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

To: Jeff Bond who wrote (3413)	7/23/2000 2:45:36 PM
From: Pawhuska49	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6516

Merry Pranksters on CNN JB -- Ken Kesey was interviewed this morning on CNN. Apropos book sales, he said that an author using traditional publishing channels has to sell upwards of 10,000 copies before realizing a return. Selling through the Internet changes that significantly in the author's favor. Ken and his gang of Merry Pranksters are up in Oregon (up from here, anyhow) and they run a little Internet operation where they sell a number of things, including a video. CNN showed the operation, including several of the Pranksters hanging out. tekboy was not visible in any of the shots I saw. The video costs $29.95, and the cases are individually painted in psychedelic colors. Ken autographs each one. They take orders by e-mail, ship the tape and THEN bill the customer. The CNN interviewer was amazed at this. But Ken reports that receipts are good. “Of course,” he admits, “we’re not keeping any kind of records.” Their website is at intrepidtrips.com As for ebooks, the latest edition of Online has the first of a two-part in-depth article on the topic. The second part will go more into business issues. This part talks about ebook technologies (encryption, etc.), the place they will ultimately occupy in society, and how customers (with emphasis on libraries) are responding to ebooks and the issues they raise. Also of interest to GMST owners, the article reports that the first draft specification on ebook format was issued in September 1999. The Open Electronic Book (OEB) Forum was formed with the goal that any information published according to the standard be compatible with any reading device that also conforms to the standard. Of further interest to us: major industry players IBM, Microsoft, SoftBook Press, Adobe Systems, and NuvoMedia are members of the Forum. From the literally hundreds of websites on ebooks, here are some that the author listed as information sources Ebook Directories/Portals Ebook Connections ebookconnections.com Ebook Network ebooknet.com Alex Catalog of e-Texts sunsite.berkeley.edu Internet Public Library ipl.org Top Ten Electronic Bookstores top10links.com University of Virginia Electronic Text Collection etext.lib.virginia.edu Ebook Conference 1999 itl.nist.gov Open Ebook Initiative openebook.org E-Books.org A Resource for Reading Appliance Research e-books.org Open Directory dmoz.org This installment of the article has no figures on sales of ebooks or ebook readers. It did have statistics on the number of “publications” about ebooks, which is growing rapidly. [From the context, I take “publications” to mean what we would call “articles.”] The author continues that the literature on ebooks “has exploded in the last two to three years.” An indication of “the torrid pace at which the literature is expanding” is the March 2000 issue of Information Today, which has no less than six articles on ebooks. Total publications for the year on ebooks is projected to be about 650, up from just over 200 publications in 1998. The next installment of the article appears in the September issue, and will reportedly focus on business issues. On Stephen King’s recent effort, there are authors that I would follow anywhere and read in whatever medium they chose to convey the words in. Stephen King isn’t one of them, but he clearly is for some. On the idea of reading something from a website, I thought most agreed that people don’t like reading from a CRT. I certainly don’t, and I download long documents to my RocketBook (which if I can do anyone can) and read them more comfortably and without eye strain. The other option is to print the documents out, which is wasteful, except from the cats' point of view. Just some initial thoughts. Cheers Mike