Tuesday, January 8, 2008
I have a few minutes to kill as I wait for the completion of the reconstruction of Alan's MRI brain data. So this seemed like a good time to write a blog entry.
Just one week after I wrote about the Amazon Kindle, I came across this article, entitled Why Amazon's Kindle is a Disaster. I stand by my original assessment though. I think the big things going for that gadget are its display (being able to read it in sunlight) and, more importantly, the delivery system. The way I see it, publishers must be able to provide electronic text because that's how the books were printed in the first place. A clever agreement with major publishing houses should be able to get virtually any book into Amazon's offerings. The rest of it is just coming up with fair pricing, and perhaps a few bonus features like mp3 playback (again, from the Amazon mp3 store). If they can't make that product work, it's because they dropped the ball.
1 comments:
I meant to comment when you first posted, but forgot...
The market for this is very limited, as aside from people who like all things tech just because, the practicality of this is not that good. Adding MP3 playback does little, as it would be a very bulky and expensive MP3 player (not to mention it could clog up the amazon wireless network).
How many books / reading items do you need to carry with you? I only ever need one.
How many books do you read to make the $400 price tag worthwhile? I read slowly... and the library is free.
Sony's e-book reader does MP3 files (http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665245739)
and has an SD slot (along with the sony card slot), and it's $100 cheaper (but does not have a network/subscription option).
Post a Comment