Hey, you know what was really cool about LAST Christmas? I checked my email on Christmas day to find that all my friends and relatives (plus people I didn't even know) had sent me the perfect gifts: Ebooks!

They came in the form of nicely decorated Holiday email messages from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, eBookMall, and a dozen different etailers. Each message had a clickable link that would allow me to either download the book, or exchange it for another. But I didn't have to do that -- not one duplicate gift in the whole bunch! Of course, I had posted a "wish list" at one particular etailer to make it easy on my buddies. Thanks guys!

Of course, there were some difficulties. I didn't have Microsoft Reader, or Palm Reader, or Starbuck, or Adobe Reader, at the time so I had to download them first. And that Microsoft Passport registration process -- what a drag! But hey, it's all in the time-honored Christmas gift tradition of "some assembly required."

Anyway, I loaded all those books into my Pocket PC, poured myself a brandy, fired up a cigar (a Fuente Hemingway, of course), and sat down for a good read.

Whoa! What am I thinking? It didn't happen that way at all! It's not that I don't have any friends or didn't receive any Christmas presents, but, well, no one could give ebooks last Christmas -- the technology for giving ebooks as gifts simply did not exist. Too bad, since it would have introduced so many people to ebooks. It would have also made etailers a bundle of money from panic-stricken last-minute shoppers at 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve. But alas, it was not to be. So instead of the above scenario, I just sat around moping and waiting for...this Christmas.

Actually, I figured the mechanism for giving ebooks egifts would have surfaced much earlier in the year. Christmas isn't the only time people give gifts, there's Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduation, and oh yeah, birthdays, and last I checked there's one of those just about every day of the year.

So here it is, Christmas 2001 and still no hint of it. Don't you think this would be the ideal time for such a thing? I mean, with mall-going and parcel-receiving not being as wonderful a thing this year as it should be, this is an ideal environment for the "eGift."

So why can't I give ebooks as a gift this Holiday season? Can it be that difficult a technical problem? I don't think so. But since no etailer seems to be offering such, I make this appeal to the broader ebook community for all to solve. I bet we can figure it out on our own. Winning etailer gets...well a lot of my money.

Here are some features that would make "eGift" technology work and be really cool:

(1) Email message with a clickable link to the ebook. This will allow the recipient to download the gift at his/her leisure. I don't want to clog up a friend's email just because he doesn't have a broadband connection.

(2) Delayed sending of the gift. Let me buy the gift on Halloween and have it arrive on the 24th or 25th or December. Or the recipient's birthday. Or graduation. Or whatever.

(3) Link to the ebook reader software. If the unfortunate soul doesn't have MS Reader (or Starbucks or Palm Reader or Adobe Reader, et al.), let there be a link to the download site. Or let the recipient choose from different formats.

(4) Allow the recipient to "exchange" the gift for another ebook. If the recipient already has the particular title, let him/her download another title. The etailer can even suggest a number of similar titles.

(5) The etailer should keep the database of a particular recipient's list of gifts in order to warn a gift giver that such a title has already been given. Again, etailer can suggest a number of similar titles.

Of course, this list can go on. But this short list would do it for me.

I know. If there are any etailers with this mechanism in place, let me know. I'll keep track and compile a master list and post it.

Is an eGift something too technically difficult for etailers? Or are there more sinister factors involved? Sometimes I think this whole ebook phenomenon is being thwarted by the economic interests of some big corporations. But maybe that's because I'm just a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Just mentioning this in case any of you were wondering what kind of ebook you could get me for Christmas.

Happy Holidays...?

Doug
DougWords@hawaii.rr.com

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Immortal Khan from Scorpius Digital (at eBookMall):
http://www.ebookmall.com/ebooks/showdetl.cfm?&Product_ID=28669&DID=8

Living Midnight (coming soon) from Scorpius Digital Publishing:
http://scorpiusdigital.com/bookpages/livingmidnight.html
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Addendum of 12/01/01: If you have a site that offers eGift technology, please let me know. I'll post a list here with links to your site.

...And after all is said and done, the people who are really enthusiastically pushing the ebook phenomenon forward are the visionary "early adopters" who can clearly see the promise of the technology. Most of these people do it for free, pro bono publico, manuahi as we say here in Hawaii.

Here are a few links to my favorite ebook sites:

Jerry Justianto's Pocket PC eBooks Watch. Daily news, commentary, links, and very entertaining weekly polls.
http://cebooks.blogspot.com/

Ken Mattern's ESSPC-eBooks. No profit motive here, just free ebooks.
http://esspc-ebooks.com

David Moynihan's BlackMask. About a bazillion free ebooks here.
http://www.blackmask.com/

University of Virginia electronic document center. Okay, there was probably some grant money involved with this, and I'm sure the staff gets paid so it doesn't strictly fall under "saintly volunteers for ebooks" theme, but it's a good use of that grant money:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html