To sum up a few new twists and turns of the events in the ebook apocalypse last week:
Sony warns that ebook prices will have to drop in order to generate interest in the market (and, most importantly, to compete with Amazon's promise that all backlist ebooks in the US will be $9.99). Read more...
On the same day, Hachette book group spoke out against ebook pricing, predicting the doom of the hardcover book. Read more...
Lastly, and the one I personally enjoyed the most, The Bookseller Chick took the Sony Reader PRS 700* (seriously, Sony, you're going to need a better name than that to rival the Kindle) on a test drive. It seems to me that Sony could corner the ebook market, what with the Kindle only compatible with Amazon and Amazon-released ebooks, while the Sony can read many formats. Read more...
*I found it interesting that when I mentioned this article to my boyfriend, his reaction was "Sony makes an e-reader?" It amazes me that Amazon, with a more expensive and less compatible product, has already built a permanent home in our ebook imaginations. He's an iPod touch reader, himself, which The Bookseller Chick does discuss as a possible rival to Amazon.
