2009 in Review - Catch-'em-and-Keep-'em Net

{FD for "full disclosure" - This is version 1.1. Yesterday's report was updated following information from a gracious correspondent and the coincidental terrific article on eReaders in the 12/3 Wall Street Journal. Visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704328104574519851557848662.html quickly, as WSJ is securing their articles for pay-per-view quickly these days.}

I have talked to people in computer networking who do not sneer at former Alaskan senator Ted Stevens' analogy that the Internet is "not a big truck" but "a series of tubes." Many other computer professionals think that Stevens is an idiot, with that figure of speech being near the top of their list of reasons why.

But this year has seen a strange proliferation of oddly-shaped tubes designed to hold onto the user and keep them inside as long as possible. AOL was never like this.

Even iTunes is gradually bowing to the will of its users and is becoming a less-authoritarian environment [a WONDERFUL history of iTunes can be found in Steve Knopper's amazing book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction," which chronicles the almost complete absence of thought in the record industry, circa 1970-2008]. Admittedly, you have to pay MORE for digital-rights-management-free tunes, and they still have that weird MP4 suffix making them difficult to use in some MP3-friendly hardware, but it's a step forward.

But the "not-quite-Internet of the year" is probably Amazon. The outrageously-successful Kindle includes "free" connectivity to the on-line Kindle store, where you can buy newspapers, magazines and books for your Kindle.

But let's back up a minute. Do you realize that {FD - in addition to buying and killing CDNow and Egghead, WITHOUT learning anything from their better elements} Amazon already owns:

• AbeBooks, the Canadian used/rare bookseller AND its major competitor, LibraryThing,
• Audible, the near-perfect audiobook sales Web site,
• Box Office Mojo, the near-perfect guide to movie success tracking,
• Brilliance Audio, the US' largest independent audiobook publisher,
• the Internet Movie Database,
• Mobipocket, the ebook software company known especially to Palm users,
• PlanetAll and Junglee, a Web-based reminder service and data mining company,
• Reflexive Entertainment videogame developer and on-line gaming portal (Maximum PC magazine shills their games regularly as "free trials" on the DVDs),
• Shelfari, the "social network for people who love books," and
• Zappos, the online shoe and apparel store.

{B}ook-related acquisitions, audiobook companies, movie-related acquisitions, an epublisher, a gaming site and a shoe store. Exactly what sort of syncronicity that provides is not totally clear, but there could be a master plan.

Now Amazon has a device that provides an on-line bookstore, access to non-password-protected PDF files, MP3-playing capability (only "in order that the files were entered into the Kindle") and a rudimentary Internet access to "text-based" sites and WikiPedia.

If it seems strangely stupid to you that the Kindle network does not link to Audible directly, you are not alone. And, of course, searching the FULL Internet provides lots of commentary about Kindle digital rights management. {FD - Sony's DRM appears to be dissolving in favor of EPUB files in what appears to be a fluid situation.}

And, of course, Barnes and Noble has their own product and THEIR own direct-download network. {And DRM strategy.}

Sony, of course, was the first offering in this vertical market. It handles PDFs, EPUBs, Adobe's Digital Editions software, RSS feeds and has its own Web store, but so far, no special network.

{FD - Oops -

1. As late as 4 p.m. yesterday, Sony's site did not contain details about it, but the WSJournal report mentioned above states that a wireless version is available, but with delivery backlogged to mid-January.
2. Wiser sages than the WSJ reporter who wrote the article mentioned above, or myself, are going to have to untangle the relationships between Mobipocket and EPUB. I didn't mention it, my sources tell me the WSJ got it wrong.
3. If I understand my new source, you can now move a Sony file to a Kindle but not vice versa. Maybe? What's the phrase - "your mileage may vary"???}

Then there is the strange issue of the Microsoft Zune, an obvious iPod clone with a remarkably terrible on-line store in which you can buy, or borrow, music and audiobooks. You may think it would be hard for anything to get you to appreciate iTunes, but ZuneNET will do it. (This month's Esquire, featuring weird webcam games and Robert Downey Jr. on the cover, includes a review by over-eager film director and gadget columnist Barry Sonnenfeld, who likes the new high-definition Zunes but hates the online store.)

Considering that the first generation Zune has the most sophisticated support for Audible audiobooks I've yet encountered, the question again comes - WHY doesn't ZuneNET include a link directly to Audible? How would that interfere with an MP3-playing book reader that can't go back and forth on a song list, much less handle albums?

Gamers know Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony maintain their own networks for on-line game play. More and more, these portals support on-line game purchase. Sony's new shrunk-down handheld gaming platform, the Go, doesn't even have the disk drive of its big brother, the PSP, and downloads new games directly from the Internet. Fans of the various music games, the dance and guitar and turntable "Band" and "Hero" titles, realize that new tunes are available on-line. One minor embarrassment of the Beatles Rock Band launch was that none of the expected album packages were available for the game on the 9-9-09 release date (at least two have hit Sony's on-line store as I write this). And while all three Sony game consoles promise Web access, lack of hardware support for add-ons like Flash limits the experience significantly - making it all the more tempting for the user to spend more time at the Sony store.

[Note to game store owners - keep an eye on the Blockbuster stores in your neighborhood, and notice how the number keeps dropping. The hardware vendors are working to eat your lunch. Booksellers can smile tolerantly, for the moment.]

Where, in any of this, is transparency, or portability? To say nothing of user interest?

Then again, why would you pay $300 for a device that allows you to hang out in one little corner of the Internet rather than picking up a WebBook that enables your voyage to the whole Web, where you can read almost anything (except proprietary book formats for the proprietary book readers)?

Still, I suspect we will see much more of this in the next few years, as the urge to attract eyeballs increasingly becomes the urge to hold people hostage in our store, so they never go to anyone else's store. {With that nasty browser trick of making the BACK button non-responsive as well, I presume.}

Catch 'em and keep 'em. At least until the {non-replaceable, rechargable} batteries {die for good}.

All the best from your ever-lovin' Unclejack {still in release 1.0, sadly}