Read ebooks on iPhone/Blackberry with Shortcovers

Reading ebooks from your iPhone or your Blackberry is going to be a lot more easy soon with the launch of Shortcovers.

Shortcovers is a unit of the Canada-based Indigo Books and Music. Shortcovers is set to release a software application on iTunes (for iPhone users) and on Blackberrys for reading ebooks online. Shortcovers for iTunes and Blackberrys is expected to be pitted directly against the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, both of which are latest ebook readers. Kindle is the market leader in this emerging segment. Shortcovers feels that the ebook readership market will grow to a size of one billion dollars, and feels that it is in a position to tap the growing interest in the ebook market.

Shortcovers had a long association with Apple Computer. Currently, Apple is vetting the Shortcovers ebook reader software for release on the iTunes store. Once Apple clears the product, it will be available for free downloads on iTunes online store. Even though the software will be free, just as in the case of the Kindle, users will have to pay for the newspapers, magazines and books they subscribe through the Shortcovers interface.

Whether the Shortcovers software for Apple iPhone and Blackberrys becomes a success or not, it is clear that the increasing interest in products like the Amazon Kindle 2 and the Sony ebook Reader points to a shift in reader orientations in the internet age. According to a Shortcovers executive, “People aren’t reading less, they are reading differently.” This is underlined by the increasing popularity of blogs, social networking websites, SMS bulletins and the like. The readership which has switched off from mainstream media like newspapers and magazines has not really vanished; instead, it has just migrated to online media.

Shortcovers plans to make money not from the software as such, but by selling books and subscriptions to magazines and newspapers through its platform. It hopes to sell books at a tentative price of 99 cents a chapter.

Once ebooks, magazines and newspapers are available for reading on iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones, the Kindles and Sony Readers will have to do a rethink on their technology platforms and business strategies. However, followers of the Kindle and the reader say that tiny mobile phone screens are no match to the life-like screen and features of the Kindle. The Kindle still has several times more books and other reading material than anyone else. However, iPhones and Blackberrys have sold much more than Kindles, and the right ebook reader for a mobile phone platform could upset the existing ebook reader pecking order.