Searches for e-books on the up
Tuesday, 03, Feb 2009 10:07
British web users conducted 100 per cent more searches for e-books last month compared with January 2008, new figures have revealed.
The Sony Reader was the most popular e-book query related to specific hardware, with other popular reader-linked searches including those for Amazon's Kindle, the Iliad and the Cybook, Hitwise said.
"Searches for e-readers have followed similar patterns in the US and UK. Interest has been building since September 2008 and there were peaks in November and December in the build-up to Christmas," commented Hitwise research director Robin Goad.
Other figures from the firm indicated that the eBooks, booksonboard.com and WHSmith websites seem to do particularly well in terms of search engine optimisation for e-book terms, as these sites attracted the most traffic from such queries.
The Sony Reader was launched in September and has seen nearly 30,000 sold at Waterstone's to date, with 75,000 e-books also downloaded from the bookseller's website, according to the Guardian.