Amazon Kindle, Part 3
Monday, July 6, 2009 at 8:16 PM OK, so you know I’m a big fan of the Kindle 2 (but not Kindle 1). It’s a fantastic tool for reading text, and for extending the book industry in new and exciting ways. As I’ve noted, even for voracious readers like me, the Kindle really does make reading fun and exciting.
Since I first got my Kindle 2, Amazon has released the Kindle DX, a larger and heavier version designed to better serve textbook and newspaper readers. Many newspaper traditionalists saw the DX as a savior, and that consumers would suddenly drop what they were doing and open digital subscriptions to
their local newspapers. Um, right.
Certainly there’s a future for “newspapers” online, but it’s silly to think anything more than a minority will flock to e-readers to consume what are essentially replica newspapers. That propensity to “shovel” print content online is in part what’s contributed to newspapers’ inability to gain traction online over the years. Some newspaper execs have even hatched plans to buy Kindles and give them to subscribers for free in exchange for their loyalty. But those concepts ignore the usability question that has driven people away in the first place: You can’t win over readers long-term by shoveling replica-print content online and expect them to flock to it.
