One of these things is not like the other...
One of these things is doing its own thing...
Many people remember this quote, at least those of us who are devoted readers:
Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, has nothing to fear from the Kindle. No one would regard it as competition for the iPod. It displays text in four exciting shades of gray, and does that one thing very well. It can do a few other things: for instance, it has a headphone jack and can play MP3 files, but it is not well suited for navigating a large collection of music tracks.
Yet, when Mr. Jobs was asked two weeks ago at the Macworld Expo what he thought of the Kindle, he heaped scorn on the book industry. “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is; the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.”
While there's no denying a sad truth to how few people really read anymore, I'm somewhat comforted by this, which I read today:
Books have found a vibrant market online, according to Global Industry Analysts.
The global market for books purchased online is projected to reach $9.5 billion by 2010.
The US has the largest share of the market, with sales of $4.8 billion in 2007.
And sure, maybe that's because I work for an online book company, but what of it?