Amazon's Kindle: Another iPod, Or Another Newton?

The jury is split on the Kindle, Amazon's big foray into the digital media world.

At face value, Amazon looks to be in the perfect place to create an iPod/iTunes revolution in the digital print media world, where so much failure has come before.

To me, the design looks pretty cool, but I haven't yet fooled with an actual device to get a sense of the software and display.

The biggest hurdle for digital book devices has been the need for a computer, which Bezos has neatly sidestepped by building in cellular connectivity, like the EVDO cards people use (like me) in their laptops. This means that books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs (yes blogs) can be downloaded to the device at basically any point in time. The wireless capability can also be turned off to conserve battery life, which seems pretty robust.

Others argue that the device is badly designed, and others that the effort to charge for blogs -- $0.99 per month per blog -- is a step back from web norms:

[from First Look: Amazon’s Kindle Reader: The Gap Between Description and The Device by Joseph Weisenthal]

Bottom line: Although Amazon’s been working on this for awhile, this is very much a first-generation product. It’s not going to revolutionize the industry overnight, though it sounds like Amazon is going to take this business seriously and continue to invest in it. It seems safe to guess that in a couple years, the top-of-the-line Kindle will be a much-improved product. The concept is definitely sound. Bezos’ speech had most of the audience pretty enthusiastic about the device—the problem is the gap between the description and the device itself. With some improvements to the display and a more intuitive navigation system, it could become an attractive product, even at the price.

[from www.twitter.com/gapingvoid by Hugh MacCleod]

$0.99 for a month subscription to a blog on an Amazon Kindle. Losers. Assholes.

Techcrunch's Erick Schonfeld seems interested in the possibilities of books that are written with being digital in mind:

[from Kindle: First Impressions]

The fact that it has a functioning Web browser, though, means that you can follow links in the feeds you subscribe to. More importantly, it opens up the world of linking to book authors. Now books can have links, and not just for citations. Authors who take advantage of the electronic book format will start to include hyperlinks for curious readers to follow, and books could become more tightly interwoven with the culture of the Web in general. Reading a book will no longer need to end with the final chapter. Rather, it could literally open up a whole world of information on the Web, just as blog posts or online news article do today.

A remaining hurdle in the business model is the finances:

[from Amazon Reading Device Doesn’t Need Computer by Saul Hansell]

“The big challenge, of course, is that it is still relatively expensive,” he added. “You have to be a very committed book person to get a repay on that investment.”

The publishers themselves are concerned about return on investment; most have been spending a great deal to digitize their libraries for electronic readers, with little to show for it so far.

“If it does contribute to the many millions of dollars we have invested as an industry, that’s great,” Mr. Young said.

Amazon and the publishers declined to discuss the specifics of their financial arrangements. But several publishing executives said the industry practice was to sell an electronic version of a hardcover with a list price of $27 for about $20. While deals vary, the wholesale price of a $20 e-book is about $10, and most retailers have been selling them for about $16. The publishers said Amazon was paying about the same wholesale price as Sony and other e-book vendors.

By offering best sellers for $9.99, Amazon is leaving no profit margin, and it will have the expense of paying Sprint for the data transmission. Amazon says it hopes to make money on older titles that have better profit margins.

A truly grand experiment. I wish I had been able to attend the press conference, so I could have made off with a Kindle to fool with.

I did travel off to the Kindle site at Amazon, after being alerted by the nice folks at Federated Media Publishing that /Message is included in the list of 308 now available for download there:

I personally don't expect that blogs will make any money on the device, especially since the Kindle can browse the web directly. But, unlike Hugh, I don't think Bezos is an asshole for trying to make a nickel out of easily downloading blogs onto the device. On the other hand, its a different story if he starts trying to block access to the blogs he's selling.

No one is blowing the green, green, green trumpet here, but at least with regard to newspapers and magazines the Kindle could lead to very significant ecological impacts, if and when Kindles become as ubiquitous as iPods are. And if not this device, then someone's. We should be eager for such an advance to work, if only for the sake of Mother Earth.

On a purely personal note: I am tired of waiting for the damn New York Times to be delivered, anyway, since I get up a lot earlier than the newspaper delivery guys do in either of my neighborhoods. So for the sake of the planet and to avoid having to wait for my delivery guy to get to my place at 7:30am here in Reston VA, I should probably get one. Maybe I can weasel one from Amazon: I am one of their authors, after all.

Comments

[Constance Reader]

Perhaps charging for blogs, newspapers and magazines that can be accessed for free elsewhere isn't assholism, but it is stupidity. Assholism is charging for books in the public domain, which Amazon is also doing with the Kindle, but it also counts as stupidity because someone at Amazon should have known about the Gutenberg Project or the Google book search.

My library card is free, the books don't need batteries and I don't have to try to convince a flight attendant that it's in airplane mode and perfectly safe to use (believe it or not, I still see this conversation occasionally on planes, you'd think the airlines would post a memo by now). And if I drop the book or leave it on a plane or in a hotel room, I'm not out several hundred bucks.

[Stowe Boyd]

Constance - Yeah, well, those are the arguments that were made against laptops and cell phones, too. The real interesting stuff starts to happen when 'books' become part of the fabric of the web, instead of a remnant of the pre-web. Yes, we will need interesting little gizmos to fool with the bits, but ultimately the transition to digital changes the medium completely. It starts with the experience, revamps the value chain, and then reaches into the head of the artists. Modest Mouse's Grey Album could not have happened until the digital revolution has transformed the entire music world.

[Dennis McDonald]

Hmmm -- I loved the Newton Message Pad, and look where it ended up...

[catarino]

Curious that you refer to kindle as a possible newton.

I posted a little quiz at my deli (http://catarino.soup.io/page/4) which one of the possible answers is "amazon stole an Apple newtonbook prototype back in the 90's". Although i'm only talking about the design of the gadget on the quiz, i really think that they suffer from the same strategy problems. Maybe i'm wrong but i think it won't be this gadget in particular that will spark the mass i-book revolution. (i-book it's not a typo).

[Stowe Boyd]

Catarino - I guess you think it will be Apple?

[Catarino]

I think it's easy (if not direct) for most of the people who knows kindle, to question "how much better would be this kindle device if it had been designed by Apple". and by design i mean not only a device but the all strategy. I'm not versed on futurism, but I think that if Apple put its mind to it, it can come up with a solid solution for this yet to be market.
Apple has been making cleverly designed objects and strategies that work with somebody elses content, and have been successfully changing the rules in the markets where they're putting them as we all know.
Maybe is just me but, but if:

1- Apple works on a "iphoned" kind of kindle with an extended itunes with book publisher's catalog subscriptions or something, i will not be that surprised.

2- Apple works together with Google to make a solution that joins that same iphoned version of a kindle-like device with google's expanded version of books.google.com that would deliver free content (books) with cleverly inserted adsense, neither. Apple would make money from the device and Google from its adsense revenues.
I'm not sure of what the best model would be, if any, but Steve Jobs has a powerful (and hyped) brand (and close relations with that other powerful, also hyped and clever brand, Google), and an impressive portfolio of influence, persuasion and experience (that would serve to deal with book publishers in this particular and — obviously hypothetical case), a professional team behind him, and the ipod's and iphone's success and experience to help.

Finally, and answering directly to your question, No, I don't think that a (hypotethical) move like this could make a revolution, but yes, i think that Apple would make a very different product and would make much, much more people curious about such device, (helped by a heavy and clever marketing campaign like they always do).

I think Amazon just made a false start here, but I'm betting that Kindle 2.0 will be that awesome gadget that Bezos was talking about (i mean it, don't take me as an Apple fan bashing Kindle, i am first and foremost, a technology fan), and not this kind of... prototype.

(Aside from other things that I would make it different, If I was Bezos, (in another dimension) I would make that screen retroilluminated. I know that it would drain the battery sooner but it would pay off to read a book in my bed without being constantly told to "turn off the lights, I want to sleep". I hope they decide to implement it in Kindle's second iteration :) )

Please, keep in mind that I haven't thought about this when I posted yesterday. My only reference to Apple was a pure slightly humoristic view of this Amazon's move and only posted because (as I said) i found curious we both mentioned Apple's Newton on our posts.

[catarino]

update on my last post:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/19/google-magazine/

I guess Google is looking for the opposite direction of what i was saying on my last post :)

(I still believe that Apple could make its own Kindle-like device alone, anyway)

[Genghis]

Just looking at your article from a different perspective: Perhaps the latest Kindle is starting to move down the PDA direction and might be a possible candidate as a Newton replacement?

Newton users are facing their biggest challenge to date: A Year 2010 bug threatens to stop it from ever being used as a PDA for any date keeping application. Valiant attempts are being made to patch the OS but there is no guarantee of eventual success.

So they are looking for a credible replacement for their Newton but finding that, in many respects, the rest of the PDA world hasn't caught up yet.

Here is a look at the latest Kindle as a potential Newton replacement candidate: http://myapplenewton.blogspot.com/