Amazon Kindle: “It Completely Changed the way I read”

A friend of mine goaded me into buying a Kindle—Amazon’s electronic book reader. “You are supposed to be some kind of high-tech visionary. Electronic books are the future! How can you not own a Kindle? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Thus chastened, I raced to my Amazon account and 1-clicked—$359. Ouch. I wonder how long till it’s below $100.

I have to say, I was surprised by how good it is. I’d read reviews describing it as “clunky and ugly”, but I found it to be light, easy to use, and—most important—the electronic ink is very easy to read, even in bright sunlight. That was critical during my beach vacation earlier this summer. Unlike LCD, it’s not backlit and has no funny polarizing effects with sunglasses; it feels just like ink on paper.

Another friend told me, “My Kindle completely changed the way I read.” That surprised me, so I asked him to explain. He said he used to read magazines in bed, because they are light and easy to hold, but books, especially hardcover books, are heavier and a bit awkward. The Kindle converted him from magazines (candy), to books (meat), and he’s happier for it.

One of the knocks on e-books is that people like the feel of a real book with real pages to turn. People worry that an electronic gadget will get in the way of reading. Perhaps that’s why I hadn’t bought an e-book. I can report that after the first couple books, the Kindle “disappeared”—it vanished from my conscious awareness. For people who like flashy gadgets, that may be a disadvantage, but as an avid reader, I thought that’s how it should be. Interestingly, the Kindle doesn’t have the same addictive attraction for me as a smart phone or a web browser. Maybe because the book just sits there, waiting for me to turn the page—no new-message alerts or latest news flashes.

Part of what appeals to me is the Kindle’s appliance nature. The Kindle sucks if you think of it as a small computer, PDA, or web browser: the keyboard is clunky, the display updates oddly, and browsing speed is slow. But for reading a book, the Kindle is absolutely perfect. An appliance does just one thing, and it does it well.

What’s most innovative about the Kindle is not the device itself, but the way it integrates so cleanly with the cellular network and with my Amazon account. Even though it downloads books using cell-phone technology, Amazon pays the bandwidth cost—pennies per book—directly to the phone company, so you don’t have to deal with yet another cell phone account. There was no setup at all: it said “Dave’s Kindle” as soon as I turned it on. (It knew because I had ordered it with my Amazon account.) You can order books from the Kindle itself, via a somewhat clunky web-like interface, or you can use your regular Amazon account. If you buy the “Kindle edition”, listed right next to “hardcopy”, “paperback”, and “audiobook”, it downloads automatically. And Amazon remembers what you’ve already purchased, so no backup is necessary.

This kind of tight integration can radically change the rules of an industry. It’s what Gary Hamel calls “strategic innovation” in his book The Future of Management. He contrasts it with “product innovation”. Folks who have tried the Sony Reader tell me that it’s absolutely beautiful—much sexier than the Kindle—but to download books you have to cable it up to your PC and go to Sony’s special web page. Great product innovation, not great strategic innovation. It’s like the difference between a generic MP3 player and how Apple has integrated the iPod with the iTunes store.

My favorite feature is that there is an email address where I can send JPEGs or Word documents to my Kindle. Whatever I send to dave_hitz@kindle.com shows up on the Kindle in seconds. The book I just finished writing won’t be published until January, but I sent the manuscript to my Kindle, and it made me feel all official and important seeing it there with the other “real” books!

Comments

[Alea Fairchild]

Dave:

I see you like book reviews as much as I do, as you can see on our site.

Do you think Sony and Amazon are creating competing or complimentary standards? (Product vs process innovation) I know I am not going to lose my PC, what happens if your Kindle is broken or stolen (heaven forbid)? Is there a warranty for this?

- Alea

[Sameer G]

Are you sure you want to put that email address out there ? Isn't that opening up your kindle to spam ?

[Dave replies: The kindle only accepts e-mail from addresses that you specifically register, so spam isn't an issue.]

[Harry McIntosh]

I'm with you on the Kindle--it's a great way to read.

Reading isn't about the way the book feels in your hand; it's about the way the words feel in your mind.

[Ronya Robinson]

The Kindle also changed the way I read -- I can now read big heavy books in bed with ease. I'm so favorably impressed with the Kindle that I submitted an Outrageous Opinion to the IE management about the possibility of loading NetApp documentation onto a Kindle. Imagine how much easier it would be for our support people if they could download the docs they needed onto a Kindle before getting on a plane to a customer site?

[Jonathan Frye from Leadership Jot]

Dave,

I was reading about fabric PCs and "electronic" paper concepts. Kindle is one the first devices on the market to use the innovative display concepts. Quite awesome! You can also get blogs like my blog about leadership and magazines downloaded to right to your kindle.

Jon

[collin]

magazines-candy, books-meat... h'm.

some read the Atlantic or the Economist or CACM (meat+veggies) and also books containing detective stories (arguably brain-candy) or chick-lit (pretty clearly brain-candy)

[JL]

I think that the device sounds cool, but I struggle with the whole DRM thing and cost. First on the DRM front, if I read a book I can pass it on to a friend and vice versa. How can you do that with a Kindle?

Second, I love reading and can speed through books. The high cost of constantly buying new books which I read in a few days drove me nuts so now for a cost of $0, I just borrow them from the library.

This is not to say that the Kindle is not good, but that IMO, it still has some limitations that prevent me from taking the plunge.

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