LongBox, the long brewing desktop app for purchasing digital comics, has just gone to version 1.1 and announced that it will be bundled with Norton Ink’s upcoming ADAM tablet, which features a Pixel Qi screen which enables it to be read in even bright sunlight. PR on the move below, but CEO Rantz Hoseley also stopped to chat with Bleeding Cool and reveal some of the reasons why a desktop store is still useful in a world filled with proprietary apps:
I think the ‘Branded App’ approach that a number of publishers have done on the iPad or iPhone is exactly what I had mentioned at a SDCC 09 panel that the industry needed to avoid. For years now, publishers have hesitated to jump into the digital stream, in part, because of the concern of hurting the Direct Market retailers… I honestly thought, based on all of the discussions with creators, publishers, and the various digital companies that comic were going to prove to be smarter than the music, film, TV and videogame businesses, by NOT repeating the same mistakes those industries made. In all of those cases, as they started in the digital space, there was the ‘Sony’ store, the ‘Warner Bros Music’ store, where you could just get their content. Now, those companies make the majority of their revenue from services such as Amazon Digital, iTunes, Zune, Steam, Netflix, etc.
We’re rapidly becoming a ‘cloud’ entertainment society… that your purchase of digital content goes through a multi-channel service, that allows you to access it anywhere, any time. The ‘Publisher App’ just runs counter to that trend, and hence attracts the existing fans… which again, neither grows the market, and has a higher potential for damaging the DM channel, because you are only appealing to people who know these comics, who are passionate about that company’s characters and brands that they are willing to hunt down the app, download it, and pay a price higher than what the casual digital entertainment consumer does. It comes down to the goal… are you building for the long term, or are you simply looking for short term gain.
It’s a salient point. The .mp3 is a pretty universal music format — ecomics coming in a variety of systems and platforms. Is simpler better?
LongBox, Inc. announced today their partnership with Notion Ink, the company behind the much-anticipated ADAM tablet. The partnership places the LongBox Digital Platform as the exclusive pre-installed service for purchasing, cataloguing and reading digital comics on all four of Notion Ink’s announced tablets, as well as any other tablets or portable devices utilizing Notion Ink’s Genesis system over the next two years.
“We’re incredibly excited about this”, said LongBox, Inc. CEO Rantz Hoseley. “Our goal from the very beginning has been to expand the market for comics and graphic novels beyond the current audience served by the print market, so OEM partnerships have been a key focus for the platform. Having a partnership with Notion Ink… ensuring that LongBox Digital will be part of the core entertainment system on all ADAM tablets side by side with their eBook, TV, music and film services… well, that really is a dream come true for us.”
Notion Ink’s ADAM tablet garnered the attention of the tech industry, and Hoseley himself, at CES with its Pixel Qi screen. The dual-mode technology makes it possible to read the screen like color ePaper in bright sunlight, or as a normal LCD screen in dim surroundings. The power of wha7 Comments on Digital News: LongBox launches on ADAM; goes to v. 1.1, last added: 10/13/2010Display Comments Add a Comment
Everything about Norton Ink’s history suggest this product is vaporware and will never actually be released.
From what I’ve read about the Notion Ink, I’m pretty excited about this. The company seems to be taking all the things that are wrong on the iPad and fixing them. Plus that larger screen size is going to make comics reading that much better. It could be vaporware, but everything I’m reading suggests that isn’t the case. I guess we’ll know in just a couple of months.
It does look incredible.
However, being new to the “magic touch” world of computing, I’ll have to actually hold it in my hands and see how it feels and works.
Their site does showcase an incredible device.
Charles, Notion Ink has been showing prototypes of the Adam tablet at various tech conferences. Even allowing media to look and test out the tablet. So that alone it seems to be more than vaporware. The screens themselves, which I think is the coolest part of this tablet being able to switch from LCD to e-ink, is from a separate company Pixel Qi, which is already selling the screens to consumers and have gotten really good reviews. To top it off the Notion Ink blog is currently showing pictures of the demo units they have gotten from manufacturing companies. So it looks like it’s going forward. If successful with the Pixel Qi screens, I can see other bigger more established hardware companies jumping on this to provide a 2-in-1 e-ink and LCD screens.
“Charles, Notion Ink has been showing prototypes of the Adam tablet at various tech conferences”.
for at least a year and every time the release date comes up, it goes back. It was august, then it was Q4 this year, now it’s Q1 next year. Couple that with the fact that investment has been shaky and I’ll not hold my breath.
Please no one hold their breath until early next year.
Man, “The Nightly News” was a good book….