Why don’t Ebook readers collect and provide management information?

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I’m considering to buy an ebook reader. There are two reasons why.

The first reason will be no surprise: is to have a device that enables me to read manuals, articles, novels and other information offline (any place, any time). Just like I can listen to music or watch video on my iPod touch of iPhone.

Since I see lots of possibilities for use of an ebook reader for business purposes (as I see them for the iPod/iPhone too) I want to find out the constraints, possibilities and lack of possibilities of such a device as an enabler for new business. That’s reason number two.

Up till now I couldn’t make a decision which brand and device it will be. There are many devices on the market today. The number is growing, and the functionality does too. This makes it difficult to choose.

However, what I do not understand is that -as far as I know- none of the ebook reader available on the market today collects and provides management information about the device itself and about usage of the device and its content.

Think of information like:

Unique identifier
Serial number
Firmware version
Owner information
Battery status
Nr of hours in standby/sleep mode/nr of hours in active mode
Total nr of kBytes transferred to ebook reader
Nr of ebooks on the ebook reader
List with resident ebook titles
Statistics about the different ebook formats resident on the ebook reader
Total nr of minutes in use since reset
Total nr of page turns
Nr of complete reads per ebook
Nr of hours an specific ebook resided on the ebook reader
Date of status report
etc.

Wouldn’t it be great to have the possibility to download this information from time to time to a personal computer or upload it to some service in the cloud? In my opinion the possibility to obtain management information about an individual ereader device is a Unique Selling Point. Think of the value of this info for authors, publishers, distributers, libraries/librarians, teachers, technicians and other ‘business usage’ of ebook readers.

Which device will be the first one in line that will collect and provide management information?

Keywords: ebook reader, ereader, management information

N.B. Translation of a blogpost “Waarom verzamelen en verschaffen Ebook readers geen management informatie?” @ frEdSCAPEs d.d. 20090623