I was traveling and missed the big Kindle announcement from Amazon, but my initial reaction was: They’re gouging huge holes in South Lake Union for this? I mean, if Amazon really is the “secret” tenant holding the city hostage over further hi-rise development in Allentown, then it should hardly be mired in the vision of yesteryear, foisting on its weary clientele yet another iteration of 1990s technology no one has ever indicated they wanted or would actually use. As anyone who reads books knows, it’s virtually impossible to improve on a book. Think of all the time, for example, you don’t waste booting up. To be fair, I haven’t actually seen a Kindle (and at $399 won’t be putting one on my Wish List). But if Amazon is going to further desecrate one of Seattle’s remaining shapeable people zones, it had better be talking technology that deposits new books directly into my brain via ubiquitous wireless transmission, so I don’t even have to read. (Didn’t you love the New York Times headline, “Amazon Reading Device Doesn’t Need Computer” — to which should have been appended, “Neither Does Moby Dick.”) Maybe Jeff Bezos, who has always reminded me of what a grown-up Harry Potter, having lost his hair and gained contacts (or Lasik), might look like, should get together with one of Puget Sound’s other fun-loving CEOs, Craig McCaw, and hash this out.
The problem with eBooks isn’t technology. “Paperless ink” could read just as well as print (it doesn’t), and a hand-held device could simulate pages so well you’d find yourself automatically reaching for the pen to underline (it’s been done, but you know, the experience just isn’t the same with pixels as really going to town on dead trees). The problem is that people aren’t reading books, and the future leaders of our doomed society don’t seem inclined to reverse the trend. I found morbid irony in Kindle being announced with great fanfare on the same day as results of a depressingly “alarming” National Endowment for the Arts study showing “the percentage of adults who are proficient in reading prose has fallen at the same time that the proportion of people who read regularly for pleasure has declined.” So Jeff, the booming market for Kindle is what, exactly?
That kind of impertinence got me put on Amazon’s “Do Not Call” list almost from the get-go back in the ’90s, although no reporter I know ever had much luck with its Public Irritations department. As The Times’ Brier Dudley pointed out, his paper wasn’t even invited to Kindle’s big New York hoo-hah. It may have been because Brier beat up on Amazon’s MP3 eulas in a recent column. Or maybe because hometown papers don’t have the headcount and cachet of The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. My pet theory is that Amazon wants to drive The Seattle Times out of its South Lake Union headquarters so it can…
Of course, none of the press’ leading lights present at the rollout apparently had the presence of mind to ask Bezos about the decline-in-reading study. It might’ve shown disrespect.
OK, I’ll give the Amazin crew a benefit of the doubt here. What Kindle is has nothing to do with what it’s meant to be. It’s simply placeholder, spaghetti-on-the-wall technology for Amazon to be a player as reading technology evolves. Note Newsweek’s reference to an iPod of reading. eBooks are the focus simply because to show off anything else would’ve gotten Bezos laughed off the stage. For now, the market is people who have to carry around a lot of books — academics, students, avid readers — and may find convenience in having them on a device, whatever its drawbacks. That isn’t a very big market, and from the study is apparently a dwindling one, but it’ll do while literature and books figure out where they stand in the still-chaotic business model of the Web. Google has an obvious stake in this, so does Apple (the iPod Touch and iPhone make pretty good book readers, too), as does the publishing industry (which includes newspapers, don’t forget, even ones that aren’t invited to the rollout). The more deep-pocketed players, the better the opportunity for someone coming up with the true iPod of reading.
P.S. Did I miss it, or has the mystery tenant for SoLa been announced? It was supposed to happen “within days” in early October…
P.P.S.For an alternative viewpoint, Danny Westneat feels Kindle’s burn.
Thank you, Paul, for picking up on what I’ve been lobbying for as an appropriate name for
VulcanvilleCascadeSouth Lake Union. I’m astonished that it hasn’t been universally dubbed Allentown.What better salve for Paul A’s overinflated ego, even if it does remind us of our collapsing industrial infrastructure? Come to think of it, though, maybe Paul Allen sees that sort of thing in the same way his former company does: It’s not a bug … it’s a feature
My biggest concern is that it sounds like the Kindling plays only with Amazon and not with any other devices/technologies. In that sense, it is very 1990s. I’d rather have something disconnected that I can synch with my PC and everything else.
Other than that, I think you’re too harsh on the idea of electronic books. I wouldn’t mind having something like this for travel, to avoid lugging books around (travel guides, fun reading, work, plus redundancy in case of duds).
Trees should feel little relief, but I think it’s an overdue step forward. It would be nice to order books and not have to think about them having to travel on separate trucks from all over the country/world to get to you.
I’m with YellowPup on this; the biggest drawbacks is the Kindle’s lack of support for any open format and especially PDF. I understand there are methods of moving PDFs and other documents to the Kindle without paying, but it sounds cumbersome and intended to be off-putting.
However, the Kindle has unlimited EVDO support, which is awesome. That is a big step forward in personal devices; always on, no-fee Internet access. This is a very cool development, but is most likely the cause of the high prices for both the hardware and the content.
“The problem is that people aren’t reading books”
The silver lining in this is they don’t know a fucking thing about investing, either, which makes it easier for me to play the zero-sum game on Wall Street. And, yes kiddies, stock investing is only 20% investing and the other 80% consists of trying to lift money from people stupider than you. Which is easier than you imagine. And it sure beats working for a living, especially given how the tax incentives work in this country. I don’t see why anyone should work! I don’t work! I just sit on my fat bunny ass while stupid Republican “investors” give me their money!
Why should someone pay $399 for a gadget that allows them to download books for $9.99 each, when you can go to the public library and check them out for free? Well, not exactly free, but you have to pay library taxes whether you use the library or not.
Another advantage of reading dead tree books is that it’s harder for the FBI to figure out what you’re reading. Naturally, I check out all sorts of weird shit to throw them off the trail. I don’t want them to figure out my investing strategy, so I check out books on military weapons and tactics, nuclear weaponry, etc., to throw them off. If they think I’m a terrorist, it’ll never occur to ’em that what I’m really doing is lifting easy money from stupid Republican “investors.”
If Bezos was so smart, he’d figure out a way to increase newspaper circulation, then buy up all the failing newspapers, including Frank’s. If Frank was staring capital gains taxes in the face, maybe he’d worry less about inheritance taxes. After all, HE won’t ever pay any inheritance tax. By the time the inheritance tax kicks in, he won’t have any worries. No circulation worries, no union worries, no P-I worries, no tax worries …
I suppose I’d rather have Bezos own all the newspapers than have Murdoch own all the newspapers, although there probably isn’t a hell of a lot to choose between them.
At $9.99 per download, Bezos ought to give you $399 to take the damn thing.
@1 Not to worry, Allen has already gone through half his pile, and will soon go through the other half, and then he will go away and life can get back to normal in this town.
Paul Allen has lost more money in business than most of the world’s richest people have made in business.
And there’s no telling how much he’s shelled out to settle sexual harrassment suits, although we do know that number is not zero.
Bashing Paul Allen isn’t as much fun as bashing Republicans, but it’ll do on an otherwise slow day.
Another advantage of dead tree books is they don’t go dark when the batteries die.
Man this gizmo looks like clunky technology compared to a book.
I heard a rumor that Gutenberg experimented with this but decided he liked moveable type better.
“The Roger Rabbit Sedentary Investor’s Guide.” There’s a book I’d download for $9.99, given the guaranteed return on investment…
@16 Do the opposite of what the herd is doing. That’ll be $9.99, please.
I don’t think it as bad an idea as you do Paul, but I do agree the market is probably fairly limited. I do see several areas where it could be very useful. If they could get college textbooks with their ridiculous prices onto Kindle it would be a huge service. All sorts of manuals for technicians, pilots and many others would probably sell well. Finally, as one who is getting a little older, the ability to convert the type font into a larger size may be something I’ll be looking for in a few years. Some books are available in large print but not all that many and certainly not newspapers on a daily basis.
It still looks pretty awkward to read in bed or on the hopper.
Four Hundred Dollars!?!?!
I know the dollar has devalued, but that it is a joke. You can almost buy a full blown laptop for that, and plenty of subnotebooks are coming down the tube at that price point or less.
Like everything else, these ereading devices are going nowhere until the porn industry adopts the format.
What am I supposed to do with it when my airplane is taking off or landing and all electronics must be turned off? Give up paper books? Hell no.
@20 Hell, for 400 bucks, you can almost buy 1/2 sack of groceries.