Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), headquartered in Seattle, Washington, is the world’s largest online retailer (Jopson, 1). The company’s website launched in the United States in 1994 by Jeffrey Bezos as an online bookstore, later diversified to offer a broad line of products in multiple warehouses across the US. With successful expansion, Amazon.com is now available worldwide in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Brazil and China (SECdatabase, 50). The company directly sells or acts as a third – party to deliver the products to customers. As of the first quarter in 2011, Amazon has approximately 137 million active customers worldwide (Szkutak, 1). In 2007, CEO Jeff Bezos lead Amazon in a new direction by introducing the eReaderKindle, offering a new platform for digital books and other e-print media. The Kindle allows users to read, shop for, download and browse eBooks, newspaper, magazines, blogs and websites using Wi-Fi. The 3G Kindle uses Sprint’s 3G cellular services to allow immediate customer purchase and download from the Amazon Kindle store, with no connectivity charges. The base model e-ink Kindle features a 6” screen, while the Kindle DX has a 10” screen and the newly introduced Kindle Fire has 7” multi-touch colored screen. The Kindle is designed for people who favor a small, compact electronic device to carry in their pockets or bags. The purpose of this paper is to detail the development, technology, opportunities as well as challenges associated with Amazon Kindle in relate to the publishing industry. The paper also discusses whether the 6” eReader device will change reading habits and its impact on hardcopy publishing businesses worldwide.

美國亞馬遜公司以零售業起家，發展至今許多服務產品領導技術，已然被歸類為科技創新公司。本研究由亞馬遜公司的發展歷史、各項產品、服務內容、競爭對象等角度切入，進而探討其在發展過程形成的產品生態系統與產業生態系統，以及面臨的困境。 Kindle（電子閱讀器，後來也發展出平板電腦版本）的推出可以說是亞馬遜公司在數位產業中的重要產品，連結了其強大零售網絡與數位科技內容，例如數位影音，對於未來發展方向的扮演重要角色，也在此特別加以闡述說明。 本研究同時也對於亞馬遜與其他科技創新公司，例如蘋果、谷歌、微軟等，彼此之間既競爭又合作的關係進行分析與比較，期能對於這個既熟悉又陌生的國際品牌得以進一步了解。 / Amazon was once best known by its e-commerce and was indexed in category of retail sale in many stastistcs study. However in recent year development, Amazon is groupped in Technology Innovation category as well. The objective of thi thesis is mainly to provide an overview on the development of Amazon through introducing to all about its company history, essential products, services and important competitors. Furthermore, the thesis would like to look into its product ecosystem and industry ecosystem that are formed because the new developed products and competition, as well as the trouble it is facing or will encounter in the future. Among the products, Kindle, an E-reading device and later in tablet version as well, is one of the most import products in Amazon history. Kindle, serves as the channel between Amazon’s biggest and strongest E-commerce networks and modern digital technology products, such as streaming music and videos, it plays an significant role and worths a chapter to elaborate. The thesis also examines the relationships between Amazon’s main competitors, like Apple, Google and Microsoft. The relationships can be described as cooperative and competitive at the same time. A chapter on this topic should be very interesting and hope by doing so we can know more about this global company that almost every body in Taiwan knows but does not understand it well enough.

Through the introduction and popularisation of e-books and e-readers, the way books are read is changing. This paper aims to investigate the reading habits of five Swedish-based Kindle users to understand their reading ecologies and what place the Kindle has in their reading ecologies. The Kindle proves an interesting research focus as it is one of the most sold e-readers in the world, but has yet to establish itself on the Swedish market. The research focuses on three main themes: the reading ecologies and habits of the interviewees; why they use the Kindle; and how they use reviews on Kindle Store. The research uses the methods of communicative ecology mapping and qualitative interviews for collecting empirical data, which is then contextualised and analysed through the theories of communicative ecology, mediatization, and media as practice. The research shows that the interviewees prefer reading on digital devices, and that particular practices of reading are done in specific spatial dimensions. Three practices of reading are visible in the interviewees’ reading ecologies: news-reading, social media-reading, and Kindlereading. The interviewees use the Kindle as a replacement of the physical book, which is shown in the way the interviewees list the e-ink technology and lack of backlit screens as motivations for using the device, in addition to the vast amount of niched literature available on Kindle Store. Moreover, reviews on Kindle Store are valuable to the interviewees when buying books, but the type of book changes how much validity the reviews hold. The reviews, no matter if they are being read or written by the interviewees, are viewed as helping the community of readers who use Kindle in finding ‘good’ literature.

Science fiction has long promised the digitalization of books. Characters in films and television routinely check their palm-sized (or smaller) electronic displays for fast-scrolling information. However, this very technology, increasingly prevalent in today's world, has not been embraced universally. While the convenience of pocket-sized information pieces has the techno-savvy entranced, the general public still greets the advent of the e-book with a curious reluctance. This lack of enthusiasm seems strange in the face of the many advantages offered by the new medium - vastly superior storage capacity, searchability, portability, lower cost, and instantaneous access. This dissertation addresses the need for research examining the reading comprehension and the role emotional response plays in the perceived performance on e-document formats as compared to traditional paper format. This study compares the relative reading comprehension on three formats (Kindle, iTouch, and paper) and examines the relationship of subject's emotional response and relative technology exposure as factors that affect how the subject perceives they have performed on those formats. This study demonstrates that, for basic reading comprehension, the medium does not matter. Furthermore, it shows that, the more uncomfortable a person is with technology and expertise in the requested task (in this case, reading), the more they cling to the belief that they will do better on traditional (paper) media - regardless of how well they actually do.

電子書興起，改變了讀者的閱讀方式，紙本書不再是唯一的選擇。電子書的供應鏈由上而下可分為：作者、出版社、DRM業者、網路通路平台、電信業者、硬體載具製造商。隨著科技創新，新的供應鏈創造了參與者新的競合模式，各參與者的商業模式也隨之創新，相較於過去的紙本書市場出版商擁有較大的議價能力之情況，在新的競合模式中，掌握客源的網路平台通路商對於上游的出版商之議價能力大幅提升。另一方面，越來越多作者跳過出版社，直接將電子書的版權賣給網路平台通路商，導致出版商原有的掌握版權之優勢減弱，長期下可能會致使出版社在電子書供應鏈中的議價能力進一步降低。未來隨著科技進步，彩色電子書閱器與結合其他功能的設備將是發展趨勢，但光靠硬體端難以建立他人無法輕易突破的進入障礙，而許多參與者在供應鏈上並非具單一角色，像是Amazon與Apple兼具網路平台通路商與硬體載具供應商之角色，亦即「平台+硬體載具」的雙重獲利模式，而這兩間公司皆掌握了主要的「客源」，是其重要優勢。而Amazon更是透過支援的應用程式，讓非自家載具之消費者也能至自己的電子書店下載電子書，像是iPad、iPhone、藍莓機等等。因此以未來電子書成長後議價能力與賺取現金流之能力的消長預期來看，相較於其他參與者，Amazon與Apple會是較佳的長期投資標的。 / The emergence of e-books changes the reading habit, and the paper-book is not the only one medium of reading anymore. The supply chain of e-books comprises diversified industries, including authors, publishers, DRM providers, online retailers who operate digital bookstores and manage accounts of customers, telecommunications, technology-side players. When technology advances, the new supply chain creates new co-competition model, the business models of players begins to innovate. Compared to paper-book market in which the publishers have stronger bargaining power, in new co-competition models, the online retailers have a huge customer base and therefore have stronger bargaining power over publishers. Furthermore, there are more and more authors who skip publishers and sell the digital right to online retailers directly. That is, the content resources controlled by publishers reduce, and the bargaining power of publishers deteriorates. In the future, producing colorful e-readers will not be a difficulty anymore, but the technology-side players will have difficulty in establishing entrance barrier. However, some participants play various roles across the supply chain, such as Amazon and Apple. Both of two companies play the roles of online retailers and technology-side players, and have double sales resources from plate form and hardware. Beside, both of these companies have large customer base, and it is the critical competitive advantage of Amazon and Apple. Especially, Amazon supports some hardware tools like iPad, iPhone, and Blackberry. As long as the customers download the application programs, the customers can purchase e-books on Amazon.com. From the aspects of potential of growing bargaining power and future discounted cashflows, Amazon and Apple would be better choices for long-term investors.

This thesis Interactive content of eBooks presents complex view on preparations and development of interactive and enhanced electronic book from technical, legislative, content and economic perspective. It describes types of interactivity modules, available interactive eBook formats, reading devices and software. It also compares USA market to the Czech market of interactive eBooks. This thesis processes results of questionnaire survey in the area of Czech readers awareness of interactive eBooks. In practical part of the thesis process of interactive book creation in Czech environment is engineered.

This master dissertation "Czech Electronic Book Market -- Obstacles and Opportunities" analyzes Czech market with e-books. The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the current situation on the market in terms of technologies, distribution models and legal issues. It describes commercial, free and illegal sources in the market, including a description of digitisation projects in Czech libraries. The thesis also includes a theoretical introduction to e-books and their development in the past. Details are discussed, focusing on technology, modern electronic readers with electronic ink. For comparison, the thesis also analyzes the U.S. market with e-books. In analytical part the individual portals with e-books on the market, their supply and user interfaces are compared. The real example analyzes the costs of an e-book and its comparison to costs of a printed book. At the end of the thesis, alternative models of distribution requirements for establishment of a new portal with e-books are characterised, the Creative Commons licenses are described and the current trend of e-journals is mentioned. Finally, I suggest recommendations especially for sellers on the Czech market describe the advantages and disadvantages of e-books in terms of individual roles in the distribution model and estimate the future market development. More detailed information related to the comparison of different types of electronic ink, a list of electronic readers that are available on the Czech e-book market at this time and specific examples of various users' interfaces that are being used on Czech e-books portals can be found in Appendix.