The Kindle is a game changer

So I recently got my hands (for a few moments, at least) on a Kindle. I find it to be quite impressive, especially given it’s a 1st gen product from a company who hasn’t built hardware before. I now firmly believe that Amazon has a game changing device on it’s hands - it clearly has some problems, some of them design problems (like the buttons are too big and too easy to press accidentally) and some technical problems (many due to the limitations of E-Ink) but I think it’s an awesome reading device and the ease with which you can get books and periodicals is the hook. Sure it’s got a bit of a cumbersome interface, but that will be fixed - Amazon can push software updates over the air. The search capability is a killer, killer feature in my opinion. Whispernet is a fundamental awesomeness and the web surfing experience, while not super fantastic, is useable - I checked out this very blog (amongst other lesser sites :) and it looked a ok to me.

That they built in Google Maps with the cell based location? Just goes to show they have bigger ambitions for this thing. Easy maps integration with travel guides and review guides like Zagat’s could be just around the corner. So you’re somewhere and you want to know what’s around you? It peruses all the books in your library and shows you along with reviews and some information about each one - it can easily supplement that with info from the interent, too.

I came across a review by Bill McCoy of Adobe fame which I found to be a really impartial view. He highlights the negatives he sees, but notes that largely they are easily fixable problems. And coming from Adobe - I’d really like to see the Kindle get native PDF support.

In general, these things must be selling like hotcakes. It is back to the #1 spot on Amazon’s bestselling electronics list, beating the 4GB iPod nano out despite the Kindle still being sold out and 3x the price. And I went to the Kindle page and skimmed through 5 or 6 pages of the most recent reviews. Uniformly with maybe 1 exception, everyone who actually owned a Kindle gave it 4 and 5 stars and loved it, many of them already having read several books on it. The only low grades it received were from people who were making theoretical reviews of it (like… uh.. this one..).

Amazon has a hit on it’s hands. The publishers are embracing it - it’s already got about 10k more books in the Kindle library than it did at launch. E-Ink will be improving with better refresh, better contrast, color, etc… Amazon is already working on the next gen. If O’Reilly and Wrox put their full catalog on, I’d probably already have one. I think this will be as important to the publishing industry as the iPod was to the music one - it may take several years to get there, but unless Amazon really messes things up (which I doubt they will) this has changed the game.

In general, it’s interesting to watch Amazon get into the digital distribution game. It’s trying to figure out digital video with unbox, it’s rolling with digital music and its MP3 store, now it’s working with digital print and I just read it’s testing the waters with software downloads. And it’s tieing everything together with “your media library” a site where you can keep track of and re-download any digital media you buy (including any online manuals for products you have bought). It generally keeps track of everything you’ve purchased on Amazon digital or not. They may not get everything right from the get go, but I have a lot of faith in Amazon to ultimately do a good job so it is exciting to see all the moves into digital distribution they are taking.

Jan 7th, 2008 · Comments RSS · · · · · Tags: kindle · the future · the love