Indigo’s Complicated ebook Plans

Canada’s largest bookseller, Indigo, plans big things in the digital space, according to Quill&Quire:

Indigo is planning on getting into the e-book arena with a new digital venture, one that consumers can access without owning a Kindle or a Sony Reader.

The new application, which is still in the pre-launch phase and has yet to be christened with an official name, will allow users to download small chunks of reading material – book chapters or articles or short stories – to their cell phones or BlackBerrys. According to Indigo, these “bite-sized” downloads – which will come from publishers all over the world – will either be free or will cost users a small fee. (Added revenue will come from advertising on the application’s website.) [more...]

Index//mb just wants them to give us the darned (e)books (huzzah!):

I want ebooks. I want ebooks on my iPhone. I want ebooks on my computer. I want them to be cheap(er). I want them to be future proof. And I want to buy them from Indigo.

I want to buy them from Indigo now.

To make me happy, all Indigo needs to do is set up a digital warehouse of DRM-free ePub/audio files and sell them to me. I would love that. I would buy heaps from them. Done right the addition of ebooks to Indigo’s pre-existing product pages would be to the Kindle marketplace what Amazon’s MP3 store is to iTunes. A killer. [more...]