Popularity of the Kindle
Upon its debut, the Amazon Kindle cost $399. While some critics said the nearly $400 price tag was too high, the demand for the Kindle soon depleted Amazon's stock of the device. Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos offered an apology to customers. He claimed that the company sold out of its stock in less than six hours. Some Web journalists and bloggers suggested that Bezos' goal wasn't to offer a sincere apology -- it was to drive up more interest for the device [source: WebProNews].
Define "Kindle" One of the Kindle's many neat features is access to an online
dictionary. If you encounter an unfamiliar word in a text, you can use
the scroll wheel to select the line in question and look up the word's
meaning. |
When the Kindle returned, the price dropped to $359. Amazon didn't release sales numbers to the general public, leaving many to question exactly how popular the device was. Netcasts such as CNET's "Buzz Out Loud" would occasionally report on Kindles listeners had spotted "in the wild." It seemed like the Kindle belonged to the realm of folklore -- you didn't own one, but a friend of a friend did.
Amazon got a huge publicity boost in October 2008. That's when Oprah Winfrey, named the Kindle as her favorite gadget. Oprah devoted most of an episode of her show to promoting the Kindle. She invited Jeff Bezos to the show to talk about the device, explaining its features to her audience. Oprah also announced an electronic coupon for the device. Viewers could enter the code "OprahWinfrey" when purchasing the Kindle and receive a $50 discount.
Will the Kindle and other e-book readers completely revolutionize the publishing industry? Perhaps that will happen eventually. But so far, adoption rates appear to be on the low end. Part of that might be due to a reluctance to give up the visceral experience of reading a physical book. Another factor might be the price of electronic books -- despite the fact that there's no physical media involved, the books cost about the same amount as a hard copy.
Maybe you're a college student and you're hoping a Kindle will replace the need to lug around a pile of heavy textbooks. While a Kindle could hold an entire year's worth of college books (with room to spare), there are a couple of problems. The first problem is that if the book has color illustrations or graphs, the Kindle won't be able to display them accurately. The second problem is that the page numbers on the Kindle and the hard copy won't necessarily correlate, making it difficult to coordinate with professors.
Even so, the Kindle and other e-book readers seem to be gaining momentum. Rumors of a new version of the Kindle started to show up in the summer of 2008. This new version may have even more features and could address some of the criticisms reviewers have of the original device. Who knows? Perhaps the days of the mega bookstore are numbered.
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