ON THE THRILL OF THE READ

BREAKING THROUGH

After several days with the Amazon Kindle, I'm ready to call it a "Thriller" product.  A lot of nits have been picked by a lot of folks on how this could be so much better.

But for any lover of reading, there are three things that transcend the specific attributes of the device and service:

1.  Amazon Whispernet:  The embedding of broadband wireless has a backbone of the service makes the Kindle experiment in portable commerce really unique compared to anything we've experienced online before.  It's a model that'll likely be emulated by other portable products by a range of third-parties, much in the way the iPhone made multi-touch interfaces a whole new way to do phones and music on the go.

In fact, after browsing, researching and buying dozens of books off the Kindle, and then using the iPhone to buy a music track or two off it's Wifi iTunes store, I couldn't help thinking how a Whispernet type of data network would make a future iPhone/iPod so much more useful.

2.  The e-Ink screen: Despite the fact that the screen is not back-lit and doesn't do color, it really nails what it does try to do, which is try and duplicate the experience of reading on paper.  The text is crisp and eminently readable for hours.  And yes, it'd be nice if it didn't flicker to black at the turn of every page, as the page reset itself to the new page to follow.  But it's really amazing how attached one can get to reading off the Kindle. 

3.  The selection:  This is the part of the Kindle experience that makes me the most optimistic that my investment in a couple of Kindles (one for my wife) and dozens of books is going to be worth it in the long=run.

Given that this is an Amazon service, there are over 80,000 titles to choose from vs. 20,000 or so from competing services like the Sony Reader.  And one can imagine how the Kindle library can grow pretty quickly from here.

Most of all, one of the coolest parts of the Kindle experience is having a paperback sized gizmo, that lasts for days without a charge, with a growing collection of all the stuff you like to read.

And it's a very different online experience than laptops, PDAs, smartphones, MP3 and video players.

There a lot of ways the Kindle can be improved, and in future posts, I'll add my two-cents on them.

But for now, this is one of the coolest things from Amazon to date.

Recommended for any fan of books.

Comments

[Marc Orchant]

Nice summary Michael - I agree with all of your points and will only add that Whispernet's impact transcends just the purchasing experience. I've noticed since receiving my Kindle on Tuesday that I am using the always-on connection to follow links in the content I've subscribed to like The Onion, Slate, The Nation, and Huffington Post (all of which, BTW, I'm happy to pay the nominal subscription charges for).

Yes, I can do the same thing on my iPhone or laptop but neither provides the book-like reading experience or all-day power that Kindle does.

I can see that Kindle will have a profound and lasting impact on how I read from now on.

[howard Lindzon]

good to hear. because i have a bunch as gifts on order for the kids and family memebers

[Sach]

Thanks for the updates. I'm now sold and will be ordering a few for holiday gifts (incl. my wife).