It’s been around for a few years but only last year started to sell to U.S. customers.  And even then, for many U.S. titles, it just sent customers to Amazon.

This past summer, it started selling all its titles directly to U.S. customers.  Its prices are attractive; for U.S. books it offers similar discounts to Amazon but the discount varies from book-to-book much more than Amazon’s discounts do.( for example, you are more likely to find discounts of 25% and 40% off retail where Amazon discounts are 30-37% off retail).  What distinguishes its pricing from Amazon’s is that it offers free shipping on every title, no matter what the price is.  So for those who just want to order one book under $25 or send a gift of a book, it will almost always be the less expensive option (except if the Amazon customer subscribes to Prime).

Right now, the more important difference between the two online bookstores is that bookdepository.com is a world bookstore, and thus has a much wider selection of books than Amazon, which only carries American books.  So for any English-language book from England or Australia or even Canada, it’s likely to be the cheapest and easiest bookseller to obtain it by far.

Anyway, this past summer Book Depository, which was started by ex-Amazonites,  was purchased by Amazon, which plans to keep it as a separately run subsidiary   There was a bit of a ruckus about competition being eliminated from customers on the net who don’t like Amazon and have been using Book Depository as an alternative, but while book depository is a fairly significant bookseller (though nowhere near Amazon) overall, it didn’t have enough market share in any one country (3% in the UK, for example) for any individual government to object to the combination.

This deal went almost completely unnoticed in the U.S; the few people who knew about it probably thought “so what.”

But I think a lot more people in the U.S. are going to become familiar with it, because as an international subsidiary – a company not based in the U.S.- Book Depository will (as far as I know) never have to collect sales tax for any state.  Amazon has long had this passive-aggressive attitude towards sales tax. It’s long fought against having to collect sales tax on a state-by-state basis, while at the same time officially supporting a Congressional bill that would allow states to require out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax under certain conditions.  Amazon surely knew that the latter would take many years to pass through Congress.  With the economy the way it is, Amazon now expects that such a bill will inevitably pass Congress sometime during the next few years.  The only part of the bill that is still being fought is the level of revenue below which small businesses will be exempt from having to collect sales taxes.  Amazon is pushing for that line to be set low, at $500,000 or at most $1,000,000.  Others, led by Ebay, want that line to be set much higher, say at $10,000,000.  Everybody involved is proclaiming that they’re fighting for what’s fair while fighting for their company’s self-interests

Regardless, my point here is that Amazon has now accepted the inevitability that they’ll be required to collect sales taxes in most states.  However, states will never have the authority to require companies that are not located in the U.S.to collect sales tax, at least not until we have a world tax organization, and that’s not going to happen in our lifetimes.   So I don’t believe that’s it’s a coincidence that Amazon now owns a foreign company that can sell books to U.S. residents without needing to charge and collect sales tax.  Now, Amazon doesn’t see having to collect sales tax as a catastrophe, but it does know that a certain subset of its customers is very price sensitive, especially to taxes, so being able to provide an alternative outlet for those customers is important.  If Amazon hadn’t created such a company, others would have, and Amazon would have to face new competition.  Right now, bookdepository.com only sells books, but there’s no reason that it couldn’t expand to offer other products later.  Given Amazon’s track record, If I were the person who owns the domain name musicdepository.com (that person, possibly coincidentally, actually lives in the state of Washington, although several hours from Seattle), I’d expect to hear from lawyers with an offer from a shell company no one’s ever heard of.

Gogo has partnered with major retailers including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Macy’s, and Target to provide flyers with special in-flight discounts.  Internet access is limited to Gogo’s shopping partners.

The free Internet access will be available for the remainder of the year.

SEE MORE FREQUENT BUSINESS TRAVELER NEWS

With its splash resistant case, cast aluminum frame, rubber seals, and prominent carrying handle, the Oasis Flow is as well suited to barbecues and beach parties as to a quiet hour of music in the den. Its 10W speaker punches well above its weight, and can easily fill a garden with music. Most importantly, from the standpoint of portability, the Oasis Flow sports a 10 hour rechargeable lithium ion battery pack, an outstanding feature that effectively frees the user from battery anxiety. However, at 9” tall and nearly five pounds, the user pays for the radio’s ruggedness with heft and bulk.

The radio’s interface, which combines touch sensitive buttons and rotary dials, represents an attractive marriage between old and new. Learning to use the controls was simple and fairly intuitive, although I found it confusing that the “back” button takes you back to the home menu instead of the list of stations when playing internet radio. With four lines of text, the OLED display provides more than enough information, and those who are sensitive to its light at night can shut if off in both standby and active modes. Some other radios come with remotes, and I would have liked to see one for this music player.

Like every other Wi-Fi radio on the market, the Oasis Flow offers access to thousands of free internet radio stations through the Lounge, Pure’s online radio portal. It can also stream a wide variety of audio files, including AAC (.m4a), WMA, WAA, and mp3, from a PC or Mac using Pure’s Flowserver software. The Oasis Flow picks up FM radio, although I would have liked to see an AM option as well. There’s also an aux input for iPods and other MP3 players.

The Oasis Flow’s sound quality varies depending on the audio source, but in general it is on a par with other Wi-Fi radios. That’s not necessarily a high compliment: for virtually all radios of this kind, small design, mono speakers, and compressed files can render a symphony into an indistinct drone, as if emanating from a well-insulated cellar. Still, most music is quite listenable on the Oasis Flow, and, for better fidelity, you can listen to it with headphones or attach external speakers using the 3.5 mm jack.

Customizing one’s music options is quick and easy. Internet stations can be grouped into folders on your Lounge account and synched to the radio, but scrolling through stations can still be tedious, and a search or filter function would have been nice. However, by far the greatest of the Oasis Flow’s limitations is that it cannot stream any of the popular online music services such as Pandora, Slacker, and Rhapsody, which could be a decisive shortcoming for some audiophiles.

At a retail price of $212, the Oasis Flow certainly isn’t the most expensive Wi-Fi radio on the market, but it also isn’t the cheapest. Those looking for a music player bursting with options and applications probably can find a better one, but the Oasis Flow’s rugged design, long battery life, and good quality sound should win over most music lovers.

The app makes excellent use of the Bold’s small screen and I found the books I purchased and sampled easy to read.  I found the BlackBerry’s backlit screen to be a great improvement over the Kindle’s (although the Kindle’s is significantly larger, of course).  One can change the font size to get more text on screen or to make the text easier to read.  To flip pages, hit the space bar.  The user can also scroll up and down using either the pearl trackball or touch-sensitive optical trackpad found in newer BlackBerry models.

Shopping on line for books is easy.  The search function in the store is fast and one can also navigate directly to New York Times best sellers, Kindle best sellers, books Amazon calls “new and noteworthy,” and a personalized list of books created by Amazon’s recommendation engine.

For one book, I accidentally clicked on “purchase” instead of “sample” and, while there is no cancel option in the BlackBerry application, a quick call to Amazon’s customer service cancelled the purchase.  The book then disappeared from my home screen.

This is the one place where the interface on the BlackBerry could use some work, namely in better highlighting the “Try a sample” button (versus the purchase button).

One significant usability flaw, which one hopes will be remedied in future versions, is that there is no search functionality from within the book.  In addition, while one can create bookmarks within the app, one can view – but not create – annotations created on a Kindle or Kindle for iPhone.

Based on what Amazon has mentioned publicly, the company doesn’t believe that the free application will cannibalize sales of the dedicated Kindle device but sees it as complementary.  Indeed, Amazon just announced plans for Mac and iPad versions of the Kindle software.

Many Kindle device owners love their readers but I never warmed up to the device, even in its improved form.  But for those who own a Kindle, Amazon’s Whispersync service will keep track of where one is on either device and synchronize the two.  Books purchased on the Kindle are automatically available on the BlackBerry device as well.

For business travelers who regularly use a compatible BlackBerry smartphone (or Apple iPhone or iPod touch for that matter), the Kindle app may turn out to be the best eBook reader while travelling.  The reading experience, while not book-like, is pleasant, the software is free, and the books themselves are far less expensive than the original paper versions.

While the Kindle device has more storage for books and a larger screen, with its case it weighs 500 grams (18 ounces) and has a footprint of a hardcover book.   Why carry yet another device – or spend an additional $299?

–Jonathan B. Spira is the Editor of Executive Road Warrior and Chief Analyst at Basex, a knowledge economy research firm.

The Kindle DX in use.

The new device, dubbed Kindle DX (for deluxe), costs $489, or $130 more than the current and smaller model. Amazon.com is positioning it as a new way for users ranging from students to knowledge workers to read documents, newspapers, and textbooks. It will be available for purchase this summer.

The Kindle costs as much as an inexpensive laptop and more than an inexpensive netbook.  Neither of these devices is ideal for reading books, of course, yet they are far more versatile in many other areas.

Amazon.com is trying a different business model to sell Kindle DXs: three newspapers, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post, will offer it at a reduced price (not yet announced) to readers who live in areas where their newspapers are not available for home delivery (subscribers must sign up for a long-term subscription to the Kindle edition of the paper, making this similar to the subsidized purchase of a new mobile phone with a multi-year contract).  Articles displayed in the newspaper’s Kindle edition do not have advertisements and Amazon keeps 70% of the subscription revenue, an arrangement newspaper publishers are reportedly trying to renegotiate.

Amazon launched the device at Pace University and announced agreements with three major textbook publishers, Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, and Wiley Higher Education, to make their books available in the Kindle store.  Six universities including Pace, Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Reed College, and the University of Virginia, are slated to test the device with students in the fall.

So what does all of the extra size, weight, and storage get you besides strength training for your wrist?  To start with, the display size is much more suitable for reading newspapers and books with complex illustrations.  The auto-rotate feature turns pages from portrait to landscape, something that will be particularly useful for maps, graphs, tables, and even Web pages.  The Kindle DX supports PDF files natively, so, unlike with the current Kindle, files do not have to go through a converter.   I’ll reserve judgement at this point but since I most recently favored the Kindle for iPhone over the Kindle device, I’m not sure which way this will go.

You can pre-order a Kindle DX at Amazon.com.

–Jonathan B. Spira is the Editor of Executive Road Warrior and Chief Analyst at Basex, a knowledge economy research firm.

Kindle in use on an Apple iPhone

Based on what Amazon has mentioned publicly, the company doesn’t believe that the free application will cannibalize sales of the dedicated Kindle device but sees it as complementary.  After using the app to read several books, I am not sure they are right.

As regular readers know, I was not a fan of the original Kindle and I haven’t yet tested Kindle 2 , although its design does appear to address a few of the shortcomings I noted in the original.

If you already own a compatible Apple device, however, the new Kindle app may be the best eBook reader for you.  Indeed, if you don’t already own one, you still may wish to consider an iPod touch for your eBooks.  Text is clear and navigating from page to page is simply a matter of touching the screen.

The app makes excellent use of the iPod touch’s small screen and I found the books I purchased very easy to read.  You can change the font size to get more text on screen or to make the text easier to read.  To flip pages, swipe the screen with your thumb or other finger.

I found the iPod’s backlit screen to be a vast improvement over the original Kindle’s; the Kindle 2 uses the same E Ink screen technology and is reportedly sharper than the original model.

The app lacks direct access to the Kindle store and does not support newspapers, magazines, and blogs (despite reports in the media to the contrary), however the devices themselves support Web access and thereby provide free access to almost all of the very publications Amazon.com sells, plus many more not available at the Kindle store.

Two major flaws, which one hopes will be remedied in future versions: there is no search from within the book and graphics can’t be resized.  In addition, there is no landscape reading mode and the software does not support annotations.

If you do own a Kindle, Amazon’s Whispersync service will keep track of where you are on either device and synchronize the two.  Books purchased on the Kindle are automatically available on the Apple device as well.

There are other eBook options for the iPhone and iPod touch. Shortcovers allows users to purchase and read books on the iPhone and iPod touch and Google supports eBook reading on a Web site optimized for the iPhone, although the books available from Google are out-of-print.

If you are looking for a good eBook solution, the Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch merits strong consideration.  The reading experience, while not book-like, is pleasant, the software is free, and the books themselves are far less expensive than the original paper versions.

–Jonathan B. Spira is the Editor of Executive Road Warrior and Chief Analyst at Basex, a knowledge economy research firm.

The new and improved Kindle

The original Bookman weighed two pounds and could play full-length audio CDs.  It was, essentially, an 80286-based, MS DOS-compatible computer with a 4.5″ monochrome display.  Even before the Bookman, Sony had introduced the Data Discman Electronic Book Player.  The Discman weighed only 1.5 pounds and books had to be created using the Sony Electronic Book Authoring System.  Its three-hour battery life, relatively low resolution, and limited content greatly limited its utility and, ultimately, its lack of success.

All of these designs, including the newest Kindle, overlook the rather profound question of what makes for a satisfying book-reading experience.

It all boils down to the fact that reading a book is just that, something one does with paper.  No amount of searchable text, clickable links, and video wizardry will replace that experience, and putting a table of contents, page numbers, and an index around words that come to the reader electronically is a different reading experience.

Books also have other advantages, including a drop-proof, shock-proof chassis, extremely low power consumption, and a bulletproof operating system.

What we read from did migrate once before. By the end of antiquity, the codex had replaced the scroll.  The codex user interface was improved over time with the separation of words, use of capital letters, and the introduction of punctuation, as well as tables of contents and indices.  This worked so well, in fact, that 1500 years later, the format remains largely unchanged.

With the original Kindle, the reader experience, while light-years ahead of reading a book on a laptop, was still greatly lacking compared to the pleasure readers continue to derive from paper books (it appears we are at the cusp of having to create a retronym, “paper books,” to describe the non-eBook variety).  My 1996 “invention” of the Lazerbook , an in-home device that printed books on demand on reusable paper, has still not yet been built but I suspect that, were it to arrive on the scene today,  readers would still prefer paper.

This week Amazon introduced Kindle 2.  Although units are not yet available for purchase (although Amazon is accepting pre-orders now) or for testing, I suspect that I will like this Kindle a whole lot more.  In addition to the new Kindle, Amazon said it would start to sell e-books that can be read on non-Kindle devices including mobile phones.  It also announced an exclusive short story by Stephen King.

Kindle 2, sporting a new design with round keys and a short, joystick-like controller, has seven times the memory of the original version, a sharper display, and it turns pages faster.  Despite these improvements, the price remains the same: $359.  At the launch, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told the audience that “our vision is every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.”  Amazon also announced Whispersync, a feature that allows the reader to start a book on one Kindle and continue where he left off on another Kindle or supported mobile device.

Apple and Google, not traditional book publishers, represent the greatest challenge to the Kindle beyond, of course, the codex.  Google has, to date, scanned millions of books, many out of print and hence not easily available in traditional form.  Readers can find several e-book programs online for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

What will the future hold? Check with me in, say, 1500 years.

You can order the new Kindle from Amazon.

–Jonathan B. Spira is the Editor of Executive Road Warrior and Chief Analyst at Basex, a knowledge economy research firm.

The Amazon Kindle resting on its antecedent

I really wanted to like the Kindle, with its E Ink high resolution display that gives an almost print-like appearance, free wireless connectivity (limited to the U.S. because it uses Sprint’s EVDO network, and post modern interpretation of, well, a book.

But I found the experience of reading a book or newspaper on the Kindle strangely unsatisfying.

At 10.3 ounces (without the cover), the Kindle felt heavier than a trade paperback book although it is similarly sized. The E Ink technology takes a second to refresh when you change pages (it fades to black and blinks), which interrupts the flow of reading and is quite jarring. (On the plus side, you can read the Kindle in direct sunlight so there are pluses and minuses to the display technology).

While reading a book on the Kindle was somewhat akin to reading a book on paper, reading a newspaper was unsettling if you like to scan stories as opposed to having one average less than a full paragraph visible at one time.

Navigating through the Amazon.com store was relatively easy and a big plus of electronic book reader technology is that you can quickly download sample chapters of books you might want to read before making a purchase.

You can bookmark interesting or key passages and edit and export notes. You can also e-mail documents to the Kindle including PDF files. The Kindle always saves your place so you can pick up where you left off. Newspapers, which are normally free on the Web, require a paid subscription on the Kindle (the New York Times costs $13.99 a month) so you are paying for convenience but many books (more than 130,000 available) are $9.99, a bargain. Finally, if you lose your Kindle as opposed to a throwaway paper or paperback book, well…

You can purchases the Kindle at Amazon.com

–Jonathan B. Spira is the Editor of Executive Road Warrior and Chief Analyst at Basex, a knowledge economy research firm.