The Kindle may not be able to play in the Chinese market

Absrtact: After the Amazon China website quietly launched the Kindle Chinese bookstore last December, many domestic users were pleasantly surprised, which seems to indicate that the Kindle hardware will soon enter the domestic market. In the blink of an eye, the first quarter of 2013 years has passed largely, and the situation has become bewildering,

Many domestic users were pleasantly surprised when Amazon's China website quietly launched the Kindle Chinese bookstore last December, which seems to herald a rapid entry into the domestic market of the Kindle hardware. In the blink of an eye, the first quarter of 2013 years has passed largely, and the situation has become confusing, industry insiders told the IT times that there is no exact news of the Kindle hardware entering China. And for the "Kindle Chinese bookstore", which is already in China, because the user experience is not very good, the domestic e-book industry insiders believe that the Kindle in the Chinese market may not be able to play.

There is still no definite news of the bookstore leading hardware in China

"When Amazon launched its Chinese bookstore in China last December, it seemed to have been clear that its hardware would be in China earlier this year," he said. "said one industry insider.

However, in the twinkling of an eye to the end of February, Nindenshon, the digital publishing online co-founder, told reporters that the Kindle's time in China was still vague.

For some readers, after Amazon launched the Kindle Chinese bookstore Last December, the caper was palpable, but quickly turned into a puzzle, as the Kindle Chinese bookstore does not support the Kindle hardware reader, which has not yet been officially sold in China, Essentially, the client for iOS and Android mobile devices is launched.

Without the trump card hardware, the Kindle's ecological chain seems incomplete, so the price, quantity and user experience become the key to compare with other e-book platforms in the country. Some readers complain, however, that the Kindle's Chinese bookstore "doesn't look good in terms of page and layout" and "Can't find interesting books on the list." It seems to have a certain distance from the perfect anticipation.

Content source mixed with the initial sense of the domestic market iceberg

Domestic E-book Company "See more" Vice President Hu Xiaodong has been a lack of experience in the Kindle Chinese bookstore sigh. He told the IT times that the Kindle Chinese bookstore's products are comparable to those of some of the electric-business platforms, but there are still gaps in page layout, compared with a lot of quality-conscious e-books. He said that the Western instrument layout simple, the change is less, this provides the foundation for the big industrial production. But the modern Chinese layout emphasizes the text mix row and the font change: "For a simple example, in a song body book you see a paragraph in italics, natural reaction is a dialogue or quotation, see a bold word you know is emphasized." Therefore, the distribution mechanism and layout of the different, will make any company to develop in China, must be redefined. ”

Of course, the problem may also come from China's digital publishing content is not as good as abroad, the Hu Xiaodong experience is very deep. He said that many of the domestic publishing institutions Digital Foundation is not enough, the data source is mixed, many are scanned version of the PDF file Direct OCR, and did not go through the revision work. So some domestic enterprises in groping to deal with such problems, at the top of the "minority" hat, will be "fine row fine" few fine books placed in the number of first, and strive to use a better experience to promote user pay.

Hu Xiaodong said: "In fact, the Kindle's reading experience is not as good as you think, but foreign publishers are better data sources, no typos, missed paragraph and other mishap, at home, because of the problem of data sources, it also has such a problem." ”

But Cheng, director of the New Media Research Center at the Chinese Press and publication Media Group, said the Kindle's Chinese bookstore does not necessarily reflect Amazon's true level: "The number of domestic digital publications is indeed better than the quality of the situation, Amazon in view of China's copyright environment and other factors, the Chinese bookstore can only choose to Similarly facing similar problems, may not be able to fully reflect its own many characteristics and personality. ”

The opportunity has been lost? The industry expects Amazon to show its skill

As for why Amazon is eager to launch the Chinese bookstore first, Cheng that: "As early as half a year ago, the Kindle's opportunity to enter China in fact some loss, because China's digital resources in the near future by some other practitioners accumulate, the current content resources have been relatively dispersed." Amazon's entry into China, of course, should not be dragged. And the more resources encounter "divide and conquer", digital copyright protection issues, user experience standards are not uniform, such as the short plate becomes more prominent.

At present, the Kindle Electronic bookstore stock is 30,000 books, when, Taobao in 100,000 volumes up and down, Beijing East about 150,000 volumes. Nindenshon said that in the country really will be the entire digital copyright resources to integrate better, the payment channel is also clearer is some carrier platform.

These, he believes, will be the real challenge for Amazon in China: "Whether the Kindle will be able to quickly integrate the industry, without too much expectation, it may not be able to achieve hegemony in the short term." However, how to deal with these issues after the Kindle is still very much to the industry's expectations, hope that Amazon can show real skill. Once brought some kind of positive and effective mechanism, can greatly promote the domestic industry chain to reflect, believe can bring positive effect to the market environment optimization. ”