Yeah... I don't get it

[innocent_lex]

Amazon have just launched an ebook reader that has apparently been 3 years in the making (see BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7101392.stm). And I... don't get it. They apparently think it's the bee's knees, but it's just a proprietary, excessively large, functionally-limited, black and white reader that can only do one thing - let you (and only you) read books. Oh, and it's fugly and 400 dollars (yes, that's US) before you even start buying books. There really must be something I'm missing here. I read books, fic, PDFs, whatever format on my Palm, and also use that device to listen to music, watch video, store all my contacts, have my shopping lists, run spreadsheets, carry around photos, write, etc, etc, etc.

Someone must know what Amazon's intention was. Any ideas?

Comments

[rynogeny.livejournal.com]

For some reason, the world at large (including some geeks, like the editors at PC Magazine) continue to insist that ebooks are still out there on the horizon, something not yet come to pass in this digital world. I regularly see articles discussing what it would take to have ebooks take off the way digital music did with the arrival of the mp3 player. (Um, it's probably not going to, because not as many people read as listen to music. It's a sad fact of life.)

A lot of people complain about not liking to read books on PDA's, and some (who should know better, like the aformentioned PC Magazine editor) appear to be in complete ignorance about the fact that thousands of brand new, just published sure-to-be-bestsellers are in fact available in electronic format (and are being purchased and read.)

It's weird to me. I've never seen such mass denial of something that's already in existence. But all I can attribute it to is that because a certain percentage of the population haven't found a way of reading ebooks that they like, the media insists that no one has.

To answer your question, then, I think this is Amazon's attempt to create the ebook reader equivalent of the ipod. They're now attempting to market something that addresses the complaints they're aware of (size and type of screen being paramount) while continuing to deny that the those who are quite happy with what's available are out there.

This too, will bomb of course, because no one in their right mind will spend that much money for it. And then the media will have more 'evidence' that there's no market for ebooks.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

The mass denial thing? That's a really good point. It's just so... odd. It's equivalent to people denying the existence of MP3 players before the iPod started allowing people to load MP3s. It's just barking mad. And yes, I can see now they're going for the equivalent of the iPod market, but with this? No chance. It's the technological equivalent of a 1980s doorstop.

[rynogeny.livejournal.com]

I've been looking at more of the reviews/comments on this, and think they're marketing it to non-technically minded people, in that you don't have to have a computer to load the books. Plus the convenience of downloading new material anywhere there's a wifi network, or, in the US, via Sprint's high speed network.

And yeah, I can sort of see those as advantages. But at $400 a pop? Not likely.