So I just tried Fatbrain.com's eMatter. I purchased Geoffrey Moore's Death and the Digital Wow Factor, which I'm not even sure what is about, but it's Geoffrey Moore and it's $2.95, so I figured what the hell. I haven't read the whopping seven pages, but the purchasing process went smoothly enough. I was going to buy the Richard Bach title, Air Ferrets Aloft, but $9.95 seemed a bit steep for a short story (let alone one I had to print myself).

I'm compelled by the eMatter idea. I hope it takes off and people get comfortable paying for written material, delivered digitally. I have some thoughts on the hurdles to this, and how FatBrain could do better implementing it, but my brain is tired, and I already went off once today, so I'll stop here for now.

Okay, one thing: Where the hell are the customer reviews? Apparently FatBrain has this feature. I see links to enter reviews (for some titles -- not all), but I see no reviews. Perhaps I'm blind. Customer reviews are especially crucial for eMatter (when you're not dealing with known authors like Richard Bach and Geoffrey Moore), since the documents can be published by anyone, and also since you probably can't find find reviews at Epinions (hey look, I have a profile!) and the like.