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Kindle Heats Up

Kindle is Amazon's electronic book reader.  Go to Amazon.com to take a look.  I have written about this on the blog, both Sony and RCA have tried marketing elec book readers without much success. Now AMZ has sold $100 M of the $360 device since last November.  AMZN is now buying websites that feature used books or articles about books to encourage people to download. 

Listening to music on an iPod is a natural act since one does not have to 'read' the music.  Watching a movie on an elec player is a natural act since one watches rather than reads the movie. But the book experience is rather different. I subscribe to Business Week becasue I would much rather have the paper copy to highlight and carry around. I can read it anywhere without a computer.  For me there is a river to cross in the elec book realm not present in movies or music. How about you?

I can certainly see the advantage of the elec book from the standpoint of storage. Once read, it would be much handier to have it electronically, particularly to search for a passage. And facing another move, it would certainly be easier to haul around 200 books, the capacity of a current Kindle, than to box them up, move their weight, and then find a place to put them.

THe next edition of Kindle will reportedly cost $300 and like all devices be thinner faster etc. It seems to me that to kick start this device, it needs  a  bonus promotion like

AMZN partners with a major textbook publisher, the publisher makes a semester of books available on the Kindle, the book price is discounted and for participating, Kindle is bargain priced at say $99, the whole bundle of books plus Kindle is less than the purchase of the printed books themselves, now that would be a raionale to do this for the student

or the reader Kindle, needs to incorporate an MP3 player at least, would Apple be interested in an iBook, now there is an idea, which would play music and allow you to read a book, maybe listen to music and read, a bad idea but no doubt a popular one

Your thoughts?

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4 responses to “Kindle Heats Up”

  1. Yovela Rico Avatar
    Yovela Rico

    This sounds like the “Chicken or the Egg” question. It seems that an improved economy might have to correlate with an increase in MBA seekers. After all, college isn’t cheap and doesn’t come free, most of the time. I may certainly think twice about forking over another $15,000 plus on an MBA if I still can’t pay the interest from my BBA. It would be helpful to know what the ages of these GMAT takers are. Perhaps they are baby boomers who are realizing that their retirement is dwindeling and getting that second wind to start the second career of their lifetime or college grads who are anticipating the lack of funds in their future all the while realizing that they too will have little to no retirement.

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  2. Dennis ElamDennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis ElamDennis Elam

    Apparently the pension and kindle post got crossed but anyway,
    I was at the Apple store learning about the programs on my new macbook. That instruction is free with the purchase of the computer, is that knowledge any less valuable than say learning various academic theories. How can an MBA cost what it does but learning iPhoto is free, there is a serious cost disparity here. What is the relative value of being say a certified office 2007 expert or a MacIntosh expert versus say having a masters in Education, and exactly what is it that a person with a masters degree knows that is not available in a few iPod downloads or perhaps half a dozen Dummies books, good questions all.

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  3. Tina C Avatar
    Tina C

    Our office is slowly going paperless, but there are times when paper reports or documents are much faster, easier and more accurate to read then elecronic. As for books, I personally spend all of my workday in front of a computer and then another 2 to 3 hours in the evening. It’s much more comfortable to put my feet up and relax with a paper book (even if it is a textbook), then to haul around the laptop!

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  4. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    I agree articularly say when I go thru a magazine on the weekend wiht a highlighter, I like the paper version, hmm, will there be an electronic highlighter, probably so, I am thinking the real use of electronic storage is AFTER one reads the book the first time and say is searching for a particular passage, then a the ability to do a global word search rather than where did I read that comes in really handy AND
    if you have to move the books, gee, then you really wish they were electronic

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