Amazon yesterday launched a $399 electronic black and white e-reader called “Kindle” that can quickly download books, and customized versions of newspapers, magazines and blogs over a limited use, free EVDO network. Seven newspapers are included in the first batch of content, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal Constitution and San Jose Mercury News.
Subscriptions are generally $5.99 a month, with The WSJ priced at $9.99 and The New York Times at $13.99. Daily editions are kept for up to seven days. Books are generally priced at $9.95. There is also a selection of blogs to subscribe to for 95 cents a month and up. You can also email MS Office files to yourself, or anything else, for 10 cents a pop, but Amazon is not playing up the always- on network capabilities beyond the fact that it isn’t Wifi (and doesn’t suffer from Wifi’s spotty reception).
The difference between Amazon’s reader and previous electronic editions from Olive Software and others is this one is expressly designed for portability. The downside is that it is in B&W and doesn’t readily enable rich advertising or multimedia. It is telling that Olive enabled these extras, but never caught on: people didn’t want to pay extra to be tethered to their PC (or apparently, for any other reason).
Reading a paper on the Kindle is probably better than reading headlines on a cell phone, but not as good as reading the fully graphical online edition on an iPhone. Still, it makes you think how far newspapers have come in the last five years or so. I might like it on a commuter train, where Wifi isn’t readily available, and space is tight. More than 200 testers for Amazon were involved, and many have left reviews of their experience on the Amazon site. Generally, they are positive. Of course, they weren’t paying for the subscriptions, or the device, which is the price of a low-end laptop.
Will there ever be a reader that makes a newspaper palatable and profitable? For more than 20 years, newspaper companies have spent tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions, trying to develop an ideal device. Microsoft has also been in the game, forming a partnership with several newspapers for its tablet devices. Since Vista’s launch, Microsoft’s tablet has become more realistic because it doesn’t require so much software downloading. But it is unlikely there are many users for it.
I like the idea of Kindle, and I hope Amazon gets around to sending me a review copy. But I bet Kindle won’t really catch on as a newspaper reading device. And its inability to support advertising makes it nothing but a premium news product. Some people will try it out — and they get a 14 day free trial with most subscriptions. But if any of the local papers have more than 300 subscribers a few months down the line, I’d be surprised.
I got to use this at Gnomedex this year, and you cannot compare its screen to an iPhone.
This is essentially a passive screen. There is no ‘light’ needed to keep it going. So the net result is that it reads more naturally, and the eye-strain is way down.
I think Amazon is trying to appeal to a very different market. I just think the design is terrible (when holding it it is very easy to accidentally hit forward or back). And the device cost is really high.
Furthermore - marketing. Will the newspapers help with the marketing here? If they do so - it could be a whole different ballgame.
But just like the iPod I do believe newer versions will do much better.
I agree with AhmedF above — I think they key point that many reporters are missing is that Amazon purposefully targeted this product not at technophiles, but rather at people who love to read. They took a bold move by launching a product in an iPod world with an incredilby kludgey look and feel; however, having tried the product myself on Friday, I really enjoyed using it, and reading it. And I then tried out the Sony counterpart at the SonyStyle store, and despite being much more streamlined/iPod-esque, I didn’t enjoy using it as much. I liked the form factor/heft of the Kindle much more, and of course, the wireless access and massive library (which will likely grow by leaps and bounds in coming months) make the Kindle a very attractive alternative to the physical book.
Some other not-oft mentioned potential sell points:
a) it rides on the excitement around addressing global warming (reduces paper, removes need to ship the product to you, etc.)
b) despite it’s cost, it’s almost anti-consumerism — may develop the trendiness of buying that new Prius
c) It’s not a wholesale substitute — people like to make these sweeping statements that it will ‘replace the book/newspaper/etc.’ — instead, it could just lead to more reading/more discovery, akin to what the web and computers have done for many of us.
Will be exciting to see it all play out.
Dave
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[…] Meio Bit | NotÃcias, Internet, Informática, Tecnologia wrote an interesting post today!.Here’s a quick excerpt Amazon yesterday launched a $399 electronic black and white e-reader called “Kindle” that can quickly download books, and customized versions of newspapers, magazines and blogs over a limited use, free EVDO network. Seven newspapers are included in the first batch of content, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal Constitution and San Jose Mercury News. Subscriptions are generally $5.99 a month, with T […]
[…] The Local Onliner wrote an interesting post today on Amazonâ??s Kindle e-Reader Signs 7 NewspapersHere’s a quick excerpt Amazon yesterday launched a $399 electronic black and white e-reader called “Kindle” that can quickly download books, and customized versions of newspapers, magazines and blogs over a limited use, free EVDO network. Seven newspapers are included in the first batch of content, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal Constitution and San Jose Mercury News. Subscriptions are generally $5.99 a month, with T […]