The Amazon Kindle has gotten a lot of hate from the tech community. I find that interesting juxtaposed with Amazon's claim that the Kindle is selling well.
Personally, it has always been my suspicion that the Kindle would do well, flaws and all.
Now I don't want to be seen as an apologist for Amazon. I spend a lot of time deconstructing user interfaces and thinking about UI issues, and from what it sounds like (I have never used one), Amazon has made some amazing design mistakes.
But that said, I totally get the idea of the Kindle. You read books on it. You can buy books easily. No computer required. And if you can figure out how keep your fingers from tripping over the giant "next page" button, it sounds like it does that core functionality pretty well.
In short, the Kindle makes sense to me if you do a lot of reading. Steve Jobs says people don't, and so there is no market for a book reader. Now Steve Jobs is, admittedly, way smarter than me, but how stupid. I mean come on. Barnes and Noble sells a lot of books. Amazon sells *tons* of books. And since no one has done a viable book reader, if one actually captured some kind of public imagination, there are plenty of Amazon book purchasers to sell one to. Even if books is a shrinking market (I have no idea what the growth rate is), the market potential is substantial because we are dealing with *really* large numbers.
Indeed the music market *shrank* last year, but music players are still selling pretty well. (Thought bubble: did Jobs just *admit* that the iPod's success is tied to the *theft* of music since overall neither books nor music is growing well, or at all? Nevermind.)
Anyway, the point is there are people that read. There are people who'd like to carry less around. There are people for whom location agnostic impulse buying is appealing. And the idea of not having to use a computer is awesome. Personally I hate syncing *anything* to my computer because something *always* goes wrong. I am sure this is even more true for civilians.
So why all the hate?
I think the geekerati, are bummed that the kindle is not... well, a computer. And I get this. But if you are a book reader, you probably don't care about free feeds, or web browsing or any of the other supposedly incredible omissions and errors. You just want a good way to read books. I know many of you may find this shocking, but there are lots of people who don't even know what a feed is!
In any case, what I strongly suspect is that the Kindle does scratch an underlying emotional itch for a significant audience. That itch is the desire to comfortably buy and read whatever you want, whenever you want, and wherever you want. If that desire resonates with you, I suspect the $399 is not out of line.
Update: Amazon just announced they are buying Audible. While obviously you don't need book reader to listen to audio books, Kindle is an audio book reader. It makes total sense to me that Amazon should be the gateway for immediate, comfortable and ubiquitous access to books. With Kindle, they will have a built-in computer-free system for selling books in any format, and will be approaching total vertical integration in the book market.
16 comments:
I have a Kindle, and it can also play audible books. I like it and I am a geek. It is a simple device designed for one purpose, and it does it well.
Isn't Kindle getting a lot of non-book-reading usage? And does anyone know what the sales projections actually were (I understand they were fairly low).
Kindle is kind of interesting but I don't think a ton of people are buying them or that owners are reading a lot of books on them.
Anonymous,
I had not heard any public announcements about projections or specific sales. And I dont think there are any public statistics on what the usage of the device is. If you have a buddy at amazon, do tell... lets break some news! :)
Hank, I think you, like many others, have fallen for one of the oldest marketing tricks. Have you noticed that although Amazon talks about how popular its Kindle is it hasn't actually released any numbers. So when Amazon talks about better than projected sales, we don't know what the projection was, nor do we know how many has been sold. But they certainly do imply that it was many.
You're not the first to fall for this old Wall Street trick. (To put things into perspective, the mighty Microsoft went pretty much a year before reaching the magic one million sold mark with the Zune, and that after heavy discounting - think bargain basin. And that was a mass market product! To be fair, though, books are mass market, just not single purpose book reading interfaces.)
Nerdbrain,
I certainly agree that they have not indicated specific sales. And we could debate in any case what the definition of success would be in this market. But my arguments really don't have much to do with that. I just happen to believe that the tech community's assessment of the product is based on invalid metrics for the target market.
I disagree that people don't like it because it is not a general purpose computer. I find the thing has a lousy user interface because of its DRM restrictions, its lack of pdf support, and I can't underline the text, highlight it, or take notes in the margin. It's a poor excuse for a book, only it's harder to read and navigate and uses batteries. Honestly, I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would buy one.
Steve Jobs says people don't read books? I wonder where Amazon got all that money from? Must have been selling stuff you could pick up for cheaper at WalMart. Seriously I am a total bookaholic. Anything that allows me to have a goodly chunk of my library in a size I can carry like a single book is great. I could do it on my laptop better IFF most books were available in digital form with or without DRM. Unfortunately they are not.
All that said, Amazon totally flubbed it. Six weeks minimum to get your order, for Amazon?! I have waited four weeks and still don't have an estimate for when I will receive a replacement power adapter. Browsing the store is S-L-O-W. Turning pages is slow. The cursor mouse sucks as does the keyboard. Having most edges active is a ergonomics disaster. No screen magnifier. Black and white sucks for anything other than text.
Splendid idea that I love but ridiculously bad execution.
I bought one for my wife for valentines day she got it a week early since she found it on the door step before I got home. I am a techie been that way since I was 10 year old I love gagets.
My wife couldn't care less about tech gagets. She only uses them as a end to a means. She loves blogging, listening music and reading.
She dose not want any of gagets I have they are to complex. It does not matter they can do 20 things. She only likes gagets that do the function she wants and are simple for her to use. It does not matter if the new toy I am showing her is newest thing out.
She is an advid reader that used to go to the library, the local used book store and borders. She stopped at all 3 on an almost weekly basis swapping out books etc.
Since she got the kindle she has not been back to library or either book store.
I played with the kindle when she first got it and found it lacking myself. I wanted it do so much more. My wife she loves it as it is.
She explained why she likes it so much with the following:
-IT JUST WORKS".
-No learning curve to using it.
-No steps to remember to transfer a book on to it.
-It lasts a long time on one charge.
-All the books she is looking for are there.
-It reads like a book.
On all her points she is 100% correct and nothing a techie like me can say is going matter. No matter how vaild my point is when I compare it other devices or try to make fit other purposes other than reading books. They just no apply to her.
it susks
it is horrible
it ruins your eyes
it freezes up and u have to get a new one
and u lose all your books
and it costs way more for an e book than a
normal one
Love my Kindle. Never leave home with out it. I have purchased 4 so far for friends, family and me. They all think the same thing.
Of all the blogs out there, few use correct spelling. Fewer use proper grammar. Fewer yet use coherent thought process. One or 2 actually explain things in a clear and concise manner.
None of them write about anything interesting....
except this guy.
Well done.
I don't have one myself, mostly because I don't like the notion of having a single source for its content. But it amazes me how some people don't get it - the Kindle is just for reading. I read lots of books, and I never "underline and take notes". And you don't lose your books if something goes wrong with the machine - Amazon knows what you've bought and lets you download it again - same thing if you buy more stuff than the Kindle can store locally.
I think the Kindle is a cool idea but it just costs WAY WAY too much. Think about it. The screen it uses should be the most expensive part of that device and those 6 inch monochrome screens purchased in bulk are dirt cheap. No more than $10-$20 max. add in the battery, the EVDO radio and casing and I would doubt if Amazon has more than $50-$75 tops in harware costs. Probably a lot less with their bulk buying power. The major cost in publishing books is in printing, binding and physical distribution. With electronic distribution all of that goes away but if you look at what Amazon is charging for new E-books they are within 80%-90% of the price of paper books. Those prices are just pure ripoff, considering the incredible savings they are getting via electronic distribution. No e-book older that 6 month-1 year should cost any more than $3-$5 MAX. So Amazon is charging a 300-400% premium on the books + a 300-400% premium on the harware. Thats just outrageous from a money standpoint, forget about all the usability and quality issues with the product. If the harware was between $100-$150 and if the books were around $10 for new releases I would consider it but $400 and $25 for the books? Thats just too much like sodomy for me to pay for it.
I agree that the prices are starting to suck. It used to be $4 for a paperback and $10 for a hardback. Now the prices always seem to be within $1 of the actual book. That would be fine, if the reader was free. But after paying $350 it seems like a rip-off.
I am also tired of getting books from Amazon that have four line breaks between paragraphs.
I think I may have made a mistake in buying the Kindle.
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