[nfais-l] NFAIS Enotes, October 2011

Wed Nov 2 12:10:53 EDT 2011

*NFAIS Enotes, October, 2011*

*Written and Compiled by Jill O’Neill*

*Catching Fire?!*

I am quietly excited. In just about two weeks, I will be opening up the
Amazon package containing my Kindle Fire device. I was able to use that
one-click order button ahead of the teeming masses and am supposed to
receive mine on November 17. Come that day, I will be able to navigate
across the touch screen of the device to read news on Web sites such as
CNN, watch BBC television shows, and check my Twitter stream using a vetted
Android app from Amazon’s App Store.

This is not very different from what I am currently able to do on my
second-generation iPod Touch device; indeed, the biggest difference in the
hardware is that the Fire’s screen is significantly larger (although the
same resolution as the Touch). The storage size (8GB) is the same on both;
the battery life purports to be roughly the same as well. The Fire lacks a
camera, but so does my Touch. Both Amazon and Apple are pressing me to
store content in their cloud services. The rumor is that Fire is
essentially the RIM Playbook, tailored slightly to Amazon specifications.  As
a form factor suited to couch computing, this jazzy addition to the Kindle
family promises to occupy and distract me, at least until the end of 2011.
For comparisons with other devices, you might look at:

1. What you get with $199 tablets

http://www.pcworld.com/article/241686/what_you_get_with_199_tablets.html

2. Amazon's Kindle Fire Tablet vs. the Competition: Spec Showdown

http://www.pcworld.com/article/240746/amazons_kindle_fire_tablet_vs_the_competition_spec_showdown.html

The Amazon product page for the Fire is here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051VVOB2/ref=sa_menu_kdpo3

Truth be told, I’ve had some moments of buyers’ remorse since my order date
of September 28, but more on philosophical grounds than functional ones.  Like
Apple, Amazon is running a proprietary ecosystem and nothing about the Fire
suggests anything other than Amazon’s hope that I will continue to play
only in their private garden. I’ve been a customer of Amazon’s since 1995
so it seems unlikely that I would switch allegiances, but I would prefer
that Amazon not discount that loyalty. The twofold aspects of the Fire that
did intrigue me were its Silk browser and its use of the Cloud for purposes
of storage and streaming.

Silk is a more of a re-engineered rather than entirely new browser, one
better suited to the limited computing power of a small tablet. It is built
on what is called split architecture. Split architecture has been used in
the Opera browser for mobile devices because it reduces the processing load
on devices where the internal chip may not be all that powerful. I quote
from a technology expert here: *what is split architecture? The tasks
included in the process of web browsing are split between the tablet and
the back end, which is in the cloud. The main systems are on the Kindle
Fire, and the additional elements are found remotely on the Amazon Cloud.
When clicking a link, the request is being delivered to the cloud, which
fetches the elements, optimizes them and loads them to the mobile device.
According to Amazon, the cloud functions as a limitless cache where images,
CSS, and JavaScript are stored for the most common visited pages. This will
lead to lighter processing on the tablet (see: *
http://www.cloudtweaks.com/2011/10/is-amazon-silk-the-future-of-browsers/).
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) posed some serious objections to
use of the cloud on the grounds of privacy and indeed, Congressional
antennae were briefly raised in alarm.  By virtue of this split
architecture,  Amazon will preload some Web sites based on discernible user
behavior in order to shorten the time and load for delivering those web
sites to the individual. I, as a user, may favor *The Atlantic Wire* and,
knowing that I am not alone in that favoritism, Amazon will preload
segments of that page in anticipation of crowds heading to that location.
Amazon has indicated that user data will not be retained more than 30 days
so that some concerns may be allayed. But there was also a data-mining
concern raised by Apple employee and blogger Chris Espinosa: *Amazon now
has what every storefront lusts for: the knowledge of what other stores
your customers are shopping in and what prices they’re being offered there.
What’s more, Amazon is getting this not by expensive, proactive scraping
the Web, like Google has to do; they’re getting it passively by offering a
simple caching service, and letting Fire users do the hard work of crawling
the Web. In essence the Fire user base is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk,
scraping the Web for free and providing Amazon with the most valuable cache
of user behavior in existence *(see* *http://cdespinosa.posterous.com/fire]).
  Amazon responded to Chris’ concerns via Om Malik by pointing out that
they only retain URLs for purposes of troubleshooting and diagnosing
technical issues arising with Silk  (see:

http://gigaom.com/2011/09/28/amazon-silk-or-a-spider-web/).

Given that the original browsers associated with my original Kindle and
with the 3rd generation Kindle were slow and entirely lacking in
user-friendliness, I look forward to the possibilities of Silk even as I
wonder how much of a data trail I might be leaving in my wake.

The Silk browser was touted by technology analysts as one of the
interesting innovations offered via the Kindle Fire.  But within weeks,
other mobile suppliers such as Opera and Nokia were pointing out that Silk
(while nifty) is not truly an Amazon innovation

(see: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395333,00.asp).

Touted as the *other* major innovation found in the Kindle Fire (but again,
perhaps, not really)  was the tie between the Kindle Fire and Amazon’s
existing Cloud Drive (see:

https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/learnmore/) for purposes of back-up and
storage of both very large files (as in videos) and application files (as
in Android apps). MP3 files being stored on the Fire for listening at odd
moments is also a selling point for the device and Amazon will undoubtedly
be using the Fire to encourage users to purchase storage above the free 5GB
currently offered. (Amazon has fee-based storage options associated with
Cloud Drive ranging from $20 annually up to $1000.)

Numerous analysts are proposing that the Kindle Fire is aimed at competing
with Apple’s iPad or with Barnes & Noble’s e-reader, the Nook. Undercutting
both in price for only slightly less functionality, the assumption is that
Amazon will take a loss on the actual device because they estimate a longer
life-time profit from a customer purchasing multiple forms of content
beyond the book. While an eInk Kindle device may offset Amazon’s costs
through e-book sales and ads delivered to the user, a Fire may encourage
users such as myself (so far, neither a buyer of Amazon MP3s or Instant
Video) to expand content consumption into those other realms (see:
http://allthingsd.com/20111026/why-amazon-is-happy-to-burn-money-on-the-kindle-fire/).
They want to turn me into a digital omnivore (see comScore’s white paper
available at:
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/Digital_Omnivores
).  As the research from that white paper shows, nearly half of tablet
owners make or complete a purchase using their tablet device. The same
research shows that iPads now drive more Web traffic than iPhones (46.8%
vs. 42.8%).

There is a downside for Amazon in this situation – one not announced in
close conjunction with its launch of the four new Kindle devices.

The Kindle Fire represents a forced shift for Amazon – specifically, a
shift in the e-book format supported on Amazon’s devices. In an effort to
compete in the lucrative market for graphic novels, children’s books,
cookbooks, and similar design-reliant forms of content, Amazon announced
that the new Kindles will support KF8 files (a bastardized version of
HTML5). Specifically, the announcement noted:  *Kindle Format 8 replaces
the Mobi format and adds over 150 new formatting capabilities, including
fixed layouts, nested tables, callouts, sidebars and Scalable Vector
Graphics, opening up more opportunities to create Kindle books that readers
will love.* Certainly, based on the surrounding buzz, it was disappointing
to many publishers to learn that Amazon would not move to what many
consider the industry standard, the E-Pub format. *Technology
Review*offers some insights on the expanded possibilities (see:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/27282/?p1=blogs).

That there will be fall-out from this is inevitable as one author and tech
expert immediately pointed out (see:
http://guidohenkel.com/2011/10/amazon-introduces-new-indle-ebook-format-and-makes-a-major-misstep/).
 Amazon is moving away from the purely text-based format, Mobi (designed
for small screen mobile phone displays) and towards HTML5 – more suited to
the graphic displays to be viewed on a fluid Web-enabled device with a
larger screen size. But, as one of my Twitterati friends noted, this is
creating a tiered system of generational devices and consumers will likely
not be happy once they realize it. Is it any wonder then that Amazon began
a buy-back program for older generation Kindles still out there in the
landscape? (see:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/10/amazon-now-accepts-old-kindles-in-exchange-for-new-ones/
).

The introduction of the new format suggests as well that the Kindle apps
that run on other devices (iOS, Android, Windows, etc.) will need to be
re-engineered as well. And what of the library community hoping to serve
e-books to patrons using those various Amazon Kindle devices? Is Overdrive
equipped to serve up KF8 editions?

If you have only time to read one article this month about what’s happening
in this space with Apple and Amazon (and the two distant rivals of Google
and Facebook), I strongly recommend that you read in full an excellent
piece by Farhad Manjoo and published by Fast Company entitled *The Great
Tech War of 2012*. Manjoo proposes scenarios for each of these players in
“winning” the war, but he underscores the importance of three elements for
them as well – hardware, media and data. Apple and Amazon have all three as
part of their strategies, where Google and Facebook do not. [
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/tech-wars-2012-amazon-apple-google-facebook]
Recognizing that this is a fast moving area, the publishers have
established a supplemental sidebar for 30 days after the publication of
that article where you can see comments and updates from the major players.

Manjoo’s piece echoes something I recently heard from Evan Schnittman of
Bloomsbury Press at the recent Really Strategies User Conference.
Schnittman, who has worked in both STM publishing as well as for a major
university press (Oxford,) noted that success in the current environment
required major players to be able to leverage three things – a device,
content, and an operating system or platform. It is perhaps worthwhile to
note that most NFAIS member organizations have amassed a body of content
and some have platforms, but few, if any, have devices. That’s not a
problem necessarily (despite Evan’s statement), but it does suggest that
NFAIS members must monitor the strengths and weaknesses of these devices
closely if they want to deliver to users intelligently and effectively.

I may question the wisdom of my Kindle Fire order, but I have looked long
and hard at the broad range of tablet providers -- ASUS, Acer, Toshiba,
Samsung, HP, Motorola, and, yes, Apple. With the technology shifting so
rapidly, it seems foolhardy to invest much of my limited disposable income
in any device that won’t last more than a year or two. Indeed, two years is
about all I should expect to get out of it. An Apple analyst noted that,
given that tablet-style-devices are primarily personal devices, *“…it’s
reasonable to assume that tablets will be sold on a more one-to-one basis
than PCs. (Also, probably on a shorter replacement cycle than a typical
PC.) Probably not to the extent that mobile phones are, but probably more
than PCs. Or, you might at least want to have a few of them around the
house, so that multiple people could use them simultaneously*” (see:
http://www.splatf.com/2011/10/tablet-pc-market/).  If that’s the future, it
doesn’t really matter if I buy the new Kindle Fire or upgrade to the
4thgeneration iPod Touch. Disposable devices demand disposable price
tags.

* *

*MARK YOUR CALENDARS:*  2012 NFAIS Annual Conference: *Born of Disruption:
An Emerging New Normal for the Information Landscape*, February 26-28,
2012, Philadelphia, PA.   For more information, go to:
http://nfais.brightegg.com/page/335-2012-nfais-annual-conference

* *

* *

*2011 SPONSORS*

* *

Access Innovations, Inc*.*

Accessible Archives, Inc.

American Psychological Association/PsycINFO

American Theological Library Association

CAS

CrossRef

Data Conversion Laboratory

Defense Technical Information Center

Elsevier

Getty Research Institute

H. W. Wilson

Information Today, Inc.

International Food Information Services

Philosopher’s Information Center

ProQuest

Really Strategies, Inc.

TEMIS, Inc.

Thomson Reuters IP & Science

Unlimited Priorities Corporation

-- 
Jill O'Neill
jillmwo at gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jilloneill
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