So what’s your take on this? I want one, but I think it’s just for geek kudos rather than any real need for it. When I first got an iPod I could rip my existing CD’s to it and continue to listen to what I’d already bought. I’ve a stack of books which I’ve not read, or which I plan to re-read, I’d be interested in a way to rip these to the Kindle! Are you going to buy one? Will anyone in the UK buy one? Will UK newspapers and magazines take to the service?
Martin: Geek cred must be the reason. When you really start to think about the uses for a Kindle, it just doesn’t add up. Perhaps some students need a lot of textbooks with them but most of us read one book at a time. I keep the book I’m reading next to my bed and it rarely leaves the house so I don’t notice the weight. It looks like we’ll be paying around £200 for one once HM Customs have penalised us for not living in America. That’s a lot for something that is so limited in its uses. I do a fair bit of reading but I still spend less than £100 a year on books, for me it would never stack up as anything other than a gimmick.
The way I see it there are two ways to make the Kindle into the iPod of the book world:
1. Wait until the technology allows a colour e-ink screen, add multi touch and wifi and turn it into a gigantic iPhone (or mythical Apple tablet) competitor that happens to allows seamless purchasing of books from Amazon as a killer app.
2. Give them away! Or at least reduce it to a token price like £50 or less. Then hope to make the money back when you buy lots of books for it. I could see myself buying more books if I had a Kindle but I can’t see myself paying £200 for the current Kindle. If I had a cheap Kindle I could see myself taking it to work, subscribing to a newspaper and maybe a few magazines.
There is money to be made from these e-books and Jeff Bezos is a clever investor so I’m sure that we haven’t seen the ultimate form of the e-book market yet.
Thomas: You’re right, the price is just a bit too high at the moment, especially when you consider that the the international version is $30 more and needs extra stamps on the parcel to get to you. If you think back to the original iPod though, that was well over priced for the first couple of years and it only really gained mainstream acceptance once the price was dropped. However, Apple did sell one or two at the original inflated price and probably made a boat load of money from it, maybe that’s the path Amazon are trying to follow? The danger is that they keep the price too high and a competitor with deeper pockets undercuts them. Either way, I’ll certainly be keeping my eye on it.Lighting a
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