My thoughts on the Kindle from Amazon and the future of e-printing

When I first heard about the Kindle from Amazon I thought it was just going to be another failed attempt at creating an e-book. It is my belief that Sony’s e-book will fall on its expensive face soon, however after reading about the Kindle, I think it has a chance. It is bigish, but has decent memory, it doesn’t flicker so it probably won’t make reads sick, and it uses cell networks instead of WiFi to download content. (That is a brilliant touch!)

The real test will be if Amazon can convince the FAA, the various foreign aviation regulatory bodies and the airlines to allow the Kindle to be put in a “plane mode” left on during taxi and takeoff. Hardcore travelers are the proving ground and spring board for technologies like this, and they will want to read uninterrupted during the often hours long taxi process. If they still have to drag out a book when they are number 20 for takeoff, the Kindle loses some utility.

As with Apple’s iPhone, once they have to sell the Kindle to regular people, and “not me first”, gadget lovers, to help boast sales it should come with year subscriptions to daily content (think a local and national newspaper) and cost about hundred bucks less. (I still won’t be getting one at $299.)

If it was $199 I’d buy one just so I could read the occasional book and Wikipedia. I noticed it has a SD memory port and headphone jack, when it replaces my iPod by letting me listen to music and book tapes, while reading digital content I’d consider it at $299.

I don’t think e-books will take off until the digital ink is full color, and has the resolution needed for magazines. E-books will be main stream when content providers subsidize the cost with a multi-year contract, and allow you print coupons and digitally “cutout” and print articles. To replace newspapers they will have to have a digital coupon card that has a smart chip to safe the coupon data since ads and coupon revenue support the media companies and raise subscription rates. Also, it will need to allow people to use digital library books and buy and sell used e-books.