Still, I would be hesitant to introduce any of these items at a library because tech update cycles are becoming shorter and shorter and technologies are becoming obsolete faster than the time it takes to build a proper collection of the respective media.

With the general trend of media changing from storage to streaming, the decision of libraries which formats to support will not depend on the content or the provider, but mostly on the licenses under which the content may be used.

Uh, lots of us, sir.

But I think there’s the question of whether something has mass market success and whether it has wide adoption within a specific desirable niche. Is the iPhone a game changer? Lots of people don’t have them, but they do have cultural cachet and it’s one of the few examples I can think of of a mobile phone manufacturer dictating terms to a phone company.

Friendfeed is just another aggregator. In this case social networks like YouTube and Facebook. It will probably gain in popularity but is not a great game changer.

The Kindle is a changemaker. Not to say that the Amazon Kindle itself will dominate the market and the the marketplace needs to use a single open source standard for publishing but the basic changes in how we purchase and read books will change. The publishing industry will change because of the emergence of this internet accessible ebook reader. See the WSJ article at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123980920727621353.html

Playstation 3 has Blu-Ray. I only know because we got a playstation a couple of days ago. I have absolutely no intention of buying blu-ray personally or for the library. There is no need right now.

I do have the kindle app for iphone and really enjoy the free ebooks they’ve put on there, but I’ve never seen a kindle either.

So I would say more people use Blu-Ray but game changer? I don’t think any of them are… I know next to nothing about friendfeed

I think most patrons just want DVDs that work. Different DVD machines can’t play certain movies now. For instance, my JVC VHS/DVD player cannot play anything produced by Sony Pictures because of the Digital Rights Management.

All three of these services really cater to those who can afford to use them. It will take a while for the general population, and in particular library patrons, to make this a demand on library services.

However, a library can demonstrate that they are forward thinking and generate great PR by using and adopting these services, but I would doubt that patron generated demand will be that great if it exists at all.

As to whether the public library I work at will be purchasing / using these technologies, I can be more certain of my answers – no to all of them, with differing reasons as to why.

- Blu-ray: Very little interest from patrons (despite having a film theatre as part of the library) and no desire to have yet another format. Surveyed patrons state that they are waiting for greater availability of downloadable content.

- FriendFeed: Awareness of twitter and equivalent technologies on the part of a very few patrons – but no expressed desire for a library presence [we do have pages on Facebook for our branches, do IM reference, blog, etc.].

- Kindle: Open question as to whether libraries can circulate such devices under Amazon’s terms of use. Greater desire on the library’s (and our patrons’) part to provide access to the content (ebooks) not the container.

The only one of those three that seems to have the potential to be a “game changer” is the Kindle. FriendFeed is just another online social network. Blu-Ray is just another piece of plastic with media on it. IF (note the big “if”) the Kindle took off like mad, it really could change how upper-class Americans read in a significant way, I think. If, prompted by that success, Kindle competitors sprung up that were not so tightly linked to a single store, while still allowing easy downloading of books from a multitude of sources, things would get really interesting.