Amazon Tries to Kindle a Passion for E-books

[alanajoli]

For those of you who haven't yet heard, Amazon has just launched its new e-book reader, Kindle. (Hence the pun in my subject line. I couldn't help myself.) The powers of Amazon and Sprint unite, giving e-book readers wireless access to buy books from amazon from pretty much anywhere. The wireless service has no additional cost. The catch is that it's an Amazon only service: Kindle won't work with other e-books, from everything I've read. It's a strategy that works for Apple--why not Amazon?

Publishers Weekly covered the release today online, and one of their bloggers posted about Kindle's aesthetics. Amazon itself has a very nifty video that you can watch demonstrating the little device's capabilities. It looks pretty impressive. (It also offers full access to wikipedia, presumably for free.) Interesting stuff in the electronic world--and it'll be exciting to see if amazon manages to open the door to e-books for a general audience that hasn't been opened by any of the other readers.

Comments

[stormywriting.livejournal.com]

I don't read ebooks, but this thrilled me just b/c it's totally awesome- assuming it works as claimed, anyhow.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining how much better my packing would be for the study abroad trips I've had the chance to chaperone for if I only had to pack one e-book reader instead of two myth books, three astronomy books, tour books, etc... On the Amazon page it looks *very* cool. Especially the "like a book page rather than a monitor" feel.

[stormywriting.livejournal.com]

The great curse of book lovers, that. I look forward to the day when I can travel without a second suitcase of books, or don't have to ship a crateful of new books home on vacation. Of course nothing can quite replace the heft of a new bag of books, or washing the ink smudges off whatever fingers you use to hold the inside of a book after reading a good ol' cheap paperback in one sitting.

I wonder if books will ever be sold with a code that can be redeemed to get the same thing as an ebook? Convenient as the reader would be, I'd hate to have to buy both, and there's something about a real, concrete book that just can't be captured on a screen.