Amazon's Kindle: Will It Do to Books What Apple's iPod Did to the Music Industry?

The Kindle is the logical evolution of a 500-year-old analog technology that terrifies the $24 billion book-publishing industry already faint from Amazon's growing dominance.

On June 12th, Gizmodo announced that the Kindle DX,  just started shipping on Amazon to extend it's e-book reach to include textbooks and periodicals, which it will test-market to college students.The DX was sold out before the end of the week. "Either people really love that DX, the Gizmodo team quipped, "or the Earth only produces enough resources to sustain manufacturing a few units at a time."

The Gizmodo report underscores the obvious fact that the Kindle has gripped the public imagination like it's, well, like it's a new iPod or iPhone release, The Kindle, now in it's second iteration,  is the first book-industry hit of its kind, selling hundreds of thousands of units since its introduction in November 2007. It's the first with built-in wireless 3G connectivity, making it possible to download whole volumes in less than a minute -- more than 1,500 books can fit on a single machine -- with titles often less than half the price of a traditional hardcover.

Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos' rvision is "to have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds." Wall Street analysts estimate that Amazon sold a half-million Kindles last year and projects its total e-book revenue, which includes sales of books and devices, to reach $1.2 billion by 2010. There are currently 275,000 titles are available in the Kindle format, including nearly all 112 books on The New York Times best-seller list.

It's obvious that Jeff Bezos is trying to do to book publishers what Steve Jobs of Apple did to the music industry.

With its first-mover advantage, Apple rapidly built iPod and iTunes Store,creating a new platform standard that wrested control of the digital-music distribution system. Should Amazon succeed, they could marginalize book publishers, phasing them out completely, treating them as the latest victims of creative destruction orphaned by a new technology.

In the new world of e-books, publishers could team with authors and multimedia producers to  create e-books that go far beyond linear text, incorporating a blend of text, video, audio interviews, 3-D maps -- an entire ecosystem of content built on top of a technology that was perfected in the 16th century.

Posted by Casey Kazan.

Source:

http://gizmodo.com/5288615/kindle-dx-sells-out-in-two-days Image credit: Gizmodo
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/137/the-evolution-of-amazon.html

Comments

[Mark]

Bezos will have a much more difficult time with the Kindle than Jobs did with the iPod.

Books have always been held in our hands. Music, not so much, unless you're making it. Music can be for those who are illiterate or nearly-so. Books appeal to an entirely different demographic, for the most part.

The Kindle will find a perfect niche market at first. It is the perfect alternative to heavy school/text books. If battery power could ever become a non-issue, it will hands-down take over in kids' bookbags.

But the Kindle will not take over the satisfaction of being able to turn a page or leaving a novel face down in the sand on the beach when you've fallen asleep. Novels don't normally break when you accidentally drop them. And altho a novel will be ruined if it gets wet, it's only one that might get wet. If your Kindle gets wet, there goes $400+ to replace it.

The paradigm shift is coming, but not any time soon. Again, this product has a perfect niche but will never become ubiquitous like iPods or iPhones.

[Susan]

I hope not.

Sony's eReader is a much better quality product. It is more versatile and allows you to read files you could not ever read on a kindle. I can download and read scanned articles without ever having to put it through any sort of converter. So for classes I teach and classes I take, I love my Sony!

Now, for pleasure, I overall still prefer that book in my hands. It's not environmentally sound of me. But, for long travel, I'll take the eReader.

[Yacko]

Lot of things you can't do while reading but can do while listening to music. That automatically limits its usefulness. Better audio book integration - you get both a reading book and an audio book when you buy one or the other, and they sychronize perfectly so you can switch on the fly from one to the other. That means no new income for the audio book (writers won't let that happen) and no condensed or abridged audio book as a reader adjunct.

[Estella von koln]

I know loads of Kindle and DX owners are a bit annoyed that it’s still hard to find many publishers that offer proper textbooks for student owners like me. I just found this site a few weeks ago though, www.bookboon.com and these guys publish a huge range of textbooks and every single textbook is made available to download free of charge in a compatible pdf e-book format with no registration. It’s a totally 100% free textbook solution perfect for new Kindle owners like me looking for good and free academic content!

They actually just put up a new accounting series, really good used the ones on Liabilities and Equity and Balanced Scorecard this year as prep for my acca exams. There is also a facebook app with all the books on, http://apps.facebook.com/bookboon Check it out guys…

[Basuto9]

Once those of us raised on actual books are gone then something like Kindle may take over with the newer generations, but not before, in my opinion. I have floor to ceiling bookshelves at home filled with all types of hardbound books I've picked up over the years, and all have been read at LEAST twice. Personally, I could not imagine foregoing the pleasure of running my fingers over a line of books, selecting one, pulling it out and opening it. Turning on a Kindle instead? No thanks. I am not against technology - I love the freedom my computer gives me, the ability to travel from the earth to outer space (and receive the Daily Galaxy), but I will keep my books. You may keep your Kindle.

[eoin]

sorry skuse me what did itunes and the ipod do exactly to the music industry .....enforce drm, put out a shit product, force people to use their software to use the shit product, over price the music that goes onto the shit product. i could go on.