Sunday, November 18, 2007

Amazon.com's Kindle: Can it Succeed Where Other eBook Readers Have Failed?

The idea of eBooks sounds great: Download entire books to a little PDA-like device, and carry around an entire library with you to read at your leisure in one compact package. The eBook format has been hailed as the next big advance in media... except that it's never really taken off.

People just don't seem to like the idea of reading an entire book on a small computer-like screen. But now the 800-pound-gorilla of retailing, Amazon.com, is launching its own eBook reader, called Kindle, on Monday, November 19th. In doing so, Amazon is trying to succeed where many respected companies (including Sony) have failed.

An article from Publishers Weekly has links to several reviews of and comments about the Kindle eBook reader, including some from Newsweek, Engadget, and PW's own commentator.

Will Amazon's eBook reader succeed where others have failed? Amazon definitely has the marketing savvy and the customer-service expertise, but are they out of their comfort zone with trying to launch their own electronic device? We should find out soon, especially with Amazon's habit of ranking the sales of the items they sell.

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