I’ve seen a few pundits already beginning to look ahead to the coming year, and we’ll be doing that too here at Teleread soon enough—but first, I thought I would check in on my predictions for THIS year and see how I did. Did I have my finger on the pulse of the ebook world? Did any of my ebook predictions come true?
Yes, on all counts! I was amazed, when looking back, and just how spot-on my predictions were. Here they are again, with some remarks on how it all went down.
1) The international market will rise significantly
Yup! Amazon keeps on adding international stores to its Kindle lineup, with Australia joining the Kindle family just this month. Meanwhile, Kobo remains a major player outside the US, launching new tablets pre-loaded with the more open Google Play store, and partnering with independent booksellers.
2) The reading app experience will become highly sophisticated
Yup again! I predicated that even the apps would get collections, cross-device syncing, multi-language support and so on. True on all counts. The Kindle for iOS app added a collections feature recently, and independent apps such as Marvin have features such as Dropbox support and even a vocabulary builder which mimics the new Paperwhite feature.
3) ‘Interoperability’ will be the new buzzword
This was the only one that didn’t completely pan out. I think the search for quality DRM-free books remains a niche market. Most customers buy a Kindle or Kobo or Nook and stay within the walled garden of their on-board store quite happily.
4) Prices will go up
Yes, yes, yes! I have been trying to plow through my purchased-but-unread books this month, and after enjoying a Jodi Picoult title much to my surprise (I had bought it for my mother) I went looking for her backlist on Amazon. There were a few in the $8-9 range, but I was shocked to find several pushing the $20 price point. House Rules, from 2010, was $18.95. Second Glance, from 2003, was $19.09. That is $7 more expensive than the full-price paperback! It seems like every time I have looked for a book, I have found these sky-high prices, for titles both old and new. This is why I only get ‘mainstream’ books from the library now.
5) ‘Netflix for Books’ will happen, and it will be huge
Thank you, Oyster Books and Scribd for making this dream come true! Alas, Oyster is only for Americans right now, but I absolutely love the concept and I think this will be the wave of the future. I think all the tiny children in my life will be quite amused at the notion that Mom and Dad and Uncle and Aunt used to buy individual books or music or movies to keep. As long as Oyster and Scribd can keep their library growing, and work out territorial restrictions, I think their business model will be a hit!
Not a bad prediction record!
In the article you mention that Marvin for iOS supports a vocabulary builder that mimics the Kindle Paperwhite feature.
Marvin supported vocabulary building since version 1.2.5 released in the beginning of February this year. As I recall, this feature is new to the 2013 Paperwhite introduced almost eight months later in September.