[Web4lib] Amazon's Kindle e-book reader

[Leo Robert Klein]

Roy Tennant wrote:

[snip]

> The other reason is more substantive. First Blackberries and now the iPhone
> have demonstrated the kind of unification of functions that has been
> predicted for many years -- you will no longer have a PDA and a phone and a
> music player and perhaps even a laptop as separate devices -- they would be
> all one. And the fact that the same amount of money will buy you either a
> book reading device or a phone and a music player and a web browser and a
> ...makes the Kindle a complete non-starter in my book (sorry for the pun).
> And to think folks were complaining about the price of the iPhone.
> Roy

I think this unit makes sense only if you ignore the vastly successfully 
alternatives now available to people.  People want Nokias and SideKicks. 
  They use their phones to text-message, take pictures and surf the web.

Amazon has made a single-purpose device and it's pretty obvious from 
their standpoint why they did it.  It's less obvious why people should 
suddenly dump their smart phones for this.

It just doesn't make sense.  It's like thinking people are going to dump 
their color tv's for b&w units because the WWI documentaries look so 
much better.


"Richard Wiggins" <richard.wiggins at gmail.com> wrote:

[snip]

>> I think there is no doubt that the purpose-specific e-book will come into
>> its own as well, and I think people who nay-say it without seeing it,
>> touching it, feeling it, and using it will someday look foolish.  They may
>> not look foolish with this attempt, but someday they will.

I'm perfectly happy to look foolish!

LEO


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