Amazon wants to reinvent the electronic library
September 29, 2011Amazon wants to reinvent the electronic library,oil paintings for sale
Amazon has launched its e-book lending program for libraries following through on a promise it made earlier this year to offer its Kindle e-book reader to libraries across the country as an alternative way to lend e-books The program allows users of the Amazon reader as well as the Kindle app for the iPad and other devices to borrow books from more than public libraries in the with a single click. The lending program comes on the heels of news that Amazon is also working on a Netflix for books-style rental program for electronic books and together these offerings make it clear that Amazon is stepping up its plans to disrupt the book-publishing industry.
When the news first emerged last week that Amazon was planning a book-rental program similar to what Netflix provides for movies and TV shows something the company still hasnt officially confirmed the response from some book-lovers was concern that such a service might compete with public libraries. As I described in the post I wrote about the news the same approach that Netflix takes to video content also makes a lot of sense for books just as Netflixs streaming service dispenses with the cumbersome physical form that movies and TV shows typically take and thus makes renting them much more convenient a rental service like Amazon is said to be planning could do the same for borrowing or renting books.
The obvious fear was that this kind of service would eat into the market that libraries serve since they also effectively rent out books just as Amazon is planning to do. As a number of commenters on my original post pointed out many libraries also lend e-books in a number of formats including the open ePub format lthough in many cases there are restrictions on how many copies of a particular book a library will have how long it can be borrowed for, and so on.
What Amazon seems to be planning is a two-pronged extension of its existing e-book business into the rental market. On the one libraries now get the ability to connect their books to the hugely popular Kindle reader ecosystem which increases the number of readers they can serve and thereby fulfills the public-service mission that most libraries operate under users dot even need an app since Amazons Cloud Reader works in most web browsers. And at the same time Amazon can also launch the book-rental business that the Wall Street Journal described as a way to serve a market that either wants access to books that arent available through the library system is willing to pay extra for more convenience and better lending terms.
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