Amazon.com’s Kindle, The iPod for Books?
Originally uploaded by freddie_cox
I have been following Kindle, Amazon’s Wireless Reading Device, it is a portable media reader designed to read like ‘real’ paper. You connect wirelessly to Sprint’s EVDO network for free to download book from Amazon. Major releases are around $9.99. You can also browse a limited version of the Internet and suscribe to Blogs and RSS feeds.
It was just released today, and I have not been able to handle one. But the major drawbacks for me about the device are that you are tied to Amazon for book purchases–it is not an open network. As a publisher, I am not sure how easy or hard it is to ‘play’ with Amazon and publish content. I do really like that you can visit Wikipedia.org for free. And you can download the first chapters of books for free to ‘try before you buy.’ But the strongest feature of the iPod is that you can, for free, transfer all of the CDs that you already own to the iPod for portable listening. Books and the digital rights to them are separate, so you have to re-purchase books you already own for the Kindle.