Here are two short essay-lets. I’ll admit to not yet having seen a Kindle, but I think it is not the wave of the future and not the next iPod. The key feature of the iPod is the use of software to organize your music collection, not just the portability. The (somewhat) comparable use of software for reading is RSS, but Kindle is not an efficient way of reading blogs, it is mostly designed for full-length titles. (And if you really want to read your favorite blogs on RSS, while you walk around, the iPhone already allows that.) Furthermore we want to hear our favorite songs many times, but the ability to call up again our favorite book is not of comparable value, again limiting the value of using software to organize our reading. Plus a book takes longer to consume than does a song, so just carry the book you are reading instead of carrying Kindle. Maybe Kindle is good for voracious readers who take long trips, and don’t want to buy books along the way, but can you build a market on that?
Here is one interesting review of the product, here is a very detailed and very pro-Kindle review. I’m still a skeptic, at least until software takes on a larger role in reorganizing the reading experience.
As far as software reorganizing the reading experience:
I’ve been using Supermemo for the past couple months to retain my foreign language vocabulary. It’s pretty amazing, functioning like another section of your brain, one with code to remind you when you’re about to forget a word.
But. One of the features of the newer versions that I have yet to use is called Incremental Reading. It’s billed as a way to read (and memorize?) multiple articles at once, generally by cutting them into strips a bit at a time, and occluding portions to prompt the memorization. The newest version has scheduling and time-tracking features built-in to optimize your life spent doing this.
It sounds like a horrible way to read, and iirc one post on metafilter called it (or something about Supermemo) a “discredited” mode of learning. Well, the flashcard system works and that’s good enough for me, but I imagine that the maintainer who writes an ungodly amount of propaganda/instructions for it would have more pressure to clean up the UI if people other than him actually used the more advanced features.
I don’t get the Kindle move. If anything I see a desire on the part of consumers to consolidate, not have one more gadget to carry around. And the keyboard seems largely superfluous. But what do I know, Bezos and his predictions have a much better track record than mine do.
I like having books on my shelf.
How expensive will paper have to get before this is a no-brainer?
What will inspire some significant jump to e-book readers is when they incorporate the ability to load and read any pdf document, and annote it with a stylus pen. I have a Sony reader, and while you can upload your own pdfs, you can’t magnify them beyond the text boundary of the page. The text on a research paper is generally so small that it is difficult to read, and notation is pretty much impossible. A lot of academics and business people would love an annote-able electronic repository of pdf documents, but none of the readers offer this functionality yet. The Sony reader, any way, is very nice for reading books available from Sony (the zoom function is great). You can store a ton of them, the reader never gets hot, and the battery measures in weeks. If you add wireless functionality to the point that you can download pdfs directly from the web, make it easy to zoom in on any pdf document, and provide a stylus pen for annotation, and if you could make the whole thing cost less than $500, there would be a very sizeable market of professionals willing to buy.
I don’t really understand why everyone is making such a big deal about the Kindle in the press. I’ve been using the Sony Portable Reader System for several months now. I’m an avid reader, and it’s a godsend. As a lawyer, the potential for this platform is great, but there’s still a lot to do on that front. As far as reading is concerned, it’s great to have a sackful of books in one sleek package.
Sean’s got it right. Pdf portability and annotation would have had me lining up to buy one of these things. Would you not like the ability to carry around a couple thousand journal articles Tyler? I’m imagining sitting in the back of an audience at a conference or a talk where the speaker makes a claim you don’t like about some or another paper. With the ability to call that paper up instantly there would be whole new ways to knock softballs out of the park during talks. Now I’m getting all giddy…
I too have the Sony device, ( new version model 505 with the page and option buttons on the right). I ‘ve been using for a couple of months now, and I really love it, the design , form factor and controls are just right. But I agree that is for avid readers ( such as myself) I read fiction as well as technical papers in PDF and HTML, the battery and the screen are amazing. However I don’t think the device is for everybody, the book selection is limited, the software is Windows-only and it’s far from perfect. It’s not about reading blogs or even magazines, this is for books, and only for books, newspapers, maybe, I am not sure.
I would not compare any of these devices to the ipod, but they are more like the first mp3 players, lacking good software and polish, but heading in the right direction.
When the price goes down enough and the screens get color and better response, we’ll see the ipod for books.
The most interesting economic aspect of the Kindle is that they are trying to turn conventional internet service payments upside down. Besides your $400 device, you get free EVDO wireless internet service, but you pay for the content. This is contrary to the current common model where you pay your ISP for the connection to the internet, but read mostly free content (like this blog). Presumably Amazon is covering the costs of the connection via the cost of the content you download.
It makes me curious as to whether there are places this sort of “pay for content get free service” model would work. It does seem a bit susceptible to people using the Kindle to get content from other providers that aren’t paying for the connection.
oh yea, and its ugly!
http://mattkern.com/re-design-the-kindle-contest/
I would love to have something like a Kindle, but I hate the Kindle itself. It would a student’s dream to carry around multiple books on one device– doing that with textbooks, for example, would be amazing. Good for plane trips, too. But the Kindle itself is ugly, doesn’t support PDFs, and has a ton of weird fees associated with reading blogs/newspapers, etc. Inconvenient, ugly, and $400? That can’t be the future.
does it give you a headache the way a computer screen does?
“[P]aper has a unique set of “affordances” — that is, qualities that permit specific kinds of uses. Paper is tangible: we can pick up a document, flip through it, read little bits here and there, and quickly get a sense of it. … Paper is spatially flexible, meaning that we can spread it out and arrange it in the way that suits us best. And it’s tailorable: we can easily annotate it, and scribble on it as we read, without altering the original text.”
Malcolm Gladwell, “The Social Life of Paper”
Apparently, .pdf capability is coming to Kindle soon. However, instead of directly displaying a .pdf file, it will convert it to Kindle’s native format, and it is this format conversion that Amazon is still working on perfecting.
I’m a person who moves a lot, and the task of hauling 2000 lbs of books to a new state or country every 3 or 4 years is getting old. Plus I typically carry a few pounds of reading material on every holiday or business trip.
I think the most valuable aspect of Kindle might be a combination of free browsing and periodical reading. I’d still want the physical SuDoku’s, though.
I’m generally patient enough to not be an early-adopter, but this might be different for me. Another six weeks of news and reviews and I might just make the jump.
I like reading ebooks, but as far as I can tell the only thing in which the Kindle beets any PDA with wi-fi is screen size (granted, screen size is important).
My own humble little Pocket PC can read almost any text file format I’ve heard of including PDF (it actually runs a version of Acrobat Reader) and has a browser that does support Flash (albeit only an oldish version of Flash). Plus, my Pocket PC cost $100 less than the Kindle 5 years ago!
I’m sure you can find an even better PDA (one only 2 years old, say) on e-Bay for half of what the Kindle costs. Is a bigger screen worth $200? If so, don’t buy a Kindle, buy a Nokia 770 or 800…
Now, if only Tyler Cowen would make his book available on Kindle! Go ahead Tyler… just click on the “Find out how to publish your own Kindle Books” on the left hand side of your own listing…
People want to read PDFs on their e-readers, but the problem with PDFs is that they are only formatted to a paper size, usually 8.5 x 11 if you’re in the U.S.
What’s needed is a better portable document format, optimized for screen-reading rather than printing out on paper.
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THANK GOD! Someone who hates the stupid Kindle as much as I do. Sorry Kindle-fans, but I’m a traditionalist, who firmly believes in having a ‘library full of books’, not empty shelves with a electronic device sitting on it.
Only exception – hey, if you’re on the Starship Enterprise. Sure, if I was in space, I’d probably want one. It would be pretty convenient, there.
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