SF Signal: Kindling

Kindling

Unless you have been living under a rock, you undoubtedly have heard about Amazon's eBook reader the Kindle. What amazes me is not anything about the device or its specifications, but the media hype surrounding the device. Starting yesterday, I have seen or heard Jeff Bezos (Amazon's CEO) on several radio and TV programs. The biggest of which has to be his appearance last night on the Charlie Rose show. Uh, did Amazon pay for that hour long infomercial?

And just this moment I am listening to a nationwide radio call in show on NPR talking about the device. They even found some luddite to stand up for the 'citadel' that is the printed book. Regardless, how do you get this kind of free publicity?

t's an eBook reader folks and not much else. I saw the entry on Engadget a few weeks back and said 'yawn' about it. That's sort of the same way I feel today - its big, expensive, and looks like it came from the 70s. Why has the media jumped on this thing? Does it do something for you?

From what I can tell, what makes this different from others is that it uses cell phone service to download the books, not wireless internet.

But still - you know how many books I can buy for $400? The only real advantage I can see right now is that it makes the books searchable. I don't see that as an advantage for a typical reader, who can only read one book at a time.

I'll be sticking with paper for now, but this is another step toward a Trek-like universe where all the data you want can be obtained through devices like this, and paper books will be abnormal. I like paper books better (I like the look and feel of them, and their batteries never run out), but the next generation probably won't.

Posted by Scott D on Tuesday November 20, 2007 at 12:20 PM

The hype and "free" publicity comes from trotting out the head honcho of a huge company and paying really good PR agencies to arrange all the big interviews. Anyone with big bucks can do it!

As for the Kindle, I was actually interested in it yesterday until I heard the price. I had just started looking into ebook readers as an item I might enjoy. (I read the occassional ebook on my computer.) When I heard Amazon was unveiling one, I figured it would be affordable because the company would want to get it in people's hands and sell a bunch of content.

But $400? Ouch! I read through its product description and could not figure out if you can buy content from anywhere except Amazon or even pick up free ebooks from anywhere on the internet.

The Kindle's wireless feature is probably a good idea but that's also what's making it expensive.

Posted by Tracy on Tuesday November 20, 2007 at 12:25 PM

We've ranted about this one on our Solaris blog.

I used to work in bookselling, and you'd see a few types of readers. People who love fiction books love holding books. Period. So these are the type of people who will prefer the real thing. They're not going to be so fussed about buying an ebook reader. Now people who don't care about books so much don't tend to buy so many of them, one or two a year maybe, so why would they want to fork out so much money for a device they'll hardly ever use? And there's another type of book buyer, those who buy to be seen to be reading something smart, or the latest thing. Fashion-conscious readers. They're not going to be able to show off their intelligence, or lack of, on an ebook reader. Finally, there's the gift market, which is massive at Christmas. I don't know about you, but ebooks just aren't the same to unwrap... We'll be in paper for a long time yet. All this will replace is text books, perhaps. Even then, is it good at accurately portraying large, full colour diagrams? No, ebooks can be wonderful for promotion, or sample text, but really...

And you know what, what is this actually replacing? Books are fairly portable and easy to use as it is.

Posted by Mark Newton on Tuesday November 20, 2007 at 2:16 PM

"So my e-reader choices are..."

How about a PalmOS-based PDA. Download free readers like Mobipocket, TomeRaider, etc. Download free eBooks from Project Gutenberg. Download free or paid (or donation-paid) eBooks from Memoware, Manybooks. Get free or intelligently-priced eBooks from Baen.

You can get a good deal on a PalmOS-based PDA on eBay and other sources. Heck, you can buy one and get five more for less than the Amazon gadget, if you are patient with your bidding.

Posted by Fred Kiesche on Tuesday November 20, 2007 at 2:29 PM

The difference between an ebook reader and mp3 player or video player is huge.

1) Previously owned books cannot be added to the player in the same way that cds and DVDs can. People like having hard copies as a back up to their digital versions.

2) Most people don't need (or want) access to more books than they can comfortably carry with them. Most people focus on one book at a time and very few people read more than 2 or 3 books at a time. Songs last 3 minutes, video ranges from 20 minutes to 2.5 hours. Most people don't read a novel in than 5-10 hours of straight reading.

3) People like the tactile sensation of reading a book. It's easy on the eyes and typically the perfect size, shape for handling. Contrast this with issues of sizing/necessary scrolling in certain e-book formats. Book rarely have glare issues.

4. Books are durable. You can carry them around in the bottom of your bag, take them to the beach, read them in the tub, drop them, fall asleep reading, and do a million other things without making them unreadable. Electronic devices not so much. CDs and DVDs don't have this durability feature.

And these are ignoring the cost, battery life, capacity, connectivity issues and everything else associated with the e-book reader.

Music + Movies ==> Digital Media and Books ==> Digital Media are two entirely different things. An iPod Book is not going to work.

Posted by Patrick on Tuesday November 20, 2007 at 3:41 PM

Here are the things I've been able to find out about the Kindle that makes it more likely to succeed than any eBook reader I've seen so far.

1) The E-ink technology means that it uses no electricity while displaying a page. Changing a page costs power, but otherwise it just sits there. According to Bezos on Charlie's show, it can last for a week on a single charge, reading hours per day and viewing 1000s of pages if you turn off the radio. This technology is also supposed to be easier on the eyes because it is not backlit like a tablet PC or PDA.

2) You can get automatic daily editions of major periodicals such as the New York Times. I can see the appeal of coming down in the morning and having the latest paper already on the device on the kitchen table. I see this as a 'green option' because I won't be using delivered newsprint like I do today.

3) You can add eBooks obtained from other sources to it, but only if they are available in a format the reader understands (TXT, Mobi, and Kindle.) You can use a email-based service from Amazon to convert content from DOC to Kindle. PDF is not naively supported and the email conversion service is listed as experimental because some PDF features are hard to deal with.

4) It has a built-in dictionary and an easy link to Wikipedia (what I now think of as the communist encyclopedia) to look up information on words or concepts you aren't familiar with.

5) Built-in wireless acquisition of content. I think this the feature that has people most excited about the device.

6) eBook prices are reasonable. This has been the major issue with eBooks in my opinion, and I'm glad to see Amazon taking the Apple approach to getting content publishers to see the light and charge less for eBooks than printed books.

7) You can get blog content delivered to your Kindle as well. They have to be one of a few specific blogs who have agreed to make content available for the device, and you have to pay $2/mo per blog. I assume the blog authors are getting paid something out of this, and the rest goes to pay the bandwidth costs. That price though seems mighty high for information that is available on your Internet connections for nothing.

What I find interesting is that you can get email on the Kindle but that isn't a feature Amazon is promoting. Maybe it is because they charge 10 cents (US) per email?

That said, I'm still largely unimpressed. The $400 price tag is quite high and have many have said, you could buy a lot of books with that money instead.

And again - why has the media jumped on this as if it were a revolution? As John asked me - what, did nothing happen in Iraq this week? Did the presidential candidates take the week off?

Posted by scottsh on Wednesday November 21, 2007 at 7:31 AM

I may be the weirdo in the show, but...I read 3-5 books a week and...I haven't read a paper book in 3 or 4 years.

I buy electronic whenever I can find them...if I can't find a book in electronic form, I'll buy it in paper, stick it in the bookcase and go download it in electronic form from somewhere.

I use an ipaq (and old 2215) as my reader, and it works perfectly for me. I carry it in my pocket and pull it out whenever I have 2 free minutes, like at the supermarket line or whatever.

As for the kindle...I won't be buying one...and the reason is twofold...DRM and size.

I want something I can carry in my pocket and use for 2 minutes whenever I have them, not something that I have to pull out of my laptop's bag or whatever.

And DRM....don't get me started on that, let's just say that I hope that some day baen.com manages to publish every single book in the world.

Posted by Vox on Wednesday November 21, 2007 at 11:32 AM