Always-on and Hypertexted Books (was: Re: [Web4lib] Amazon's Kindle e-book reader)

[cu195450 at comcast.net]

I don't  agree with Gruber's narrow-minded and rather ungenerous wish that this device "flops". Kindle is obviously an "early draft" for what will likely be better versions later on, and it has some features now that strikes me as visionary and important, as is seen in an excellent, even-handed and detailed "first impressions" of Kindle at Techcrunch today:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/19/kindle-first-impressions/

An example from the article of somebody at Amazon's having some real vision in what they engineered into this device refers to the hypertext possibilities of it:

"The fact that it has a functioning Web browser, though, means that you can follow links in the feeds you subscribe to. More importantly, it opens up the world of linking to book authors. Now books can have links, and not just for citations. Authors who take advantage of the electronic book format will start to include hyperlinks for curious readers to follow, and books could become more tightly interwoven with the culture of the Web in general. Reading a book will no longer need to end with the final chapter. Rather, it could literally open up a whole world of information on the Web, just as blog posts or online news article do today." This reminds me of something Kevin Kelly wrote yesterday in writing about the Kindle: "And in Scan This Book (New York Times Magazine, 2006) I speculated on what happens when all the books of the world are digitized: they begin to leak into each other until there is only one very large super book." http://kk.org/ct2/2007/11/the-always-on-book.php. K
elly also sees significant vision in this device: "The key revolutionary trait in the Kindle, however, is its wireless connection. The frequency of connection is neither local wifi or bluetooth, but cellular -- which means you can be online anywhere you can get a cellular signal (and you are off the net whereever there ain't a signal.) As a result of this connection the book is always on. As Jeff Bezos says, it turns the book into "a service, not a device." "

Another interesting feature will be of interest to reference/research librarians:

"The other cool experimental feature is called “Ask Kindle NowNow.” You can ask any question you like and you get a response from a human researcher. This is done through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service. I asked “Who was the first person to ever write about the Kindle?” And I git a response in a few minutes pointing me to an “early” September 11, 2007 post on Engadget. While that post does come up high in a Google search on Kindle, the New York Times had this story on September 5 (and that might not have even been the first mention of it). So NowNow was close, but did not give the best answer. Still, what do you want for free research?"

Cliff Urr, MLS
cu195450 at comcast.net

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Andrew Hankinson <andrew.hankinson at gmail.com> 

> I don't know if anyone reads John Gruber's blog, but he's got a great 
> post about Kindle. 
> 
> http://daringfireball.net/2007/11/dum 
> 
> Cheers, 
> Andrew 
> 
> On 19-Nov-07, at 11:52 PM, Leo Robert Klein wrote: 
> 
> > Roy Tennant wrote: 
> >> Hmmm...let me see...spend $400 on a device where the only thing I 
> >> can do is 
> >> read books, or spend the same amount on a different device where I 
> >> can read 
> >> books, visit any web site I want, make phone calls, listen to 
> >> tunes, etc. 
> >> Hmmm.... 
> >> Yes, I understand that one requires a service plan and the other 
> >> does not 
> >> (although at least $9 for every book you want to read). But come 
> >> on. After 
> >> watching the video I thought the interface was actually kind of 
> >> annoying, 
> >> again especially in contrast with the iPhone. My advice to 
> >> libraries: don't 
> >> rush out and jump on this bandwagon. 
> >> Roy 
> > 
> > I got the impression it was a slow week at Newsweek. I mean, when 
> > the author brags about downloading Dickens' 'Bleak House' for a mere 
> > $1.99 ("You can also get classics for a song"), I'm afraid I lost it. 
> > 
> > The stuff about paper vs. electronic and the joys of hypertext (the 
> > "always-on book") could have been written by Vannevar Bush. 
> > 
> > It's scary what passes for popular tech writing these days. The 
> > whole piece was an uncritical paean to Amazon. 
> > 
> > LEO 
> > 
> > -- ------------------- 
> > www.leoklein.com (site) 
> > www.ChicagoLibrarian.com (blog) 
> > 
> > aim/msn/yhoo/goog: 'leorobertklein' 
> > -- ------------------------------- 
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