Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Kindling Unease


Anything that lasts 500 years is not easily improved upon. Books are so good you can’t out-book the book.
Those would be wise words coming from anyone, but how much more powerful coming from one of the key players in the e-book revolution, Jeff Bezos?

Despite a rapid increase in sales of ebooks, and in particular Amazon's Kindle, Bezos explains, at the biggest US bookfair BookExpo America, why he doesn't think the paper book is going away any time soon. In fact, he says that consumers who have bought Kindle are purchasing more physical books than before - a very interesting claim.

Edward Wyatt's article in The New York Times also shows that the Kindle has competitors and booksellers rattled - not least because Amazon is selling ebooks for less than it pays publishers - a ruse that will surely lure consumers to choose the Kindle over other devices. Why you might end up with a total monopoly!

World domination of the book trade isn't all Bezos has set his cap at :

... he waxed enthusiastic about how his “lottery ticket” wealth from the success of Amazon is allowing him to invest in a project to provide commercial travel to suborbital space.
Passengers taking a Kindle along to provide a little in-flight reading, of course.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Sharon,

I've spent countless hours (and forego-ed my lunch hour eysterday doing just this, nerd that I am) tracking the reviews of Kindle and they are getting more and more positive. I am one of those who can't wait to get hold of one - as it will solve the problem of which books to bring to work, on holidays, etc. If I can stuff textbooks in it, that would be another blessing as well. No, it won't replace "real" books but as an additional tool for reading (and with the capbaility to annotate and bookmark without messing up the pages!), the Kindle is definitely on my want list. Eliza.

bibliobibuli said...

mine too. or is it the sony reader i want? or one of the others? or one not yet invented?

actually i think the answer is, whichever comes first

Leon Wing said...

meantime I'm reading short stories on my Nokia

Chet said...

And I'm reading full-length novels on my Palm TX.

I've been thinking if I were to "upgrade" to a dedicated ebook reader, it must be a device that will read my ebook collection. I've been buying ebooks since 2000, and using the same ereading software since day 1, and I don't think I have the energy to start collecting from scratch or converting my collection from one format to another.