#22 Audiobooks (or "The end is in sight ")

According to a report in "The Australian" iPods command more than 70% of the MP3 market worldwide - estimates put the total number of iPods sold since 2001 as being between 80 and 100 million. Another article based on a Credit Suisse report states that by 2009 there will be over 300 million iPods floating around the world. In a word, or rather a couple of words, that is an awful large slice of the MP3 pie (an Apple pie of course!!). So what I hear you ask..... well OverDrive are one of the largest companies supplying digital e-books, audio books, music and videos to libraries BUT (and yes it is a BIG BUT) you find this information on their website:

Why can't I use my iPod with this service? Our audio titles use Windows Media DRM copyright protection technology from Microsoft Corporation. Unfortunately the iPod does not currently support copyright-protected Windows Media Audio (.wma) and video (.wmv) files. OverDrive, along with hundreds of online music and audio book providers, is hopeful that Apple and Microsoft can reach an agreement that would enable support for Microsoft-based copyright-protected materials on the iPod. To repeat, OverDrive would love nothing more than to provide content for your iPod. We urge you to contact Apple and request that they open the iPod to other copy-protected formats or license their propriety copy-protection method to third-party vendors.

And therein lies the problem - the service provided by OverDrive looks terrific, the products are up to date and it seems relatively easy to actually download an audio book once you have typed in library card and PIN numbers BUT (there's that BIG BUT again) until Mr Gates and Mr Jobs have decided how many squillions of dollars they are going to exchange it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to pay for a service that 70% of your customers are never going to utilise because they own an iPod only. The ACT Public Library and a couple of Queensland Public Libraries have signed up with OverDrive, probably in the hope that the problem of DRM will be resolved in the near future..... but until then I can't see too many other libraries signing up just yet.

I also checked out World eBook Fair but the majority of the titles I looked at were either old and out of copyright or were being narrated by well meaning amateurs - not quite as flash as having the latest Harry Potter audio book read to you by Stephen Fry ........ but then World eBook Fair is free and as my old mum always says "You get what you pay for".

We await further developments.........