I see your sceneclips, and raise you a New York Times.
Aemon Send a noteboard - 04/09/2009 02:59:33 PM
First, the numbers of people who read are far lower than the numbers of people who watch movies as entertainment. Second, even with the larger demographic for the latter, DVD and Blu-Ray ARE slowly killing the movie theatre. Sure, theatres are trying to introduce 3-D movies and all sorts of other gimmicks, but theatre attendance is down and dropping steadily, particularly as the capabilities of home theatres improve.
Firstly, "movie theater" does not mean "movie." Even if dvd, blu-ray, and so on kill off movie theaters, that doesn't mean they've killed off movies. Secondly though, it doesn't appear that they're doing anything of the sort.
Look at this.
Obviously that's not a full year analysis, but the other numbers I've seen are also pretty positive. Even the negative reports you see don't show disaster, only a slight slump, which has happened many, may times over the years (just check the wikipedia article). Movies are hardly dead. By a very long shot.
Not only that, but let's move from looking at movies to looking at music. The mp3 revolution has killed the music industry. CD producers have been wiped out. Artists suffer because the concept of the "album" is almost dead. Forget "concept albums" or art - you have to have one song that is catchy enough to go viral and hope the song is SO popular that people come back to listen to one or two more that might be good enough to sustain you.
The mp3 revolution has killed the --> CD <-- industry. It's killed producers who produce CDs, and are too inflexible to do anything else. Apple, on the other hand, is doing quite well with their music sales. iTunes is a cultural phenomenon. As to the artists, everyone always said that CD sales were terrible, terrible deals for artists. I think (I'm not sure about this) that Authors get a larger chunk of each iTunes sale than they did via CD. As to the concept of the album being dead, sure, maybe. You can argue that sales will go down because people don't buy entire albums, but you can also argue that sales will go up because people who didn't want to buy the whole album will now buy a few songs.
Moving on: internet distribution also lets smaller bands get greater exposure, and even make some money. I have a friend with a small-time band, and his stuff is on iTunes. He makes some money every month. He'd NEVER have gotten a record contract. Ever. Don't tell me internet distribution killed music. It killed an inferior distribution model, that's all.
If your argument is that I would prefer an e-reader to a book if only I tried it, you obviously know nothing about me. I've already stated that I refuse to buy paperbacks. I buy expensive books because I like the look and feel of the book as well as the content. That isn't about to change.
If I argue that you'd prefer it if you tried it, and you say "I'll never try it," well, I suppose we have a stalemate. Expensive books are fun to collect and look at, but an ereader provides a much better reading experience. I can't prove that to you, but you'll never know what you're missing until you try a reader. /shrug
Let's Discuss: Ebooks
03/09/2009 06:19:42 PM
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I don't think I could ever use Ebooks.
03/09/2009 06:51:47 PM
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It's not necessarily one or the other.
03/09/2009 07:32:56 PM
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This is so.
03/09/2009 07:53:41 PM
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You probably will be able to soon.
03/09/2009 07:58:52 PM
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You can with some of the more expensive models.
03/09/2009 11:19:01 PM
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Ideally, universities will start renting out eTextbook readers, or something. *NM*
03/09/2009 11:30:29 PM
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That'd be great. My school rents out standard ebook readers now, so it won't be long. *NM*
03/09/2009 11:32:27 PM
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Re: This is so.
03/09/2009 09:02:21 PM
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Regarding pricing...
03/09/2009 07:40:02 PM
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Not so
03/09/2009 09:01:32 PM
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That's a fairly horrible blog post.
03/09/2009 11:05:22 PM
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Re: Let's Discuss: Ebooks
03/09/2009 08:42:26 PM
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Now that is a clever idea.
03/09/2009 11:14:07 PM
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Amazon has actually been using that idea for a while now, in a limited sense.
03/09/2009 11:22:00 PM
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I cannot stand them.
03/09/2009 08:59:03 PM
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Regarding the "Insulting" blog...
03/09/2009 10:22:43 PM
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Re: " I have a very tactile and olfactory relationship with books."
04/09/2009 09:38:22 AM
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This. . .is quite long. I feel pretty strongly about this subject.
03/09/2009 11:14:11 PM
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No, it's a cool post.
03/09/2009 11:29:33 PM
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More than fair.
03/09/2009 11:39:29 PM
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lovely! this is what i would have wanted to say had i gotten here earlier...
04/09/2009 12:44:55 AM
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Thank you for the education. I had a completely different idea as to what e-books were.
04/09/2009 09:35:11 AM
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No problem. And thanks!
04/09/2009 03:15:14 PM
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A possible selling point for me was when you said it was lighter than a paperback
05/09/2009 12:25:18 AM
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Re: Let's Discuss: Ebooks
04/09/2009 01:39:31 AM
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I hate ebooks and everything they represent
04/09/2009 03:50:48 AM
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Hold on a moment now.
04/09/2009 06:28:09 AM
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Your logic is seriously flawed
04/09/2009 02:28:21 PM
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I see your sceneclips, and raise you a New York Times.
04/09/2009 02:59:33 PM
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You have an almost cult-like enthusiasm for e-books.
06/09/2009 12:53:04 AM
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Perhaps you mis-read the graph.
04/09/2009 03:14:06 PM
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No, I didn't mis-read the graph.
06/09/2009 12:56:15 AM
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You must be talking percentage of the population who attend theaters? *NM*
06/09/2009 05:26:43 AM
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I don't have any fancy reasons for you.
05/09/2009 01:47:09 AM
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Craig, you're incredibly interesting
05/09/2009 01:59:27 AM
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... Are you hitting on me?
05/09/2009 03:02:06 AM
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