With its purchase of Lexcycle, announced today, Amazon now controls three of the most popular e-reading apps:  Stanza, Mobipocket, and Kindle.  Stanza is a popular app for the Iphone and Ipod touch that is produced by Lexcycle.  Mobipocket is a multi-platform reader which works on the Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry platforms,  and also on several dedicated e-book readers. Amazon purchased the company about four years ago.   And of course, Amazon’s Kindle software works on the Kindle reader, and also on the Iphone and Ipod Touch.

E-reading software for handheld devices has been around for a while, and e-texts have been around since the early days of the PC, but Amazon gave the format a shot in the arm with the release of it’s Kindle reader, which made it easy to download e-texts via free broadband wireless throughout much of the US.  Although questions about the viability of e-books and dedicated e-book readers have dogged the industry for years, Amazon’s big bets on, and strong support of, the market is certainly a reassuring sign for those who appreciate e-books.

Each of these readers have their own online stores from which you can easily purchase and download texts.  However,  you can use the Mobipocket and the Stanza software to convert and read books from many different sources.  Check out Dibner Library’s guide to free online books  and delicious books tag for e-books you can download and read for free.