Amazon Kindle
November 19, 2007
Amazon debuted Kindle, its eBook reader, today. I haven’t seen it yet, of course, but I’m impressed by the number of titles they have available at launch. And the pricepoints—NYT’s bestsellers at a standard price of $9.99.
Lots of interesting details about the feature set as well as the complementary content, like Wikipedia, newspapers, blogs. Another detail, reported by CNET, caught my eye:
Kindle, which was manufactured by an undisclosed Chinese original equipment manufacturer, connects to its specialized Amazon store via an EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) cellular network through “Amazon Whispernet,” built atop Sprint’s EV-DO network. No data plan or monthly bill is required. “We pay for all of that behind the scenes so that you can just read,” Bezos said, adding that he estimated that it would take “less than a minute” to download a book.
If it is really that easy to use and keep up to date, they are on to something.
WSJ.com has a blog roundup (subscription), and proving that Kindle seems to be real news, it even made All Things Considered. And, last but not least, PW weighs in.
Posted by Bill Trippe at November 19, 2007 12:52 PM
