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Kindle is Catching On

Scott Burns has a good article about the popularity of the Kindle, Amazon's e book reader. 

You can log on to amazon.com and see the Kindle.  The second version has a larger more readable screen. I suspect it needs to be able to connect to the internet ala the iPhone and Blackberry to REALLY catch on but it is happening.

Here t TAUMSA we are moving to hybrid courses. Homework Manager Plus from McGraw Hill features a much less expensive e book than the print version, Wiley and Cengage and Pearson are going in the same direction.  The pricing structure forces one to the e book.

Professors voges, Hewitt and I were in a meeting recently where a Kindle was passed around, so it is catching on. What's your thought on e books?  I suspect that a company needs to 'bundle' four textbooks with an e book to get students to really buy into it so to speak, but so far Amazon will not come down on the kindle price, it sells in thousands and we need millions, like laptops for the price to really drop.

Come to think of it, now that lap top prices are down, that tablet idea never realy caught on, perhaps the next iteration will be a tablet pc that is an electronic book, yeah that makes sense.

Okay sound off, what is your opinion on the  e book? Have you bought one, have you bought an e textbook, did you like it?

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5 responses to “Kindle is Catching On”

  1. Adam D Avatar
    Adam D

    I have never bought the e-book myself. One of my managers at work as Kindle and she goes to university of Phoenix online, so she downloads e books and has everything she needs on it.
    I would be a little skeptical to have all the information on there and it crashes like a computer can at any time.
    I dont know how easy it is to get everything back, that would make me hesitant on using it.

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  2. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    An excellent point Adam, somehow my apple computer has erased all the music I bought from apple, since it is iTUnes there is no back up available, or do I not understand how to do that? Hmmm come to think of it I did back up to the other hard drive but I suspect the music is gone there too, good point Adam

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  3. Rani Lerma Avatar
    Rani Lerma

    It’s a shame that eBooks is what our next generation is coming to. Yes, it’s very green. Trees would live longer?!? Could probably save millions or billions of dollars. But at what price. It’s bad enough adults spend the majority of our time in front of tvs and computers. Now instead of curling up with a good book and our imaginations we are fed our information through pixels. Staring at screens for prolonged periods of time may cause more need for glasses or contacts. And not to mention the countless distractions. How long before advertising starts on kindle and in becomes another 3G network instead of a virtual bookshelf.

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  4. Tina C Avatar
    Tina C

    I used a CD/Online textbook for a course over the summer. I am not sure if it is representative of what is out there but I was very disappointed. It did not offer a good search feature (detailed index) and there was not a glossary to refer to. I ended up using online search engines for trying to find definitions or better details than the “book” provided. I also happened to have a paper book that was used in a previous semester and frequently had to refer to it for the “missing” link. Again, it could have been due to the quality of the materials, but if I were relying upon it for CPA study reference, I would want better material.

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  5. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Tina
    Good point I will have to request one and give it a go
    Dennis

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