The E-book Reader That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Do you know how to pronounce Scribd? Does it rhyme with "scribed"? Or "fibbed"? I've even heard it called "Scrib-dee".

How about Que, Plastic Logic's forthcoming e-book reader? Is it pronounced "Kay"? or "Cue"?

Next is the Flepia, Fujitsu's e-book reader. Is it Fleh-pia or Flee-pia?

Or the UK e-book reader called the Cool-er. As we recently wondered (see Another E-Book Reader with a Dumb Name), is that pronounced "color" (the device screen is black and white by the way)? Or do you pronounce it like the refrigerated water dispenser commonly found in business offices, suggesting it's cooler than the Kindle? Or maybe you come to a full glottal stop, thus: Cool. Er.

If I were a technology company investing millions of dollars to develop a device or service or product, it would make sense for me to ask a focus group to review it. And to make sure that focus group is stocked with people with dirty minds. Like Charles Curtis's.

Charles Curtis believes there is money to be made helping corporations avoid selecting embarrassing names for their products. He would call his service "Double Entendre Consulting". "The concept," he explains, "is this: say you're a startup with a company name, logo, slogan but you're nervous that there's something hidden in it that will make you a laughingstock. So you pay my company a fee and I, along with my fellow gross-minded colleagues, will review your selections and tell you if they're clean or if they will become fodder for viral hilarity on the Internet."

For example? "If Kids Exchange had hired us, we would have informed them that their URL, kidsexchange.net, spelled out something very different from what they intended. Same goes for an outfit called Who Represents? Their URL is Whorepresents.com.

"This idea came up in college when I used to frequent a fast food joint that prided itself on making great salads. Unfortunately, their slogan was, 'The Original Salad Tossers'. If you don't understand why that's so hilarious, click here. When I went back there years later, the slogan on their napkins had changed, so perhaps someone had informed them that sickos such as myself were rolling on the floor every time we mentioned their slogan. And teabagging? The Republicans, should have consulted me before they began advocating that practice. Click here to learn why."

Full disclosure Number 1: I sired this person. Full disclosure #2: if he does go into the double entendre business I intend to become a serious investor, because I think there's a fortune to be made in exposing dumb names.

And that brings us to The Nook.

Charles does not mention what he would have said to Barnes & Noble had they consulted with him about The Nook, BN.Com's newly minted and named e-book reader. But he might consider employing a blogger named Charissa, who wrote the following Open Letter to Barnes & Noble:

Dear Barnes & Noble,

What were you thinking?

Who on earth thought it would be a good idea to name you new E-Reader device the nook? I mean, really? Do you know anything about pop culture and slang from the last few decades? I would love to know what kind of focus groups you used to demo the name and marketing, or did you use focus groups at all? Because I don’t know who wouldn’t have told you this is a bad idea.

And did you even give a thought to what your booksellers are going to have to endure, answering questions about the nook(ie)? Not to mention all the jokes they’re going to be subject to. Trust me, there is an endless supply of nook jokes out there, from the innocent “nook, nook” jokes to more suggestive humor.

Not to mention the fact that within less than 24 hours of the nook’s announcement, some anonymous B&N employees have already begun re-writing Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie” in honor of the nook. Do you realize how obnoxious it is to have the words, “And you can take you Kindle and stick it up your…” stuck in your head all day long?

And it’s really bad that the device itself doesn’t even come out until the end of November and I’m already having trouble using the name in a sentence with a straight face. We still have more than a month of nook jokes to go.

I realize it’s too late to change the name now, but I really hope next time you’re a little more careful when selecting the name of something as monumental to the company as this device apparently is.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen

PS – If you were to, say, give out free nooks to all your employees in an effort to encourage them to familiarize themselves with the device for customer questions, then I would be more than willing to forgive you for this minor naming indiscretion.

We wish the best of success to the makers of the Flepia, Que, Cool-er and Nook. They should be aware, though, that had they hired Double Entendre Consulting they might have avoided becoming, in the words of W. S. Gilbert, "a source of innocent merriment."

Richard Curtis, President of E-Reads (which is pronounced "Ee-Reeds", not "Eh-Reds")

Another E-Book Reader with a Dumb Name

We realize that crazy names for digital startups are fashionable. The reasoning is that a weird word sticks in your memory and if it catches on, the recognition factor can be priceless. Google, anyone?

On the other hand, funky names can be a disadvantage if they are also disagreeable or hard to pronounce, particularly if you've created a product that you are hoping will supplant the sonorous and aptly named Kindle. That's why, for example, we're skeptical that the world is going to beat a path to a gadget called the Flepia. Discussing color e-book readers we recently wrote:

It's hard to take an e-book named Flepia seriously. First of all, no one knows if it's Fleh-pia or Flee-pia (it's Fleh, I'm reliably told). Second of all, "Flepia" sounds like one of those junk fishes hauled up with a tuna catch.

The Flepia is made by Fujitsu, and if anything would induce us to utter the word "Flepia" aloud at the sales counter of an electronics store it's the fact that it's the first full-color commercial e-book reader. But it would still be embarrassing.

Another Japanese e-book reader named by a marketing genius with a tin ear is Panasonic's WordsGear. It too is in living color, and comes in at half of the intimidating $1000 price of the Flepia. But it's hard to see myself reading a book on something called a WordsGear.

The Japanese don't have a monopoly on inept nomenclature for e-book readers. From a UK outfit called Interead comes the Cool-er. It boasts a number of advantages over the competition, among them price (at $250, it's a third cheaper than Kindle and Sony) and weight. "The Cool-er weighs 5.6 ounces - compared to 10 oz of the Sony Reader and 10.2 oz of the Amazon Kindle 2," writes Priya Ganapati for Wired.com's Engadget. "That means the Cool-er is nearly 40 percent lighter than its biggest competitors."

It also comes in eight colors. But does that make it a color reader? No, just the frames are colored. The text is good old black and white E-ink. Which brings us to the name. Aren't consumers going to be confused by a b&w reader that sounds like "Col-or"? Or is it supposed to suggest the device is cool. Do you pronounce the word like the refrigerated water dispenser commonly found in business offices? Or do you come to a full glottal stop, thus: Cool. Er. No matter how you say it, it's awkward, cacophonous and meaningless.

The dark horse in the Dumb Name Derby is the e-reader developed by Plastic Logic. Despite its imminent release it still doesn't have a name. Because of its thin, flexible design - you can roll it up like a scroll - it is a keenly anticipated device. But what will it be named?

One hopes that the company's management will learn from the unfortunates described here and give us a name we can utter joyously and proudly. Or how about a name we can utter at all.

RC

Is Color the Real Kindle Killer?

A kaiju is marching from Japan to the West, and the Kindle, Sony and other black and white e-book readers are in danger of being trampled. Call the monster Colorzilla.

For instance...

We recently wondered whether Rupert Murdoch was "ready to get e-ink on his fingers." It increasingly looks like he is, and what's more it will be colored ink. Gizmodo's John Herman reports that "Rupert Murdoch, News Corp potentate and noted evil person, yesterday announced his company is 'investing in a new device that has a bigger screen [than the Kindle], [and] four colors,' adding, "THE KINDLE MUST PERISH."

We agree with Herman's observation that "We'll have to wait and see on this one, but probably not for too long - this is a guy who, for better or for worse, means what he says - and the Kindle is begging for some decent competition." (The Informer's headline was, Rupert Murdoch Investing In a Mysterious Color eBook Reader [It Runs On Human Blood]).

Why, you may ask, do we need color to read black type on a white page? Because, as we pointed out a while back (Watching Books), text displayed on a screen - even a bullet-paced thriller - can be boring to a generation of readers raised on color-saturated television and computer screens. Served up with color ads or videos, even dry textbooks will hold our attention. And don't forget the new hybrids slouching toward your screen called vlogs and vooks - dramatized blogs and stories utilizing the full arsenal of modern media.

In the last year or two the push for a color e-reader screen has intensified. The first across the finish line was the Fujitsu Flepia which, despite its intimidating price ($1000) showed us the potential for books nestled in color.

At half the price is the Panasonic WordsGear. As reviewed on Technabob:

The WordsGear offers an amazingly sharp 5.6-inch TFT display with a 1024×600 pixel resolution (that’s about 211 pixels per inch.) This means reading small type should be no problem, and easy on the eyes. Thanks to a special touch sensitive grip, it’s designed to be controlled with a single hand, so you can even use it while standing up on the train or bus.

Since the display isn’t one of those electrostatic ones, it can also handle moving images, and cam play MPEG4 video clips. There’s also AAC and WMA audio playback, and you can listen to your tunes while reading. Content is stored on SD cards, providing plenty of expandability. The rechargeable battery should give you about 6 hours of reading on a single charge.

There’s a huge catalog of e-books for the device (all in Japanese, though) available from Saidoku. From what I can tell, you can load up your own PDF documents so you won’t be limited to Japanese content.

It's worth clicking on the Panasonic WordsGear to see the video. Didn't understand a syllable but it's great fun. And that's the point - color is fun! Even, paradoxically, black-on-white text.

I wonder if the Japanese devices have been compromised by lousy names. It's hard to take an e-book named Flepia seriously. First of all, no one knows if it's Fleh-pia or Flee-pia (it's Fleh, I'm reliably told). Second of all, "Flepia" sounds like one of those junk fishes hauled up with a tuna catch. And WordsGear? Can you see yourself boasting about reading a book on your WordsGear?

No wonder Kindle is enjoying so much success. Whether or not it's a great e-book reader, it sounds like one.

RC

Press Baron Murdoch Ready to Get E-Ink on His Fingers?

I wouldn't swear to it, but I think those may be Rupert Murdoch's hands examining Plastic Logic's thus-far-nameless e-book reader, a Kindle competitor scheduled for release in 2010.

Why would Murdoch, who presides over a media empire ranging from Fox Broadcasting to HarperCollins Publishers to the world's largest agglomeration of English language newspapers, be caressing an e-ink reading device? Is he contemplating going E with such papers as the Daily Telegraph, the Times of London, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal? Media reporter Peter Kafka thinks so.

Kafka, covering the cable industry's annual show, heard Murdoch expressing admiration for the Kindle and ruminating that he might be willing to invest in a Kindle rival.

"At a Q&A at the cable industry’s annual show today," Kafka reports, "Murdoch waxed on about the Kindle’s qualities, then made a reference to investing in a machine that could be even more attractive - one that boasted a large, full-color screen." Reconstructing his notes, the reporter recorded Murdoch as saying,

"We need new models. The first inkling of it is the Kindle. You can get the whole paper there. And you can get the whole of The Wall Street Journal on your BlackBerry. We’re investing in a new device that has a bigger screen, four-color, and you can get everything there."

Not trusting his notes, Kafka checked with a spokesperson from Murdoch's News Corp and sure enough, it was confirmed. "News Corp. is indeed in 'exploratory' talks about making an investment in a company working on e-reader technologies."

Which device is Murdoch thinking of investing in? Perhaps it's the no-namer being developed by Plastic Logic, about which we wrote last fall. Though its display is currently black and white, color screens are "on our road map," VP for Business Development Daren Benzi told The Observer. The plot thickens when you realize that Benzi spent 14 years at News Corp before moving to Plastic Logic. That said, PL already has substantial - $200 million - backing from investors, so do they need Murdoch's investment too?

Okay, so maybe it's the Flepia which, we announced just the other day, is in fact developing a color screen. But it too is already capitalized - by Fujitsu.

Could it be the iRex Reader 1000, the potentially Kindle-killing device introduced last year? It's not in color yet, but a color iRex Iliad has been long rumored.

Rupert-watchers will have a field day second-guessing his thinking. But it shouldn't be that opaque. Steeped in newsprint though he may be, the shrewd press czar has seen the writing, and it's not on the wall. It's on a screen. His romance with e-ink was foreshadowed in 2006 in a speech he gave at the Annual Livery Lecture at the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers.

What happens to print journalism in an age where consumers are increasingly being offered on-demand, interactive, news, entertainment, sport and classifieds via broadband on their computer screens, TV screens, mobile phones and handsets?

The answer is that great journalism will always attract readers. The words, pictures and graphics that are the stuff of journalism have to be brilliantly packaged; they must feed the mind and move the heart.

And, crucially, newspapers must give readers a choice of accessing their journalism in the pages of the paper or on websites such as Times Online or - and this is important - on any platform that appeals to them, mobile phones, hand-held devices, ipods, whatever.

The possibility of converting paper journalism to electronic must certainly have triggered severe myocardial ischemia among the august members of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, but Murdoch can't say he didn't warn them. The cost of producing and distributing newspapers is ghastly. For instance, the newsprint used in one year’s worth of The Montreal Gazette is the equivalent of 186,816 trees. Multiply that by all of Murdoch's newspaper holdings and the number of dead trees is nothing short of astronomical.

Watch this space for updates.

RC

Bring 5000 Books on Vacation in your Fujitsu Color Flepia

Publishers Weekly reports that Fujitsu has now weighed into the e-book arena with the Flepia. We say "weighed" but it doesn't weigh much: it's Kindle-slim and less than one pound. Far more importantly, its e-ink no-glare screen is in robust color. Its battery holds a charge for forty hours and, says PW's Michael Fitzpatrick, "When used with a 4GB SD card, the color e-paper terminal can store the equivalent of 5,000 conventional paper based, 300-pages-long books."

E-Reads' Michael Gaudet previewed the Flepia in fall of 2007 and expressed some concerns about the device's speed and performance. We'll see if those criticisms have been addressed.

He also worried that technology would come with a high retail price. He was sure right about that - when it comes to the US this fall or sometime in 2010 (Japanese consumers will have theirs in April '09), it will have a price tag of around $1000.00. You did say you wanted color, didn't you? How badly? A thousand bucks badly? With the e-reader bar currently holding at around $350.00, that's asking a lot in this or any other economy, even if you're an AIG executive suddenly flush with discretionary income.

But, like your grandpa's Dumont TV, once people have seen color it's going to be very hard to go back to black and white, so a second generation e-reader arms race revolving around color screens may be shaping up.

And we're told it's pronounced FLEHP-ya, not FLEEP-ya.

White gloves not included in the price, but for a thousand bucks, heaven help you if you leave a thumb-print on the screen.

RC

The New Sony Reader and the Fujitsu Flepia

When Sony finally released its updated Reader, the PRS-505 a few weeks ago (pictured at right), Peter N. Glaskowsky from CNet was one of the first happy reviewers to take a look at the new edition of this famous ebook device. He bought the new model to replace his old 1st generation Sony Reader (the PRS-500), and his write-up of the new version, which I recommend you read, shows he's pleased with the improvements. The new Reader boasts more onboard memory, a new interface button layout, and comes in one of two colors (silver or dark blue). What many people aren't aware of is that it's capable of MP3 playback (yes, both music and audiobooks!) and that you can mount it as a read/write drive by USB to either your Mac or PC, to drag folders of RTFs, PDFs, and other supported ebook formats onto the device. It also has both a Sony Memory Stick slot and a standard SD slot, giving you as much as 10GB of storage space. Sony Connect sells E-Reads titles for the Reader at just $8.99 a pop, or you can purchase our non-DRM Sony ebooks from Fictionwise. This Christmas, the Sony Reader is probably the best device deal, for under $300 at Best Buy.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu has readied 2 new color ebook readers that represent an effort to break away from standard grayscale sooner rather than later. The Flepia, in either an A4 or an A5 size, is WiFi enabled and can display 4096 colors on its screen, but there are limitations... it takes about 10 seconds to redraw a screen (aka. flip a page) and bleeding edge technology doesn't come cheap. The problem stems from e-ink panel technology, which is based on creating a static image that does not refresh until you request it to do so, in order to conserve energy, and color technology in this realm is still percolating and expensive. When Fujitsu showed a demo version of this technology over a year ago, it didn't blow many people away as much as it delivered a proof-of-concept device. The final versions Fujitsu announced as Flepia models won't be available in North America, probably because color e-ink like this is still considered too expensive for our market. However, you can expect future ebook readers for the mass market to eventually incorporate color like the Flepia does.

- Michael