This video is thirty five seconds long. Only six of those actually show the device full on.

That's because Amazon are not selling the Kindle Fire. In fact, they don't even begin the ad by saying that there's a new Kindle Fire. They don't use the word 'new' until the closing frames. This is what they're selling:

- traditional middle class living (battered red mailbox, iconic American dream, middle class image being emptied by Mum or a female child, probably the former.)

- people, smiling. Read more »

The Kindle Fire has us all intrigued, but we now have confirmation that the fixed format books on the platform will use very similar code to that used by the iBookstore. That almost amounts to standardisation and that is a nice surprise. Read more »

Another day and that great river Amazon keeps on flowing. Today three disjointed pieces of news demonstrate why Amazon continues to chart its own course and is a significant publishing force. Read more »

While many were dreaming of the new Kindle Fire and its implications, Apple overnight added 26 New Territories to a list of countries where iBook titles are sold. Significantly, all the added countries are European; meaning texts can be sold via the iBookstore in all EU member states. Read more »

A quick straw poll on the train in the morning heading into London and in a carriage packed with 60 people there are close to ¾ of them with an electronic device, 10 reading the Metro free paper and five with a book – oh and one bloke with a paper copy of The Times. Before you ebook guys get excited, a quick walk through of what content people have on their iphones/android phones and iPads I spot a dozen people playing Angry Birds, a couple have newspapers but no books. There are fortunately four people with Kindles. Read more »