2010 Prediction No. 4: Ereaders will emerge as the next hotbed of mobile software innovation

The ereader explosion looms large among the signature trends of 2009--the breakout success of Amazon.com's Oprah-endorsed Kindle opened the floodgates for a growing wave of rival devices including Barnes & Noble's nook, iRex Technologies' DR800SG and Sony's Daily Edition, among others. With the nook running on Google's Android operating system and iRex releasing a software development kit for the DR800SG, it seems inevitable the ereaders will soon evolve beyond novels, textbooks and periodicals to include a host of new applications designed to exploit the devices' large touchscreens, full-color capabilities and user-friendly form factor.

But the hardware is just one reason why developers will gravitate to the ereader platform. Because the ereader concept is predicated on the principle of premium content purchases, developers face few of the consumer inhibitions that have curtailed the growth of paid applications on smartphones and effectively limited the creation of more complex and costlier software in favor of simpler, impulse-buy apps available for free or pocket change. Ereaders aren't about voice services first and data services second--that gives developers extraordinary latitude to create software richer and more visionary than most anything they've attempted for smartphones. In short, the next chapter in mobile innovation has arrived.