Posted by jeremyscheller in tech | 5 Comments
Starting a fire under kindle sales…
The Amazon Kindle© (which, I’ve previously bashed here before) is growing with potential in my mind. I’ve recently gotten into audio books. I wonder if I could get into the ebooks?
I like that it is a wifi device, so you can browse the net, look at blogs, and listen to audio through it.
So far, the problem with Amazon’s business model with the kindle is the lack of ability to get it in my hands.
Ebooks have been the promise of the future for a long time. Unlike the ipod though, I can’t take it for a test run. I can’t sit in an Apple Store or Target or Best Buy and give it a go…I’m not spending $400 on a device that I can’t get into my hands and take a test drive first.
So, as brilliant as Amazon has been at creating the online marketplace, they have missed the mark so far with this one. I just don’t think you can create a revolutionary hand-held device and not give people a way to get it in their hands…
Eventually, Apple will release a device that makes this look like a piece of plastic nonsense.
by the way, it’s still ugly. Seems like they should have hired IDEO to design this one…
And yet, they still can’t make them fast enough and by some accounts, ebook sales are exceeding publishers’ targets by orders of magnitude. It sounds like they’re doing just fine for now.
I think there’s something to the fact that Bezos won’t release sales numbers though. Some are saying they can’t keep them in stock because they way underproduced them …
Not sure what to think, either way, I’m a techie and I don’t see myself getting one unless I can get my hands on one…
There was one at my local Borders Bookstore to try. They might all be doing that.
The model available at Borders is a Sony Reader, which uses the same e-Ink screen as the Kindle, but is so much more aesthetically pleasing it’s not even funny. That was one of the things that pushed me over the threshold and buy the Kindle–the e-Ink screen is truly impressive. You should give it a try, Jer.