Kindle Thoughts

The Sony Reader is a worthy opponent to the Kindle, however Sony has made some fundamental mistakes which will ultimately mean it will lose the battle for the e-book.

Sony’s chief executive, Sir Howard Stringer, noticed how Apple integrated is software and hardware to create a better customer experience, he added that Sony wants to make it as easy as possible to download or stream music, films and electronic data to all Sony electronic devices, from the PlayStation 3 to the Bravia Televisions. Sir Howard Stringer wants 90% of Sony devices to by wirelessly networked within 2 years.

However, Sir Howard Stringer vision seems to have fallen on deaf ears in the Sony Reader division. The Sony PRS-500 Reader had a commanding lead in the e-reader industry, but last November the Kindle was unveiled by Amazon. Amazon had done exactly what Sir Howard Stringer wanted to do with the Sony Reader, the Kindle was wirelessly networked to the Amazon book store, the hardware and software acting as one. Most importantly however, it made it easy for the consumer to buy books, something the Sony Reader never really achieved with its reader.

Back in 2006 when the Sony Reader was launched, Sir Howard wanted to let world know that this is sort of device that the new Sony wanted to make: both innovative and well-connected, but it was Amazon that showed them how it was really done.

Book selling is at the core of Amazon’s business, this is another advantage that Amazon has over Sony, it can leverage publishers to release books on its platform before any other, that’s something Sony would find very difficult to do. There are currently over 145,000 titles in the Kindle bookstore, the Sony bookstore has 45,000, that’s another area where Sony falls short.

The Kindle also offers so much more than the Sony Reader, daily newspapers, blogs, RSS subscriptions all without the need for a PC, with hacks you can even turn the Kindle into an email reader, an instant messenger and a web browser. You can buy a book any time and anywhere as long as you have a wireless connection, you cant do that on the Sony Reader.

Sony has consistently declined to release sales figures, which just might tell you something. Whilst Amazon hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with sales figures wither, we have learned that in its first 10 months the Kindle has sold over 240,000 devices, which isn’t a figure to be ashamed of, in-fact it blew most analyst estimates out of the water. To put it in context, the iPod first-year sales came to 360,000 devices, the Kindle is on course to match that figure.

Sony is now playing catchup, Sony’s Steve Haber has said that Sony is “open” to the idea of making the Reader a wireless device, but if you ask me, it may already be too late for them. Unless Sony’s next e-book reader is radically different to the current model and offers the same functionallity of the Kindle, im afriad its goodbye Sony Reader.

Some would have you believe that the Toyota Prius is the answer to all our energy problems, however, it isn’t, its the step in-between. When you look up what the word Prius means “that which comes before” you will realise that the Prius is not the car of the future, the Prius comes before, to pave the way for the true car of the future.

In the same vein, I have come to realise that the Kindle is not the future of reading, but it is a Prius, it is what comes before. The much more important question is what will come next?

I will leave this open for you to ponder, your comments are welcome.

These days if company’s want a device to be a success it has to support as many different standards as possible, be as useful to the user as possible, be as cheap as possible and be as open as possible. There are always exception to the rule, take iPhone for example, but on the whole its an accurate statement.

One way of opening a device up is by offering a software development kit (SDK), I was reading k.indled today and the question came, If Kindle had an SDK, What would you do with it?

One thing I would do is add support for the .epub format, I’m not sure if it would be possible because I am no programmer, but I feel that Kindle must support .epub one day, its the industry standard and I think this will get a lot more publishers on board, especially the ones who have a lot of technical content which isn’t easy to render on the Kindle.

I think Amazon will have to eventually open up the Kindle and they should do it sooner rather than later, having an ‘app store’ similar to the iPhone app store I think would go a long way in helping the Kindle attain mainstream acceptance, and it could open up a while host of other uses for the Kindle.

What would you create with a Kindle SDK?

Source: k.indled

As a Kindle owner with over 100 e-books–many of them only half read I must admit–on my Kindle, I have found that I’ve been buying a lot on impulse. If the product description excites me, then I will buy it considering the price is under $5. If its between $5 and $9.99 then I will pause for a moment to consider if I will actually read it all the way through. However once the price of an e-book passes the $9.99 mark, then I automatically don’t want to buy the book, even if I really want it. My mind is telling me that if your practically going to pay full price, you might as-well get a dead-tree book.

The thing is, it’s so easy to buy books on the Kindle, it almost feels like your not spending money, but once the price passes $9.99 it does feel like your spending money. Just like Apple got it right with 99-cents per song on iTunes, this is where Amazon got it right as-well, $9.99 is the perfect price for new releases.

If all those book I didn’t purchase because they were priced above $9.99 not been, then I would have probably have had about 125-130 titles on my Kindle by now. I’m willing to bet many other Kindle owners are walking away from purchases because of pricing, perhaps its a psychological barrier which I have become used to which means I cant buy books above $9.99. One of the reasons behind my purchasing a Kindle was the reduced price for many books, now when e-book are being priced at $2 or $3 cheaper than their printed counterparts then it hardly seem worth investing $400 for the Kindle.

I realise that Amazon probably doesn’t set for most of the e-book on Kindle, so publishers need to get the message that the $9.99 price tag means more sales and that pricing e-books higher than that is stifling their growth.

Do/Would/Should you pay more than $9.99 for a Kindle e-book?

When the leaked Kindle sales figured came out earlier this week, a lot of the anti-Kindle crowd were silenced. However, a certain Liz Gunnison from Portfolio.com was still very sceptical, claiming that the 240,000 represented a good proportion of the market. The article then does on to list why Amazon will have a difficult time selling more.

Liz Gunnison eventually whittles down the number of American’s who would be interested in buying a Kindle to about 500,000 - 2,000,000 people. You can read her article here, there’s a lot of misinformation and half-truth’s scattered around the article which makes Gunnisons analysis seem kinda factual, however, a post at thekindle offers a good rebuttal of the entire article.

The conclusion is that a lot of the anti-Kindle crew are now going through the ‘denial phase’, since the leaked sales figures didn’t agree with their assumptions that the Kindle was a doomed device from the beginning.

The article also fails to mention the international markets which Amazon has yet to offer the Kindle and it also fails to mention educational establishments, library’s and corporate organisations which could utilise the Kindle. A lot of these institutions are still evaluating the Kindle, so in my opinion there is still plenty of growth left in the Kindle, and when I say plenty I mean a LOT of growth.

The truth is, Kindle is less than a year old and is a first generation device, considering that, 240,000 units shipped in its first year is a very good statistic for Amazon. The market hasn’t yet fully embraced the Kindle, not a lot of people even know about the Kindle, but when they do, Amazon–in my opinion –will have the iPod of the book world.

Source: Portfolio.com -the article in question, thekindle @ wordpress.com- the rebuttal,