Mirasol and the big picture!

It is perhaps too fantastic a co-incidence that as we discussed the Kindle last week, Mirasol technology starts getting talked about and guess what, if this article on fox news is to be taken seriously, then a color Kindle on Mirasol technology is perhaps just round the corner. What makes this technology significant for ereader followers and techies in general is that the Mirasol ereader technology can play color videos and comes with a battery life which lasts for days! Were it to happen (Kindle getting in color with Mirasol),it would be seen as many as an open Apple Vs Amazon out in the arena which would play out interestingly in the days to come. And the fact that Mirasol Technology also makes it possible to play games on an ereader, makes you wonder as to which part of the technology curve are we currently in!

But what interests me most with this technology is its true to life feel and how naturally close it comes to color newspapers and magazines. The question that we asked last week was whether eBook readers were complementors or competitors to the likes of New York Times and Washington Post and increasingly as technology levels the playing field and technical advantages of the iPad for instance seem to disappear, I am more convinced than ever before that we are going to see a deluge of content on these devices in the days to come. And my primary argument around why newspapers would continue to thrive, albeit in a different form is that once the dust around platform supremacy has settled between Apple, Amazon or perhaps some other unknown entity, the real battle after that would be getting across your content to the end user in a sea of freely available information.

Significant in the same context is the recent announcement of the publishing platform, Pubit from Barnes and Nobles (who also sell Nook, pretty much a Kindle look alike).Again, we have the supply end of the long tail getting wagged here since Pubit now allows virtually anyone who can write to get published with Barnes and Nobles. Most people would perhaps find the announcement a pretty 'expected' development, but the poor reader now has to choose between millions of possible writers in addition to all the content that is already available. If all of us potentially start generating our content (which technology would make cheaply available soon if not already so) the hardest part would be figuring out what exactly is worth the readers time and attention. It is that gap which I think newspapers are exactly in a position to fill.