Amazon's Kindle vision: every book, in any language in 60 seconds

Stuart Corner
Monday, 21 April 2008 06:14

Your IT - Entertainment

Six months after being embarrassed by inability to meet demand for the newly launched e-book, the Kindle, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been talking up the product and says his company's vision is for readers to download "every book ever printed in any language...in less than 60 seconds."

Bezos has developed his entire annual letter to shareholders ,  filed this week with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to the Kindle, revealed that the company's entire initial stock sold out in the just five and a half hours after it went on sale in November 2007 .

Bezos' attempt to rekindle interest in Kindle would suggest that the supply problems that plagued the Kindle after its launch have now been solved and Amazon is able to meet expected demand. However the company has never revealed how many units it has sold or how many titles have been downloaded.

Bezos claimed that "major publishers have embraced Kindle," saying it offered them many advantages "Books never go out of print, and they never go out of stock. Nor is there ever waste from over-printing. Most important, Kindle makes it more convenient for readers to buy more books. Anytime you make something simpler and lower friction, you get more of it."

At present Amazon has 110,000 "books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers. available for download. The Kindle section   of the Amazon web site shows 2300 customer reviews of Kindle. Just under half gave it a five star rating and a further 20 percent gave it four stars.