Now that Kindle-mania is fading a bit if you go by certain measures, can the Sony Reader reclaim some of the limelight? I’ll discuss one possibility.
But first let’s look at the two charts here with Technorati stats.
The stats show that the Amazon Kindle generated extra buzz for the Sony, but that Amazon still overwhelmed it in the blogosphere, as we’d expect of a well-hyped new box on the block. The top chart depicts daily Kindle mentions as picked up by Technorati using certain key words; the other chart, Sony mentions.
The Sony spike around Nov. 19-20: News stories running then, as shown on Topix, tended to mention the Reader in the context of the Kindle. Duh. Bloggers started linking to Steve Levy’s Newsweek puff piece about the Kindle around Nov. 18.
Friendly suggestion for Sony: If Sony is smart, it will make a big publicity push to plug its own commitment not just to encrypted PDF but also to the IDPF’s new .epub standard—and thereby remind the world of the way Amazon dissed ’em both. Hey, I dislike DRM, a lot, and I’m not a PDF cheerleader, either. But that’s what I’d do in Sony’s place. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of public libraries offer encrypted PDF e-books via companies such as OverDrive. Just how many DRMed library book can you read with a Kindle—well, unless Amazon’s going into the library business, where, I’d hope, its hyperproprietary approach would draw the wrath of at least a few influential techies? Remember, DRMed Kindle books will apparently need to be read on Kindles.
Amazon “outproprietaries” Sony, and if I were the latter, I’d play this to the max—at a time when more and more readers want to enjoy books on multiple devices of different makes. If Sony’s format PR forces Amazon to send out a firmware update allowing the Kindle to read DRMed Mobipocket from libraries and elsewhere, that won’t be the worst outcome for people sick of eBabel. It will be one more step toward .epub bliss—one more reminder to Amazon that it needs to stop playing format games.
My methodology: Very imprecise, and I’ll welcome suggestions on improving it. For the Kindle chart, I had to use “Kindle” ahead of “Amazon” for some reason; otherwise Technorati more or less left out the month of November. I didn’t put the phrase in quotes. The second chart shows the results for “Sony Reader,” all in quotes. Alas, this approach omitted mentions with the Reader’s model number; how about phrases such as “Sony’s PRS-505 Reader”? But you get the idea. I’ll simply be happy with a rough comparison between the two machines.
