One person at a time
Following on from Kate’s comment on the last post (and link) to another kindle review. Here’s one from a publishers’ weekly columnist, Sara Nelson, from just before Christmas; someone you could probably count as a convert. Interestingly, she doesn’t really mention the screen (maybe only true geeks notice the difference that e-ink makes), but seems to have embraced the frictionless purchasing.
I’m no Luddite, but I like the old-fashioned book delivery system….
…Which is why I’m so surprised that within hours of receiving the Kindle, I had downloaded four books and one day’s edition of theNew York Times. It was just so easy and cheap.
Mind you, those comments in the other review can’t be ignored. Kindle *is* too expensive to have mainstream appeal, and the format wars are a bit of a hurdle. But one step (or convert) at a time, I guess :-)(via teleread)
2 Comments so far
Leave a reply
I think Cory Doctorow’s comments about audiobooks on this boingboing post [http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/31/amazon-buys-audible.html] kind of relate here.
The DRM on his audible purchases meant he wasn’t future-proofed for using his books on a variety of devices.
With e-books, until the format wars have a victor I’m reluctant to invest a lot of money into content that may, in the future, be trapped on dead media, kind of like owning a bunch of files on 5.25 inch floppy disks.
That’s with Kindle books, by the way. I’ll happily buy .epub, PDF and other formats that I can share around my devices.