iPhone Takes Over Amazon Kindle, Top E-Book Seller

by Jody Mitoma on October 3, 2008 at 3:46 pm

Amazon.com’s ‘Kindle’ service is (or should I say, was) the leading provider in online book selling, however ‘Stanza’ is taking a stand…

Stanza has been available through the iPhone App Store since July, and has reportedly sold ~400,000 copies of the software to date. The developers of Stanza have also informed that Stanza is selling at a rate of 5,000 copies per day.

In comparison, Citigroup has estimated that Amazon will sell approximately 380,000 Kindles this year. That is quite short in comparison to Stanza.

Stanza, like Kindle, lets users download content directly to their device, featuring a snappy interface that allows readers to flip through a book simply by tapping the edges of the page. Stanza is also said to respond much quick than Kindle does, which takes nearly a full second to flip pages.

Do keep in mind that Stanza is free software available through the iPhone App Store, while Kindle does cost a fee. Not only is the software to read the books free, but the book titles themselves are also free. This isn’t the same deal for Kindle. Titles for Kindle sell for approximately $10 a piece, while Kindle itself is going for $360.

Another thing to keep in mind, is the fact that Kindle is able to sell new releases, as well as best sellers, while Lexcycle, which offers public domain books - most of which are over 50 years old - and creative commons titles offered up without copyright by the book’s authors. In comparison, there are over 180,000 titles available for Kindle. Lexcycle’s CEO; Marc Prud’hommeaux did inform that they are working on deals with several major publishers that will allow Stanza to sell newer e-books to its growing user base, and split the revenue with the content’s owner, so hopefull that goes as planned.

“Once we’ve got that kind of
deal done,” says Prud’hommeaux, “you’ll be able to do everything on the
iPhone that you can now do on the Kindle: browse, purchase, download
and read a book without interacting with your computer in any way.”

I haven’t personally given Stanza a go myself, but I think after posting this story, I will go ahead and have a close look at its offerings.

For more information in regards, feel free to check out the source link below.

(via Forbes)