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Splizwarf posted:FIOS availability has been probably the most important "should we go check this one out" factor in our shopping for a house. Verizon sells TV too in areas with FIOS internet! Almost all providers that sell internet good enough to replace TV were also selling TV already - this is because they all know that some day the internet will fully replace their tv systems so they've all taken steps to be ready for that day. In the mean time they can still get a lot of people to pay for TV and internet at that same time. Brook publishers, however, still can't seem to figure out that establishing a good ebook business is necessary for their future. They also don't seem to have been able to figure out they can make money off of print books and ebooks at the same time, at least for a while until/if ebooks take over entirely. Think about how nearly every TV provider now has a "double play" deal where you buy TV and internet as part of the same package, for less cost than they usually are purchased separately. Book publishers still haven't made their own version of that. They could probably make a lot of money selling something like "buy our special edition hardcover for $ extra and get the ebook as well" or "buy this guy's paper book and get an ebook preview of his other books". Most people who are paying for double play/triple play deals often rarely use the other portions of the deal, but the company has them paying for them anyway - publishers could drive paper book sales in a similar way with their heads out of their asses. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Apr 13, 2012 |
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Apr 13, 2012 19:42
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:YOU MADMAN!
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Apr 13, 2012 19:56
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Install Gentoo posted:Most people who are paying for double play/triple play deals often rarely use the other portions of the deal, but the company has them paying for them anyway This was true before the economy took a poo poo and people tightened up. However, this is not the case anymore, for example: the FIOS rollout stalled because the government said Verizon was required to allow people to purchase services ala carte instead of the Triple Play being the only way to get FIOS service, and the Triple Play deal became unsellable immediately. Verizon has said they were counting on $120+/month from houses that bought in, as opposed to ~$50/month for internet-only service; over 80% of new customers were buying internet-only service and a lot of existing customers dropped pieces of the package as soon as they could. The big problem was that their phone and TV parts of the package... uh, sucked. For example, as of the beginning of last year it was cheaper by about $35 to have a pair of Verizon smartphones (not tied to the FIOS account), mid-tier cable TV with a rental DVR reciever from Cox or Comcast (ie not Basic, but no HBO etc, I think it was about 100 channels) and FIOS internet service, instead of the Triple Play deal. It wasn't competitive, "package deals" are expected to either offer something unique or be cheaper than the prices of the individual components added together.
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Apr 13, 2012 20:31
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Install Gentoo posted:Haha no it doesn't. Comcast makes way more profit per dollar you spend by selling you cable internet than cable tv. And they make even more by selling you both. People with cable internet are becoming less and less likely to want cable tv. Comcast pushing TV/Internet bundles is an example of them feeling threatened about a significant part of their business, not the other way around. Haha.
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Apr 13, 2012 20:41
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smackfu posted:And the funny thing is that B&N etc selling hardcover books for 30% or 40% off is what really devalued the book. Not amazon doing the same thing with way more books? I'm thinking physical books here.
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Apr 13, 2012 21:29
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MrBond posted:Not amazon doing the same thing with way more books? I'm thinking physical books here. The spread of Barnes & Noble put a lot of independent bookstores out of business back in the 90s, before Amazon was really a big thing. It's been interesting to hear them complain about competition considering how many locally-owned shops they shut down. Every single place I bought new books at during my junior high and high school years didn't last a year after BN moved into those areas, because everyone wanted those cheaper books. It's hard for me to feel much sympathy now that they're being out-competed, especially because some of their recent strategies for raising their profits (for example, reducing their selection to dedicate more floor space to toys and games) make me even less likely to want to shop there. deety fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Apr 13, 2012 |
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Apr 13, 2012 22:54
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deety posted:The spread of Barnes & Noble put a lot of independent bookstores out of business back in the 90s, before Amazon was really a big thing. It's been interesting to hear them complain about competition considering how many locally-owned shops they shut down. Every single place I bought new books at during my junior high and high school years didn't last a year after BN moved into those areas, because everyone wanted those cheaper books. Ah, that's true. Sidebar - I do consider BN's receiving end of that these days to be a smidgen unfair. I love amazon, but I do disagree with their stance on collecting sales taxes. Amazon, the company with EC2 and a giant recommendations algorithm, hypocritically argues that computing sales taxes for your destination is too hard. Really, they see it as their competitive advantage and fight tooth and nail to keep it, to the point where they were ready to buy their own proposition in CA. The price check app was a dick thing to do too. With their scale and efficiency they really don't need to do these things to beat local retail pricing as is.
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Apr 14, 2012 00:18
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MrBond posted:Ah, that's true. Calculating sales tax is easy. Remitting sales tax to the 10000 jurisdictions in America is difficult. They all have very difficult and stringent rules which makes this a non trivial task, especially when it comes to the diversity of goods amazon sells. Under reporting and over reporting taxes is met with hefty fines at multiple levels. Amazon supports a streamlined set of tax forms that work nationally so there are only 50 jurisdictions with similar rules.
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Apr 14, 2012 02:28
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Dice Dice Baby posted:
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Apr 14, 2012 03:37
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Can anyone recommend a good, preferably cheap. Kindle Keyboard cover available in the UK ? I've had my Kindle replaced but I'm still having problems with the charge dissipating and it not remembering where it was when it went into sleep mode. I'm fairly sure now that it is my unlighted Amazon cover, bought when this version of the Kindle first came out, that's doing it.
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Apr 14, 2012 22:43
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:Can anyone recommend a good, preferably cheap. Kindle Keyboard cover available in the UK ? I've had my Kindle replaced but I'm still having problems with the charge dissipating and it not remembering where it was when it went into sleep mode. I'm fairly sure now that it is my unlighted Amazon cover, bought when this version of the Kindle first came out, that's doing it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004AKC0Y0/ref=oh_o01_s00_i00_details
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Apr 14, 2012 23:09
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I have really bad vision, and can only see a few inches in from of me without my glasses. I've tried the Kindle on a Touchpad, but can only read for a little while before getting tired. Is there any real difference between the different model e-ink screens that would be better or worse, or are they all pretty much the same?
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Apr 15, 2012 01:54
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Pretty much all e-ink readers on the market right now use the same screen technology.
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Apr 15, 2012 02:07
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Mu Zeta posted:Pretty much all e-ink readers on the market right now use the same screen technology. Not only that, but the exact same panel from the exact same manufacturer.
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Apr 15, 2012 02:09
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Well, the Kobo Touch has more font sizes to choose from than the Kindle, but otherwise, the current crop of e-readers all use the second gen e-ink (Pearl) right now. In addition, they all have a uniform 6" screen, with a res of 600 x 800. If you want something bigger, your current options are tablets (7"+), or the larger Kindle DX Graphite, with a 9.7" screen. Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Apr 15, 2012 |
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Apr 15, 2012 02:10
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Thanks for the info. That's pretty much what I thought, figured I should get some more info before choosing a reader.
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Apr 15, 2012 20:48
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Just had a look at the Iriver Story HD. It uses a higher resolution screen to the competition and it's NICE. Really really nice. Has about the same contrast as a kindle but it's so much sharper and more pleasant to read. Everything feels responsive and quick. The interface isn't as good as the Kindle but it works well enough. Only thing that stopped me replacing my kindle with it on the spot was the pathetic built in dictionary. You have to type in the word rather than being able to look it up on the page. Oh Korea, why do you have such wonderful hardware engineers and such terrible software engineers?
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Apr 19, 2012 09:25
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edit
cremnob fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Jan 19, 2013 |
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Apr 19, 2012 10:46
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cremnob posted:Can Canadians buy eBooks from Amazon.com or is it only from Amazon.ca? Unless you give Amazon an American address, I'd say .ca only.
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Apr 19, 2012 11:33
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Odette posted:Unless you give Amazon an American address, I'd say .ca only. No, you can buy them from .com as well. Really, you don't even buy eBooks from .ca, it always forwards you to the american site.
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Apr 19, 2012 15:48
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cremnob posted:Can Canadians buy eBooks from Amazon.com or is it only from Amazon.ca? You can only buy from Amazon.com/kindlestore, it will change your available selection automatically depending on your location.
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Apr 19, 2012 18:45
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Bloody Hedgehog posted:No, you can buy them from .com as well. Really, you don't even buy eBooks from .ca, it always forwards you to the american site. Really? Because I don't live in America and when I try and buy eBooks that are only on Amazon.com without an American address, it won't let me.
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Apr 20, 2012 04:46
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Odette posted:Really? Because I don't live in America and when I try and buy eBooks that are only on Amazon.com without an American address, it won't let me. What country are you in? Some countries restrict purchases on some books because of rights issues.
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Apr 20, 2012 04:51
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New Zealand. I haven't been able to buy certain books from Amazon.com since Amazon found out I was using an American's actual address. 
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Apr 20, 2012 09:19
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When you're on a non-US IP, you're not seeing the same editions or even the same pricing. If you went through a US proxy, it would probably work.
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Apr 20, 2012 13:37
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 Plus free proxies generally skim usernames and passwords. Not so keen on that so I'll keep on ... not buying stuff. 
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Apr 20, 2012 13:42
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Even through https?
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Apr 20, 2012 14:08
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If you're out of country and you need a secure proxy, they're not very hard to set up on a VPS for 7 dollars a month. And yes, even through HTTPS (theyre skimmed on the server itself)
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Apr 20, 2012 14:12
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Isn't the whole point of https that the data's encrypted at all points between your machine and the host? I would've assumed that while a proxy could skim anything, all it would get would be garbage data since it shouldn't have the keys.
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Apr 20, 2012 15:17
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Splizwarf posted:Isn't the whole point of https that the data's encrypted at all points between your machine and the host? I would've assumed that while a proxy could skim anything, all it would get would be garbage data since it shouldn't have the keys. Yes, but you never know if someone's using an unpatched version of OpenSSL (I'm sure amazon is safe), they can cache it and try to brute force, man in the middle attacks, etc. If you want a secure proxy, as I said, it's pretty easy to set up on a VPS hosted somewhere in the US. And you can use it for more than downloading ebooks.
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Apr 20, 2012 15:26
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Splizwarf posted:Isn't the whole point of https that the data's encrypted at all points between your machine and the host? I would've assumed that while a proxy could skim anything, all it would get would be garbage data since it shouldn't have the keys. Unrelated, but is that dot in your title there to make people think it's dirt? I rubbed my monitor, drat it! 
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Apr 20, 2012 15:53
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It's your monitor.
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Apr 20, 2012 16:11
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Splizwarf posted:Even through https? Haven't looked lately but most free proxies when I did use them didn't support https. Their entire business model was based on injecting ads into the content they were proxying...
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Apr 20, 2012 17:59
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can anyone suggest a free or cheap trusted vps service?
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Apr 20, 2012 18:30
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lostleaf posted:can anyone suggest a free or cheap trusted vps service? Amazon charges only when the server is up, and a micro instance at $.02/hr is really all you'd need. You'd probably spend less than $0.20 per month if all you're doing is buying things on Amazon. The only downside would be any  fears that Amazon would figure out what you're doing because it's their service, but I doubt it.(FYI I'm a dumb lazy American so I might not be realizing some simple reason why this wouldn't work).
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Apr 20, 2012 18:50
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I read the OP, but still want to ask a couple quick questions about the Kindle Fire since my fiancee really wants one and I am debating if she will like it for an anniversary present: 1) Is it worth it to someone who occasionally reads books but also loves Facebook/web browsing and using iOS Apps/Games? 2) Is the Kindle Fire going to have a successor released anytime soon?
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Apr 21, 2012 05:20
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Anyone into making ePUBs with Sigil? What's best practice for covers? I try to keep it simple so use this: code:Suggestions are welcome and appreciated
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Apr 21, 2012 10:22
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Charles Martel posted:I read the OP, but still want to ask a couple quick questions about the Kindle Fire since my fiancee really wants one and I am debating if she will like it for an anniversary present: 1) Only if you have access to a wifi internet connection where you mostly plan to do those internet activities. Otherwise get a tablet with a 3G/4G data plan, though they are going to be significantly more expensive than the Kindle Fire. 2) Yes it will have a successor, my best guess is that it will come sometime this Fall/Christmas. Nothing official is announced yet, but rumour has it that Amazon rushed the original Fire out the door using a 3rd party manufacturer because they wanted more time to build their real baby. Their next model should have updated and faster graphics/processing/4G and such, but it will probably be more expensive than the Fire.
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Apr 21, 2012 11:55
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Cartoon Man posted:1) Only if you have access to a wifi internet connection where you mostly plan to do those internet activities. Otherwise get a tablet with a 3G/4G data plan, though they are going to be significantly more expensive than the Kindle Fire. Awesome. Thanks for the help!
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Apr 21, 2012 15:20
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In regards to region talk, I live in Australia, use an Australian debit card, but have a US address linked to my Amazon account. I'm able to view and purchase any books on the "US" store with no problem. I just have to be logged in, and in the left sidebar it says my region is United States. If I'm not logged in, it says Australia, and I don't think I can change it.
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Apr 21, 2012 16:29
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