Cornered!
Cornered! is a blog devoted, most of the time anyway, to telecommunications: local and global issues, technology, people and trends from the perspective of someone who's been reporting, analysing and commenting on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition). Sometimes serious, sometimes flippant, sometimes frivolous. Controversial, analytical, informative, amusing, but never boring; a vehicle for examinations of important issues and observations on my encounters and experiences in an industry where polarised views and hyperbole are the norm.
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Technology news and Jobs arrow Cornered! arrow Kindle could kick-off electronic books
Kindle could kick-off electronic books E-mail
by Stuart Corner   
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Amazon's just-released Kindle e-book could just have the features and functions needed to really kick off the market for electronic books: something which none of its predecessors have been able to do.
It is integrated into as US nationwide cellular network (EV-DO) to provide seamless downloading of content (users do not need  to subscribe to the cellular service and do not pay separately for downloaded data).

The biggest downside to Kindle seems to be the high entry price - you have to pay $US399 to buy the device: a pricing option where you paid a few dollars per month over, say, two years and commited to buying so many titles per month might have been more attractive, and a variant on the good old fashioned book clubs that have been around for years.

There is also another downside; the very high price of some Kindle books compared to their hard copy equivalents. For example on a quick look at the site, http://amazon.com/kindle, I turned up "The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children," list price in paperback $US10.95 and $US35.99 as a Kindle Book! That's even more than the hardback version at $US26.50.

I cannot see the rationale behind that. This despite Amazon boasting its catalogue "includes 101 of 112 current New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases, which are $9.99, unless marked otherwise." The most expensive book on Kindle: "Growth Strategies for Software Companies", $US1079 on Kindle, would set you back $US1500 in hardcopy. That seems a much more reasonable pricing policy.

The biggest upside, I reckon, would have to be that, in addition ot books,  Kindle allows you to download over the cellular network the latest editions of a wide range of newspapers and magazines in versions that are full facsimiles of their hard-copy counterparts. This is good (a) because unlike books there is generally little desire to hang on to printed ephemera once read and (b) it is much easer to read a small screen in a crowded subway train, the back of a taxi or at the breakfast table while you are munching on you cereal.

 
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Cornered! is a blog on all things tele-communication from the perspective of one who has observed, analysed commented and reported on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition).
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