In a previous column I had commented on how the e-book reader is starting to disrupt the traditional marketplace. For example, Amazon reported that its e-book sales for Kindle overtook hardcover sales in the US in July 2010.

Then there is the Nook, the iPad, and other devices. However, this growth is still hampered by problems caused by both the new digital sellers and the traditional book market. Some have incompatible formats. I cannot borrow someone else's book if I don't have the same device as him.

Wait! Most won't even allow me to lend a book to a friend, or even give away after I am finished with it (Barnes & Noble's Nook does allow readers to lend some of its books for up to two weeks). I guess I will have to miss out on rummaging through a digital second-hand store. Just the thought of losing an entire library if my devices is stolen or forgotten somewhere makes me pause.

Mike Szeller notes that Bermuda's residents have another hurdle to cross as with digital movies and music. Publishers insist on treating them different than the physical versions.

"I can buy a physical copy of 'The Lost Symbol' by Dan Brown, and Amazon will happily ship it to Bermuda," he writes. "However I cannot buy the Kindle version of the book unless I have a credit card with a US billing address attached to my Amazon account. The same with music and movies I can buy any physical CD or DVD, but I cannot rent or buy the same items in their online versions."

He says quite rightly that Bermuda is too small a market to interest online vendors and the same is true of many other small or emerging markets.

"This biggest issue I see therefore with the whole rush to digital publishing in all its forms is that it will tend to lock out the small and emerging markets, creating or widening the gaps between them and the large economies. The Internet as a distribution mechanism should be a no-brainer for a single global market for e-goods but a narrow view of intellectual property rights protection is placing artificial barriers to that."

Exactly. Intellectual property rights is the big elephant in the room as more and more of it becomes digital. Many governments in small and emerging markets have the same concerns about a growing digital divide. Bermuda is in a peculiar position, stuck out as always in a mighty ocean. Of course, traditional book sellers on the Island are concerned, as are the software and music vendors who don't have the scale to compete, though they must.

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Another browser is taking a go at taking some of the market share away from Mozilla's Firefox, Microsoft's Explorer and Google's Chrome.

RockMelt aims to be a "social Web browser", which does not mean it goes out and gets you more friends than you need.

The beta version has just been made public. It actually uses Chrome as a base and apparently connects you up with Facebook, Twitter and Google accounts, among many others. RockMelt melds the social with the browsing.

I have only seen the video, as one has to sign up for an "invitation".

The video at www.rockmelt.com shows a browser with tabs on the top and lots of clickable panes on the right and left sides to connect with sites to which you are registered.

I have refused to sign up for the beta, for to test it out I have to give RockMelt access to my Facebook account, allowing the company to post what it wants. This is not the first intrusive company to try to do this, and it is not the first that I will refuse.

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Well Queen Elizabeth II went on Facebook over the weekend and already has 85,000 fans. Of course, if you read the news and tried searching for the site you might have ended up at one of the seven or so sites that use her name and in some cases pretend to be official. To connect, go to her official site at www.royal.gov.uk and click on the Facebook link. The Facebook page is called The British Monarchy. There you get a feed you cannot comment on (though you will be able to leave messages). You cannot become friends with the Queen; she does not accept invitations. You also cannot poke her, as one media wag has noted.

Facebook is kind of an afterthought. The Queen set up on YouTube in 2007, has an account on Flickr and joined Twitter in 2009.

Send any comments to Ahmed at elamin.ahmed@gmail.com.