Kindle News

I am still laughing about all those comments from computer geeks when the Kindle e-reader first came out insisting that it was a dumb machine that only did one thing and nobody would buy it. And indeed, no one bought it who thought just like them.

But the geeks kept deriding it, even as some pointed out that Amazon was selling every single one they could manufacture. Somehow, in geekdom, this did not amount to a success, because people who thought just like them would never buy one. It was still a dumb machine that only did one thing: read books. And how many people could there be out there who only wanted a machine that could read books?

Plenty. Amazon now says they sell more Kindle books than hardcover books. That's a lot of books. And the price, as friend Curtis my favorite computer geek warned me, has dropped, now to a mere $189. At this rate they will soon be like the old camera companies - they could practically give their cameras away since it locked you into to buying their film forever.

Meanwhile, I am getting closer and closer to buying one.

and for the record, analysts think that Amazon will sell 3.7 million Kindles this year.

.

E-Reader Wars kindled

(I know - bad pun. What can I say? It's genetic)


Here is the WaPo's comparison between the new Nook from Barnes and Nobles and the old Kindle from Amazon. I put it up because I am fascinated by e-books, but also the first sentence of it is, how shall I put this, misleading.

Amazon.com's Kindle is no longer the only e-book story out there.

It never was. There were several e-books out there, including a very nice Sony reader that was sold at Borders. But, that is what passes for journalism. It's not really untrue, but it is an intellectually lazy and distorting way to present the frame of your article. It has to be a contest, a struggle. Pledge your support here.

I know because this is the way I write my lectures.

Carmen is scandalized: "You just make things up!"

Kindle 2: Love and Loathing

Slate.com has a good review of the Kindle 2 by Farhad Manjoo (via Sullivan btw). He loves it.

For starters, it's gorgeous. Unlike its bulky predecessor, the redesigned $359 Kindle, which came out this week, is light, thin, and disappears in your hands. If you think there's no way you could ever get used to curling up with an electronic reader, you haven't given the Kindle a chance. Load up a good book and you'll soon forget you're reading plastic rather than paper. You'll also wonder how you ever did without it.

And he fears it.

Amazon's reader is a brilliant device that shanghais book buyers and the book industry into accepting a radically diminished marketplace for published works. If the Kindle succeeds on its current terms, and all signs suggest it'll be a blockbuster (thanks Oprah!), Amazon will make a bundle. But everyone else with a stake in a vibrant book industry—authors, publishers, libraries, chain bookstores, indie bookstores, and, not least, readers—stands to lose out.

I don't think I've yet seen such a comprehensive take on the Kindle and how it might effect the book industry. Since, dear reader, you are reading Sententiae, it is a foregone conclusion that you are a reader of books, you might want to take a look at this article.

For me, the biggest drawback to the Kindle is that its cheap books are NYTs' best sellers. Anything I really want to read costs 15% less than the cover price, which for academic books can reach well over $100. For an e-book?

but then, I'm still using fountain pens, so you can't accuse me of being technologically "adventuresome."

The Kindle - electronic readers again

A friend showed me her new Kindle a few weeks ago. I am still tempted to get one, but Clovis, my computer adviser, told me to wait until the second version of it with a lower price comes out. Sounds good. My chief hesitation is that it would encourage me to buy and read books because they are available rather than because I really wanted to read them. If I spend 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, reading this summer I will barely make a dent in the books I want, need, or in some cases, have to read.

So what about the Kindle? It may not replace books, but there are all kinds of things that could be exploited that neither books nor newspapers can do. Here's Ezra Klien in the Columbia Journalism Review explaining.

Since I blew my $300 economic stimulus package on two cases of local wine, I'll have to come up with the $399 for the Kindle some other way.