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Technology Stocks : Gemstar Intl (GMST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jimmyjohn who wrote (2365)	3/16/2000 8:52:00 PM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 6516

I just checked my order and I should be receiving my rocket e-book pro tomorrow. However, I was unable to download the free King novel from bn.com. This is what they sent me by email: Thank you for your order! Before you can purchase and download a RocketEdition, you must have previously registered your Rocket eBook device with NuvoMedia with the same First Name, Last Name, and E-mail address. If you have any questions, please contact us at service@bn.com. So it looks like only registered owners of the rocket e-book could download the free edition (or any edition at all). I can understand that for security reasons they would not want to allow download of paid editions, but this was supposed to be a free one-time deal to generate interest. Someone should have been able to download it to the free e-rocket reader, at least. This is not the way to solve the chicken-egg problem, especially since there was a free reader available elsewhere and a free download. Hope Henry takes note of this.

To: Jimmyjohn who wrote (2365)	3/16/2000 11:28:00 PM
From: wopr1	Respond to of 6516

Ebook on PBS: Just wanted to expand on the comments made on PBS's Newshour. They interviewed King's publisher from Simon & Schuster. He said they were shocked by the demand. He said that e-books could turn into the paperback "revolution" that occurred in the 1960s. He also said that Simon & Schuster was going to start working on a e-book business model. He speculated that it could just be an "incremental" market to the old paper versions where online version is just one aspect of publishing. But, he speculated, e-books could invert the old business models where the e-book version could be release first followed by paper versions. Other benefits mentioned were: 1) e-books could pull in the teen market that print has been loosing to computers; 2) given the international response, e-books could give their company an international market; and 3) could create a "topical" market for timely short stories; ie a book on a recently dead figure, or the Clinton scandal. Further, he was asked if publisher like Simon could be totally cut out of the chain. He said yes. However, he was not concerned given that people will still want a paper version, and will need the marketing of the publishers. Of course, our dark gem was not mentioned specifically. They did however show both versions of e-books. -wopr p.s. The whole news hour seemed geared to my portfolio. It started with the Human Genome Project vs. Celera (CRA). Then it had our Gem's E-books. The only off topic segment was on Basketball and whether student athletes should be paid. If only GE had bought CBS instead of NBC, the entire night would have been relevant!