Apps prove gold rush for Silicon Valley

An article in Publishers Weekly addresses these questions and more: are publishers ready? What about piracy? How will rights be handled? Will libraries become obsolete?

The article summarizes a forum held by the Children’s Book Council on “The Current State of E: Publishing in the Digital Age.”  One panelist states, “E-books add a fantastic functionality to what a book is. Adding interactivity to that experience is also very interesting. And thinking about ways they can be fun [is important], because it’s for children.”

There’s a lot of potential! What do you think?

Mel Martin, who reviewed the B&N e-book reader in his article that showed up in the Publishers Weekly Morning report, called it a “festival of frustration.” In order to see anything, even the free e-books, he had to go through the tedious process of setting up an account, complete with password and, well, to make a long story short, just too many steps. Martin wasn’t wowed by the selection (process or presentation) when he finally got on the site, and pricing was…suspicious.

My interest still is in e-picture books. If B&N offers any, I couldn’t figure out how to view them. For children’s picture books, PicPocket Books apps look like the best option – you can download individual titles with one click or tap just like you would a song – no extra application or account needed.

Martin’s review of the B&N app is worth reading in its entirety for his humorous account of his frustration. Here’s the link: Barnes and Noble jumps into the e-book pool.

It certainly does look, as Steve Jobs asserted in a recent press release, like “customers are voting and the iPhone is winning. With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.”

T-Mobile will be releasing its second phone to run on the Google’s Android system (July 8, $199). It is called the myTouch.

Sprint and Verizon also plan to offer Android phones, but we won’t see that until later this year.