Kindle: Amazon's New Firestarter

The media seems to be getting all excited about Amazon's new e-book reader. People are saying it's the iPod for books. No thanks. I'm not buying it. I love books -- the way they feel, the way they smell. I guess in this one area I'm a dinosaur, but I won't give up my actual books in favor of virtual books.

From The Millions:

The media is aglow with the heatless light of Kindle, Amazon's just launched reading device that is essentially an iPod for books, magazines and blogs. The online demo video trumpets the wonders of this text vessel. You can drop the thing, read it in direct sunlight and, most notably, use it and acquire new reading materials without a computer. Much of the mainstream print media is on board, as are the big publishing houses.

I watched a portion of Charlie Rose's interview with Jeff Bezos last night, unimpressed by Bezos's forced-laugh self-satisfaction about this new product that, in his words, will "out book the book." Fact is, plenty of folks have been tinkering with this concept for years (see my piece about The Institute for the Future of the Book), but with Amazon's resources behind this endeavor, it seems clear that Kindle will attempt the same sort of market saturation that the iPod has achieved -- and here lies the real essence of this development.

Read the rest.

Tags: Kindle, Amazon, e-books, reader, Jeff Bezos, books, technology