The Next Web: The iPad is Going to Kill the Kindle
Alex Wilhelm, writing for The Next Web:
If you follow the ebook market you were likely stunned this June when Steve Jobs claimed to have captured 22% of the electronic book market overnight with the release of iBooks and iPad. Many of us who watch this market with careful eyes were leery of the numbers that Jobs was tossing around, they sounded too good to be true.
- If you “follow the ebook market” you’re a fucking dork. Yeah. I said it, and I’m not sorry I said it.
- Assuming you’re a fucking dork, were you really “stunned” by Jobs’s claim? Did your mouth literally hang wide open, as you stared blankly at the words that you could not bring yourself to believe? Was it like a punch to the gut?
- Steve Jobs did not make that claim, and if you think he did, you’re not following the ebook market very closely. Dork status: Revoked.
How do I know Steve Jobs didn’t make the claim? An investigation? A Google search? Did I call Steve Jobs up, because I can do that, and ask him?
No, no, no. I only call Steve as a last resort. I didn’t even have to do any of the work myself. Before I copied and pasted the little snippet from TNW’s article, the word “claim” was a “hyperlink” to this Gravitational Pull article:
What Steve Jobs actually said about iBooks market share
As you might have guessed, the word “actually” (which I helpfully emphasized) is a hint that there’s something more to the story. The “something more” was this:
I’ve got a few stats today for you. In the first 65 days, users have downloaded over 5 million books and that is about two and half books per iPad which is terrific. The other interesting thing is the five of the six biggest publishers in the US who have their books on the iBookstore tell us that the share of ebooks now that are going through the iBookstore now is about 22 percent. So iBooks market share now of ebooks from five of these six major publishers is up to 22 percent in just about 8 weeks. And, as we ship more iPads, that number is just going to keep going up and up and up and we’re really thrilled with it.
So, what Steve Jobs “claimed” was merely what he was told by the five biggest publishers who publish on the iBooks platform. The 22% figure is not a reflection of the “total ebook market” and it wasn’t pulled out of Jobs’s ass—it’s a reflection of the sales of those specific publishers.
Yes, I’m aware that a slide from Jobs’s presentation caused some initial confusion, because it read “22% share of total ebook sales” but the entire point of the Gravitational Pull article was to provide context for that slide via the actual words that came out of Jobs’s mouth. Apple doesn’t provide a live feed of its events, so getting a transcript took some time. Time which was used by many in the blog-o-press to flip the fuck out.
Why is it, then, that TNW is trotting out an author who self publishes (one guy whose name is not A. Nick Dotal, alas) to somehow prove false a claim Apple never actually made, even while linking to an article which proves he never made the claim?
Because they can, and no one will call them on it. Because the internet sucks.
On the other hand, the article is written by the kind of guy who would end on something like this:
So much for iPad killing Kindle. I called it.
Way to go, Nostradamus. Where can everyone else get a crystal ball that peers into the obvious?
At any rate: The iPad hasn’t even finished mashing the buttons on the fatality it’s laying down on netbooks and as everyone who follows the technology mortal combat circuit knows, killing things is an art, not a race.
“Get over here!”
