A number of smart libraries in the UK have started to lend ebooks in addition to their normal circulation.

George Parker is the perpetrator of adscam.typepad.com. Every week he shares his opinions on the advertising world with PSFK.

For one Boston Prep school, the satisfying turn of the page and row upon row of books have been replaced by the calculated clack of keyboards and endlessness of the internet. As the modern library it seems, contains no actual books.

The last few weeks have been busy ones in the eBook space. Amazon launched its man-hole cover sized Kindle DX to generally favorable reviews. There’s talk about them launching a color version in the near future and one analyst is forecasting sales of 900,000 units in 2009, rising to 1.4 million in 2010. When you consider these babies start at $350 and go up from there, even if you believe Amazon’s claim that it costs them $150 to manufacture each unit – Which is absolute bullshit – It’s no wonder Bezos has an idiotic grin perpetually plastered on his face. [...]

Shamus left a message in the comments section of the post where we shared news that in the first 2 weeks of sales of PSFK’s content on Kindle only one person subscribed. Shamus says he’s that one person and says:
This is sad so I am the only person to subscribe. That is just sad. I can say that I love it. But the power of one is never strong. I do love my Kindle but that is mainly cause I am on the road 3 to 4 days a week and not having to carry around books with me everywhere [...]

I originally drafted a post about the Kindle about a month ago but I thought I was being mean – so I let it sit and stew for a while. The release of the Apple 3.0 and some recent comments by Jeff Jarvis has made me dust it off with a quick update:
So there it is sat on my desk with a dead battery – 8 weeks after I bought the second generation ebook reader direct from Amazon. Unused, unloved, unnecessary. I feel like I’ve wasted my money.
My reaction to the whole genre: surely ebooks need a cigarette moment? Ebook [...]

This is probably a first as far as advertising with the Kindle is concerned. Showtime is offering users the chance to download the pilot script of its new series ‘Nurse Jackie‘ for free – the show will premiere on June 8th. The download, which will be available till August 31st of this year, will be advertised via banner ads on Amazon.com and Kindle storefronts and will include cover art, the title page and the show’s scheduling information. Media agency OMD, which is working with Showtime on this initiative, says that the lack of a proper advertising model for the Kindle [...]

Get trends and ideas inspiration anyway you want. PSFK can now be read through Amazon’s ebook reader Kindle. The powers-that-be over at the book retail company have decided we’re worth $1.99 for a monthly subscription – but you can test it out for 14 days for free too.
It will be interesting to see if anyone subscribes to content which is free elsewhere and if they do at what volume. Check it out here – and if you do subscribe, do leave one of those Customer Reviews.
PSFK On Kindle

In a recent Tweet on Twitter, Stephen Fry talks about his relationship to books and Twitter:
I collect books. Have done for years. I will no more throw out “real” books cos I have a Kindle than I’ll jettison pens cos I have a Mac
He does tweet later with another thought, though:
I’ve thousands of books and will continue buying them till I die. Smell and feel, yes. Maybe. But that was true of horses – lol

Writing in the Guardian Technology blog, Bobbie Johnson reacts to yesterday’s product update announcement by Amazon with an interesting point. The tech columnist wonders if the Kindle can’t be successful while there are no pirates or “criminally-minded” users who are trying to hack the system to get and share free content:
Everyone’s looking at the pattern they’ve seen in music and video – an old medium changed radically by technology – and waiting for it to hit the book world. But the chances of that happening right now are very small indeed. Why? It’s fairly straightforward.
The real reason that the music [...]

After much anticipation, Amazon unveiled their second go at the Kindle this morning, updating their divisive e-book reader with more memory, a new 5-way navigation controller, a better battery life and an upgraded screen (offering 16 shades of gray rather than the previous 4).
The new device is thinner (thinner than a no. 2 pencil in fact – see pic) and arguably less of an eyesore, but it’s still a few steps away from being a serious game changer. Amazon said the device will have the capacity for mobile device-to-Kindle syncing sometime in the future, but no word on when (it [...]