Online retailer Amazon is determined to dominate the mobile reading experience and has acquired the makers of the Stanza ebook reading application for cellphones. This adds a lower end experience to Kindle, its own dedicated wireless ebook reader and sets the scene for Amazon to create a broad open platform to underpin mobile reading on all devices
Amazon has been extending the Kindle software beyond its own device to certain smartphones, including the iPhone, on which Stanza runs, targeting more casual readers than Kindle users. Now it has gained a virtual monopoly on book reading on the iPhone and iPod Touch with the acquisition of Lexcycle, which makes the free Stanza app, one of the top five free downloads on the Apple platform according to FierceDeveloper.
Kindle has been a trailblazer for the emerging wireless business model, in which the carrier connection is invisible to the user, and the device and service are tightly integrated, driving usage of cellular networks into new applications beyond the handset. However, Kindle has also been threatened by the reverse trend ‘ intensified by the consumer downturn – to pack all a user’s services on to one smartphone. So Stanza saw 395,000 downloads from the Apple App Store in its first three months, almost beating sales of Kindles for the whole of 2008. This leads to an obvious conclusion ‘ that Amazon should open up Kindle to developers as an open platform and make it into a multifunction product, with add-on apps. This could, for instance, allow users to engage in social networking, exchanging book recommendations and reviews as they do on the Amazon web site.
Amazon already released a free application, based on the Kindle software, for the iPhone (with other handsets to come). And the purchase of Stanza could well be another step in the direction of creating a de facto standard for the whole book and newspaper content industry that is based on open APIs and supports a wide range of devices and reading experiences. Amazon could even replace the Kindle software with a version of Stanza for paid-for content and ebook readers, creating an open standard for ebooks, under either of the brands.
In the first stage, none of this is explicit. “We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of the acquisition,” said Lexcycle co-founder Marc Prud’hommeaux. Stanza offers complete novels that are in the public domain or available via Creative Commons licenses, and so competes with Google’s similar free books app. Stanza also delivers content from magazines like Wired.
Amazon now covers three classes of readers ‘ those sufficiently voracious to want a device optimized for a good book experience; those content with a smartphone but wanting access to the full range offered by the Amazon web site, including direct purchasing of paid-for titles; and those most interested in free content, often in ‘snack-sized’ portions. “We think the iPhone can be a great companion device for customers who are caught without their Kindle,” Ian Freed, Amazon’s VP for the ebook reader, told The New York Times, arguing the dedicated gadget still offers significant advantages such as text-friendly screen and long battery life.
Meanwhile, the success of Kindle is attracting imitators ‘ US bookstore chain Barnes & Noble is said to be planning its own e-reader, in a launch with Verizon; Vodafone has hinted at an ebook deal for Europe; and UK book chain Waterstones is offering the Sony ebook reader with integration to its online store, though using Wi-Fi not a cellular partnership. And News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch recently said he wanted a large screen reader to make it easier to look at newspapers online and on the move.