03/10/06

Frankfurt predictions

It’s that time of year, and for one, I’m not going to be there – although I wish I could be. I think it’s going to be a busy year in the digital side of things, so here are some predictions for what may happen in the next 6 days.

1. Amazon announces the launch of Kindle and cleans up in the PR space for digital. The announcement of a device (which is pretty unique for Amazon who have obviously been frustrated both by their share of the music market compared to iTunes’) and a service to get content onto the device makes everyone sit up and take notice…
2. Apple announces a widescreen iPod with eBook support. Actually, this probably won’t happen – if they had done this they would have announced at the Apple Conference (rather than the iTV) – but Amazon’s entry to market, and their dominance of book sales (which is surely somewhere Apple has to go if it is going to continue to own personal entertainment) may be the catalyst the space needs…
3. Sony readers are visible but in very short demand. Everyone is frothing at the mouth for these. But what? They’re not available in Europe?…
4. Google joins the party and makes some huge announcement that noone can work out whether it is scary, overwhelming or underwhelming.

These announcements will of course be completely ignored by everyone there who is in the business of publishing. But it may be worth watching to see what the bloggers say…

Posted by Peter Collingridge in Future of the book, Publishing.

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