Amazon Kindle
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
This reminds me of the birth of the Mac, the birth of the iPod and more. Steven Levy at Newsweek has written the opening big story about the new Amazon reading device and service: The Future of Reading. It’s just too bad that this device/service doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a winner.
You can read about the Kindle on Amazon’s product page: Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device
What it seems Amazon has done is use their powerful leverage in the publishing world to build a new way for them to market books and for you to read them. They’ve taken Apple’s iPod model, the device becomes a player for content downloaded and stored elsewhere. In the iPod’s case, the content comes through iTunes and lives on your computer and you can use it there, share it, do as you like with it. In the case of Kindle, there is no computer, the content comes from Amazon through a free cell network and lives both on Amazon’s servers and in your Kindle.
I actually don’t mind the model of a “dumb terminal” approach to serving up some content, but I’m pretty sure that books are not the right content to serve up this way. The iPod is successful because the particular content it serves up is appropriate and the delivery model works. It makes perfect sense that Bezos/Amazon would get into this game and it will be interesting to track Kindle over time.
Anne and I watched Charlie Rose interview Jeff Bezos last night after the introduction of Kindle and Anne, an avid reader said “don’t get me that for me for Christmas, I don’t want it.” Anne is not a typical target for Kindle marketing but her reaction was so fast it interested me. My reaction was to give it a chance (for the length of the interview anyway) and I was more interested in the model than the actual device. After all, I read a lot of content on the screen of my 15″ MacBook Pro and might consider even a smaller screen if Apple came out with a solid state portable computing device (bigger than an iPhone though).
There are enough detailed blog reactions to the Kindle to keep you reading for hours today so I won’t bore you with more details which you can get better elsewhere. I will say that I feel about Kindle the way I feel about Bezo’s other big project, Blue Origin, a reusable space capsule for taking small number of people for a sub-orbital ride into space. Both of them may work (toss enough money at things and they work) but I don’t think either will fly.
I’m right there with your wife Richard. Personally, I prefer to have a book in my hand, and on a bookshelf after I’m done with it. Maybe it’s a salute to my achievements but non the less one that makes me happy.
I don’t agree with their pricing structure either at just over nine dollars a book in comparison with a hardback. I’d rather wait until the hardback goes on sale and pick it up for a couple extra bucks. They want two dollars PER feed you bring into it too, and if you want to take your pdf’s to the Kindle you have to pay for that too.
On top of that, I think the design of it is very 70’s, or was meant to be a retro machine. :)
yes the design seems a little retro and not all that great clearly not designed by apple and the thing is the device is not cheap it is kind of expensive so to me i think a book is better yes it might be heavy to the chance of it breaking are a lot lower and it never run out of batteries. it might be the future of reading but this is not going to be the device for it.
Greg: Anne continued on it this morning:
The idea of putting content out on smaller devices than a computer is appealing but in order to compete with the computer, the device has to be very small and compelling and the model for getting content onto it has to be steamlined.
I’d pay $400 for a device like this if the content were free (library of congress model).
I was thinking more on this in the shower (my best place for ideas) and I think another model might work: link one of these things to The New York Times in a dedicated sort of way and pay for the Times as a subscription. This might allow the Times to morph into a digital delivery company. Or, open up the subscription model to newspapers and magazines. I do enough reading of non-books on the web so that a device like this might be useful for that. However, without color or video or sound it’s not likely it will compete with the web based delivery we have now.
The retro design is the least of it’s problems…
I tried to do the digital book thing for a while back when I had my palm. It was just ok. It had alot of the same features as the Kindle. It would allow me to bookmark pages, etc. However, in the end, it strained my eyes too much and in this world of a.d.d. it was too easy to forget about all the books that were loaded on it. Image a palm doesn’t have all that much space on it. The kindle has more and would only exacerbate that issue. As I get older, I don’t need to forget any more than I need to.
Note: That’s partly my fault for starting too many books at once, but I have my work books and my personal books going at the same time. Argh.
Greg: According to Bezos and the descriptions, you can have multiple books going at once and bookmark all of them easily on Kindle. I can’t speak to eye strain as I get it now on this screen after long periods, maybe that screen will be okay, time will tell.
I do like the newspaper/magazine model I described above. Not books, but periodicals and news. The idea of being able to read that kind of stuff anywhere and have it updated in real time seems great. Of course, cell technology isn’t allowed on planes yet so one would need to “top off” the Kindle tank before they close the doors.
I will be interesting to see how well Kindle does. E-book readers have largely been a failure in the world of publishing and delivery of books. The demand for the physical book by readers is very strong. I think Kindle will have an audience, but won’t fly very far. One aspect that might help it is the fact that subscriptions to newspapers (New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were given as examples in today’s New York Times article) can be delivered to Kindle at very reasonable prices. But, I personally think there won’t be strong sales of e-book readers until they’re priced more reasonably. $399 is an expensive device for a lot of people, who can easily get lots of books from libraries, and cheaply at thrift stores, etc.
I do think E-Book readers have great potential in some areas. Packing a lot of textbooks into one should work for students, and for a central place for books during travel. And the ability to enlarge typfaces should appeal to a lot of people who use large print books.
Gary: Great idea, textbooks for students is perfect in that they have time value, are easier to carry this way, and you can have all of them with you all the time. Great idea. Hopefully Bezos is reading.
The one thing they’ve got very right here is the idea of being online all the time from anywhere at no cost. If Google ever did that with a device the size of this thing I think they’d do it right and the kinds of services and content they’d offer would be compelling. Maybe the gPhone will be something like that and will grow into a platform for more content, like newspapers and magazines.
Good point about publications Richard. I used to get mac world on my MBP via Zinio and actually preferred that over the paper mag. Newspapers would be good too. Still not enough benefit to spend $400 though, especially with the price per publication that they are reporting.
Greg: I was thinking the Kindle would come free, part of a subscription.
Check this out: The Future of Reading (A Play in Six Acts)
How’s this: “iBook” Apple’s rekindled Kindle.
haha. That’s priceless Richard! (regarding the link)
You’re iBook quote is pricelesser (”pricelesser” - a new word that won’t be in the Kindle dictionary)
Well, one can certainly say that the Kindle kindled a lot of commentary today. I particularly like this one from Jason at 37 Signals: Kindle Ignites the flames.
I saw that one too Richard. Maybe I should keep an open mind.
I’ve been reading all the related articles that come through John Gruber’s blog (daringfireball.com). The past two days have been very interesting.
Greg: It’s interesting, I’m waiting for John Gruber to call Bezos “Jackass of the week.” When he does, I’ll consider dropping reading him. I can’t stand that he calls people out with that. If I didn’t think I’d get flamed from all sides, I’d call him out with it when necessary.