Nov
07
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New appearance of E-book in Vietnam
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VietNamNet Bridge – The e-book market in Vietnam is still in its infancy and is growing far too slowly than e-book producers had expected, as Vietnamese readers have yet to acquire the habit of paying online for book content, seemingly a new and unfamiliar process for them.
E-books are not totally unfamiliar to local readers as these are easy to access online on several e-book sites such as, Alezza and Anybook.
Phuong Nam Cultural Corporation even set up an e-book store at the Vincom Plaza in Ho Chi Minh City to promote the culture.
However, contrary to expectations, the domestic e-book market has been slow to develop. Le Chi, director of Chibook, one of the first e-book publishers in Vietnam, said that sales of e-books were much less than of paper editions. Her company is producing e-books mostly to cater to local market demand.
The complicated and tedious procedure to buy and download an e-book is being blamed for turning off young readers, and preventing the e-book market from gaining popularity. For instance, at Alezaa.com, buyers have to register an account, deposit money and then transfer the content to a reading device.
Although e-book traders have applied security methods to protect their e-books from illegal reproduction, many newly published e-books have been widely pirated and freely available.
E-books are usually brought out one or two months after a new paperback edition is published, as all publishers are afraid of pirated editions that affect their business, said Ms. Chi. Thus, e-book readers hardly get to read the latest book at the same time as book store readers.
Nevertheless, readers’ habits will always be the key to the success of the e-book business. Huynh Huu Nam, a member of e-thuvien.com, said that although he preferred e-books to paper backs, he had never bought an e-book to date but always downloaded free available content from the Internet.
Other members of tangthuvien.com also said that they always look for free e-book content on the Internet first, instead of spending money to buy e-books.
Although everyone knows that they have to pay money to download e-books or music, they still look for free e-books to avoid paying, said Vicas, a member of e-thuvien.com.
Despite the many set backs, most publishers consider e-books as the future of book reading. Many readers have changed their habit from reading paper editions to reading e-books, which is an indication that habits are beginning to change and the e-books market could generate revenue in foreseeable future.
In fact, the quality of free downloaded e-books cannot compare to original e-books. Currently, many e-books are pirated and uploaded by individuals from the Internet and their quality is far too inferior. Many free downloaded e-books cannot open pages with an easy click as would the e-book that has been purchased from a site. Besides, there could be paragraphs or words missing, which all takes away from the joy of reading.
Font and format error also cause trouble for readers who are not knowledgeable about computer technology. While with original e-books, readers will never have to face such problems.
The setting up of the an e-book website - sachweb.com - by Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House has signaled a new age for the domestic e-book market.
E-book distributors have also found feasible solutions for e-payment. Chibook Company has just signed a contract with Anybook of Viettel to settle payments through prepaid calling cards. Accordingly, when smartphone users buy e-books, the payment will be charged on their phone account.
Sale of e-books reportedly improved after the Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House offered payment facility via prepaid calling cards.
The domestic e-book market is expected to develop strongly and contribute a great deal to the diversity of the local reading culture, as e-books and reading devices have become more diversified and cheaper with the participation of many big publishing houses, while payment methods have been simplified and made more convenient.
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Nov
07
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Adult and kids world in Phan Hoai Vu’s colors
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‘Lam and Sac Mau’ (Indigo and Colors) by artist Phan Hoang Vu on Wednesday opened at HCMC Association of Fine Arts, bringing visitors to the world of multicolor layers and bold expression.
A visitor takes photo of Phan Hoai Vu’s paintings at his exhibition ‘Lam va Sac mau’
opened on Wednesday, Oct 31, at HCMC Fine Arts Association.
On display are 64 works made of oil on canvas in expression style. Through color chords and oil pieces, visitors can sense the bustles and chaos of modern city life, insight instability and tramples of human being, or cute daily life’s images and nice landscapes.
“The combination of colors, the metaphor of settings as well as impromptu creativeness of colored dots, rounds or windy long lines seem take me to the world of kids’ toy where they can freely imagine what they like. Moreover, sometimes paintings create out a very deep emotion of love, of live of adult world but sometimes they takes me to try the kids’ game of playing with colors and arranging those color pieces into a fantastic mosaic,” said Tran Thi, a visitor to the show.
Artist Le Kinh Tai, sponsor for the exhibition said “I choose him because I find out the distinguishing between him and other young students. I see him a very serious and hardworking spirits as well as I see him draw with his very true emotion as unconscious.”
The show runs till November 9 at the association, 218A Pasteur Street in HCMC’s District 3
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Nov
06
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Rubbish recycling programme has lauched at Hoi An
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The central city of Hoi An yesterday (October 31) launched its first rubbish classification programme in the four major precincts of Minh An, Son Phong, Cam Tho and Tan An, said the city's vice chairman Nguyen Van Dung.
The programme, which is part of the 3R (reduce, reuse and recycle) Project, aims to raise awareness on the importance of recycling garbage from households, hotels, restaurants and businesses in the city.
"The programme will help local people understand the value of classification in environmental protection as well as for saving time and money in rubbish treatment," Dung said.
"We also encourage local people and businesses to sort garbage before dumping it and to minimise use of plastic bags in their daily activities."
Nguyen Quy, director of the city's public works company, said the company had helped to train local people how to classify rubbish at home.
"We sent staff to instruct local people to put rubbish for recycling and solid waste in different dustbins. The company also assigns shifts to collect rubbish for recycling and solid garbage on different days of the week," Quy said.
He said two different coloured bins were located at each living quarter to help families correctly dispose of their rubbish.
The city has provided 20 double-deck push-carts to collect both recycled and solid garbage.
Hoi An city – the most visited destination in Quang Nam – was the first location in the central province to launch the 3-R programme.
Hoi An was the first city in Viet Nam to host a Car Free Day in an effort to make the environment in the tourism hub cleaner.
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VN aims at attracting Japanese tourists
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06/11/2012 08:47:36
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Vietnamese booth at mexican festival
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06/11/2012 08:30:46
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Hue imperial city’s Noon Gate to get a facelift
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06/11/2012 08:25:25
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Establishing Coucil appraisofing profiles on intagible cultural heritage
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06/11/2012 08:20:06
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Air Asia increases flights on Kuala Lumpur - Hanoi route
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06/11/2012 08:13:37
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List of 15 movies to stir local cinemas in November
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05/11/2012 08:47:44
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Vietnamese - French novelist among finalists for top book prize
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05/11/2012 08:42:55
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Vietnamese culture shown in Hue craft festival
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05/11/2012 08:34:34
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Conference talks sustainable tourism
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05/11/2012 08:26:00
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