Amazon buys Lexcycle (Stanza) – What does this mean for ebooks?
I was working on a different blog post when the news caught my eye in my Google Reader account. I first came across this post from Teleread – Amazon.com has bought Lexcycle, the makers of the popular Stanza ebook reading app for iPhone/iPod Touch.
Then I had to see for myself and found this short article in the New York Times. Yep, the news is true. And continuing to browse through my Google Reader posts, I then read Teleread’s first post about the news. I share Paul’s sentiment – wow!
But I also share Paul’s worry as well:
I, personally, find this a very worrisome event. It can’t do anything good for the ebook community and I suspect will only wind up lessing competition in the long run. I don’t think that Amazon has any vested interest in seeing that organizations like Feedbooks, Guternberg, Smashwords, etc. survive.
I agree, Amazon has no vested interest in seeing any of the above organizations survive. The only vested interest Amazon has is itself (which includes the Kindle and their draconian DRM). There’s really not much from stopping them from changing Stanza to only read Amazon’s own DRMed ebooks, despite what this blog post says on Lexcycle’s website.
Furthermore, how will this affect Fictionwise, which was recently acquired by Barnes & Noble? Will Stanza continue to allow users to buy and read ebooks from Fictionwise? What about epub? Will Amazon start to tinker with the open-source ebook format to lock it into evil DRM nightmare? Will more and more of these small ebook companies get gobbled up by large corporations.
This worries me a great deal. I hope we are not seeing the beginning of a large corporate feeding-frenzy, where all ebooks, formats and devices are controlled by a few mega-corporations. That would just be bad all around.
On the other hand, if I’m trying to look at the glass half full, I can see this as a good sign for ebooks. Just another of many signs that ebooks are growing in popularity. Unfortunately the potential negatives of this latest news is more worrisome than anything.
What do you think of Amazon’s buyout of Lexcycle? Will Amazon start tinkering with a good thing and try to bring down epub? Or will they follow through with their promise to keep things the same? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Related posts
- 5 reasons why Stanza might be my iPhone ebook app of choice
- Free ebooks: Thank you Lexcycle!
- Barnes & Noble buys ebook retailer Fictionwise
- Amazon needs more competition in the ebook realm
- Penguin 2.0 launches, Random House partners with Stanza
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