Blackbetty is an Austrian company selling German-language e-books for cellphones and offering a supposedly second-generation way of reading them. From Treehugger:
Blackbetty has developed technology which allows a book to be ordered and delivered to your mobile phone as easily as downloading a new ring tone.
Here is the key: Blackbetty has recognized that consumers are put off by having to carry around a special ebook device, and even installing special software to enable e-books on existing equipment is a hurdle to the reticent consumer. The first generation of ebooks for readers, PDAs or smartphones required software such as Rocket eBook, Mobipocket or Adobe Reader. With Blackbetty, you just send an SMS with a keyword in the text and start reading.
Hmm. Just how new and how practical will this approach be? I’m curious. Any TeleBlog readers care to test the service?
English-language titles will be on the way. Alas, the company is charging for at least some classics—raising the issue of how it will deal with free competitor from sites like the WAP-oriented mnybooks.net—but apparently will be selling modern commercial works as well. More from Treehugger:
…You can try Blackbetty for free with a mobilebooks test download. Or purchase one of about 300 books already available for between 3 and 5 euros (US$4 to 6.50) plus network fees for the data transfer. Edgar Allen Poe’s “Schwartze Katze” (The Black Cat) is classified as “small” and takes only seconds to download. Sizes range through M and L to XL, exemplified by Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment in the free test options.
