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Kindle – Reasons for Failure
Here are ten quick reasons the Kindle
- It’s big and ugly – it’s no sleek iPhone
- I wasn’t invited to the launch press and blogger meeting nor is the CN feed included in the device day 1.
- $399 to have the privilege of then buying books to read on the device? Can I get a Fail Fail?
- Isn’t reading about the enjoyment of reading?
- So now I have to carry an iPod and a cell phone and a Kindle?
- Notice the large laptop bag in the demo video? That’s because this guy has to carry his laptop, his cell phone, his iPod and now his kindle.
- Be a big hit with the ladies when you whip out your Kindle. "Hey Baby, I read!"
- It’s the Homer Car - hat tip to Dan Lewis
- Can it do images or video? If not, how does it deal with books that have images or blogs that have videos? Is it Lynx all over again?
- Who wants to pay for the Scoble feed? Only if it comes with the whiteboard sessions!
The one thing I do like about it is that it *may* change the pricing structure for content. I have said for a long time that there is no reason that blogs shouldn’t charge for their full RSS feeds. Is $2 a month fair for the massive, time-creation-consuming content provided on TechCrunch or Engadget? I think so. The issue of course is that as long as someone offers it free, everyone must. Think about the time and effort that goes into creating the content on a blog – same as a newspaper which you pay for and I would venture a guess that it’s more than a book which you pay many $$ for. Does a craftsman give away his woodworks for free? I think not.
Devices are becoming more and more multi-use, yet this feels like a step backward. And if it wasn’t created by Amazon, would anyone care?
This device might work for the very affluent crowd but it doesn’t have mainstream appeal. Compare it to the iPhone which everyone in every demographic wants. It could have been sexier.
Serious, why buy this product?
I’ve had it for 2 months now, here is my take on your complaints:
It’s big and ugly – it’s no sleek iPhone (Size and looks doesn’t bother me, I guess that’s a personal preference)
I wasn’t invited to the launch press and blogger meeting nor is the CN feed included in the device day 1. (I don’t get your point here)
$399 to have the privilege of then buying books to read on the device? (You will always pay a premium for bleeding edge technology)Can I get a Fail Fail?
Isn’t reading about the enjoyment of reading? (I love to read on my device so yes it doesn’t distract at all from this.)
So now I have to carry an iPod and a cell phone and a Kindle? (My IPOD stays in my car as my car is IPOD enabled, I have a blackberry, kindle, keys, and wallet on my wherever I go.)
Notice the large laptop bag in the demo video? That’s because this guy has to carry his laptop, his cell phone, his iPod and now his kindle. (Yep)
Be a big hit with the ladies when you whip out your Kindle. “Hey Baby, I read!” (Not
It’s the Homer Car – hat tip to Dan Lewis
Can it do images or video? If not, how does it deal with books that have images or blogs that have videos? Is it Lynx all over again? (If the book has pictures, it displays the pictures, just not in color. No video.)
Who wants to pay for the Scoble feed? Only if it comes with the whiteboard sessions!
I don’t think the reviewer is at all the right person who should be eligible to make comments on a book reader. Well, if you are one of those next gen kids who like to flaunt off their gadgets just to win the attention of “ladies” as you said, well the kindle is not for you.
It is for a far more elite group of people who have a passion for readign a lot and because of intermittent long distance travels find it uncomfortable to find the books of his choice at the right time. Once I was on the road flying between New York to SFO with 4 breaks in different cities. I had this sudden desire of reading “Foucault’s Pendulum” and guess what I could not find it anywhere ready to go. I guess Kindle would have been my instant salvation. A click and I would have downloaded it for 10 bucks.
Reading books on iPhone???? Wow!!! I have a perfect 6/6 vision and would not like any additional glasses to enhance my personality.
Agreed it is overly priced but so is any new technology. I hope the price goes down soon with rising demand. As it seems, everyone is dying to get their hands on one and Amazon is unable to cope up with the pressure.
Once again, if you think fancy gadgets can win you “ladies”, you are mistaken. It might win you a cheaptrick for a week or two, but educated people know and appreciate real ladies with wit and intelligence who can come at par with them during conversation. It’s just perception. When you “gadget” kids are thinking about temporary pleasure we are thinking about a more mature solution.
Why the prediction is off-base:
1. It’s big and ugly – it’s no sleek iPhone- IT’S NOT MEANT TO BE. COMPARING A PHONE WITH A BOOK READER?????? UGLY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. THE IPHONE DOESN;T DO EVERYTHING EITHER-DESPITE IT’S LOOKS.
2. I wasn’t invited to the launch press and blogger meeting nor is the CN feed included in the device day 1. – YES, THAT IS CAUSE FOR IT TO FAIL-YEAH RIGHT.
3. $399 to have the privilege of then buying books to read on the device? – OOH MAYBE WE SHOULD PAY OVER $750 FOR A PC FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF SURFING THE INTERNET??????
4. Isn’t reading about the enjoyment of reading?- YES, AND YOU STILL ARE READING.
5. So now I have to carry an iPod and a cell phone and a Kindle? -OR YOU CAN CARRY YOUR IPOD, YOUR CELL PHONE, ALL YOUR BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES.
6. Notice the large laptop bag in the demo video? That’s because this guy has to carry his laptop, his cell phone, his iPod and now his kindle. – OR HIS BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES……OH YEAH, ALREADY I USED THIS REASON, BUT THE POINT IS THE SAME.
7. Be a big hit with the ladies when you whip out your Kindle. “Hey Baby, I read!” – WOW, IF YOU NEED THIS TO BE A BIG HIT WITH THE LADIES….WELL, I DON’T EVEN NEED TO COMMENT ON THIS ONE.
8. It’s the Homer Car – hat tip to Dan Lewis- YET AGAIN, ANOTHER LOGICAL REASON FOR FAILURE…?????
9. Can it do images or video? If not, how does it deal with books that have images or blogs that have videos? Is it Lynx all over again? – DON’T KNOW…..HAVEN’T BOUGHT MINE YET.
10. Who wants to pay for the Scoble feed? Only if it comes with the whiteboard sessions!- IF PEOPLE WILL PAY HIGH $$$$$ FOR UNLIMITED DATA FEEDS ON THEIR SMARTPHONES, THEN THEY WILL PAY THE MINIMAL CHARGE FOR THIS AS WELL.
i wouldn’t buy because the name sounds stupid. its ugly, and DRMs ( i cant let a friend borrow the books i OWN and using)
Misses the point. Yes, you can get the blog “free” as long as you’re at home connected to your paid DSL line (not free), or perhaps connected to the internet at a coffeeshop with free wifi… but what about elsewhere? What you’re paying for then, is not so much the blog as it is for the EVDO connectivity needed to access it from practically anywhere, at any time.
I’m also reminded of a comment CmdrTaco of Slashdot made back in 2001, “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.” He was, of course, referring to Apple’s new 5GB iPod.
And we all know how that turned out, don’t we? I think we might do well not to make too many early predictions of doom and gloom. Nor focus too hard on what Amazon got wrong. Because Amazon managed, as did Apple, to get an amazing number of things right.
See: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
Does anyone here remember the Rocket e-Book? About eight years ago, a very similar device, with a very similar set of features, and hyped in almost exactly the same terms. Look up the press releases. Try substituting the product names for each other.
It fell victim to a very simple vicious circle:
The whole purpose of the Internet is to give text away for free. People value books enough to spend on them because they are physical articles. But why would they value one kind of ephemeral file over another?
Are you seriously comparing the Rocket to the Kindle? No comparison whatsoever. (except that they were both designed to read from). Kindle uses pretty cutting edge technology (EVDO, e-ink, SD storage, high capacity, lightweight battery) that either did not exist or was in its infancy eight years ago.
And your argument that people don’t buy or value ephemeral files, only physical articles will probably come as a big shock to Steve Jobs. There goes the whole iTunes thing! Darn!
You’re projecting your own discomfort with a new technology and distribution model onto everyone else. I will say it again (and again) – Jeff Bezos is a very smart man. He’s invested three years and lot of intellectual capital developing Kindle. I’m much more inclined to think he knows what he’s doing than you seem to be.
–
Marc Orchant
blognation USA
Personally, I use my iPod Touch for reading books and stories, my site is http://www.textonphone.com.
I’ve got an hour on the subway each day, it caches the pages so I can read offline, and it’s got a nice big screen. And it looks somewhat more elegant than an eBook reader.
Not too many rich people buy ugly ugly devices. The only person that the design of this product suits in my grandfather, and he loves books. He would never carry a machine around to read from.
Allen, you missed a point. You have to pay to put your own documents on it. Thats right you have to email your device the document and then charged for converting it.
Wow – that’s point 11! – How much does that cost?
It doesn’t always cost. The Kindle reads .txt, .mobi, .prc, .mp3, .aa, and its own proprietary format. It also comes with a USB cable which will let you transfer any of those filetypes to the Kindle directly from your computer with no cost.
If you want to convert a document to the Kindle’s proprietary format (.azw), from Word .doc for example, you can email it to the device and it goes through a conversion gateway, costing you $0.10.
Amazon is also pushing a self-publishing option, where anyone can convert a doc online, set a price for it, and sell it through Amazon — with Amazon taking a cut. Not sure if they allow a price of FREE, but if they did, you could convert the docs and get them to your device that way for no charge.
It accepts a bunch of formats through the gateway, but — here’s my number 11 — PDF is not one of the supported formats.
You’re misinformed.
It costs ten cents per file to email to the Kindle, but you can transfer them for free via USB or with an SD card.
I’m impressed at how many people are completely discounting this thing the day after it goes live.
Interesting post with valid points except for your claim that bloggers should be able to charge for their content much the way newspapers do. Except the NY Times and others no longer do because ad rates are higher for free content. It will be interesting to see who is willing to pay $13 to get free NY Times content on the Kindling.
10 cents per document or picture.
yep, might not be much but still should be free. basically they have this thing so locked down by drm its going to kill it.
If you can carry a book you can carry a kindle. If you never carry books then you might never carry a kindle. But a kindle, physically no more of a burden than a book.
Interestingly, I think people who actually *read a lot of books* are going to love this. That does not include most of the tech community that is talking about this and envisioning only convergence.
Good point Hank that if you are carrying a book, a kindle is the same – but I still think there is a difference in feeling btw reading a book that you hold and reading it on a computer.
Hi Allen.
I think you’re way off base with your predictions (although I do agree it was an egregious oversight that neither you nor I was invited to the launch event).
I’m betting on Mr. Bezos on this one – with my checkbook. My Kindle arrives today. I had a brief chance to use the device at Gnomedex this Fall and I knew I wanted one immediately. As a card-carrying member of the “buys a lot of books” and “travels all the time” clubs, Kindle is a perfect solution for me.
So tell you what? I’ll put up a delectable sampler of the many fine New Mexico chile products (salsa, green chile sauce and red chile enchilada sauce) against whatever you care to ante up as a match and let’s have friendly wager.
You can counter on the terms but I propose we wait six months and see what sort of sales figures and adoption rates Amazon shares. We’ll revisit your dire predictions and my unbridled optimism and see if we can decide in gentlemanly fashion whether Kindle is a success or a failure.
Are you up for that?
$.10 per picture/document ?
I love the idea that it would cost $0.10 to send a message to me.
I mean, not exactly me, but rather “me” as in “my own little Kindle that is always with ‘me’”.
Of course, I’d rather have the $0.10 go in my pocket instead of Amazon’s one.
Maybe we can share ? Are you listening Amazon ?
Slightly more serious : Doesn’t it make sense to have a portable digital picture frame that is spam protected thanks to a small fee that senders pay ? Can Kindle do that ?
I wonder how many people said similar things about ipods in their first incarnation – why buy another gadget, mistrust of digital goods instead of physical, etc.
I read 1-2 books/week and what I like most about the idea of the kindle is carrying 1 “thing” when I’m traveling. If I take off for a week, I bring 2-3 books with me, so the kindle is a pretty attractive alternative for me. That being said, I’m going to wait a bit before I buy one. I’m hoping they’ll iterate on the size, bring the price down and continue to attract publishers to this format.
The point of e-ink is that it doesn’t feel like you are reading from a computer. It is high enough resolution to feel more like reading newsprint. I tried a device like this awhile back and was very impressed.