last100 » Amazon

Why Sony is embracing the ‘open’ ePub eBook standard (Hint: Amazon)

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:08:19 +0000

I’ve argued before that with regards to eBooks and the Kindle, Amazon doesn’t view itself as a hardware company. Unlike the iTunes ecosystem designed to shift more iPods and iPhones, for Amazon it’s actually about selling digital content — the eBooks themselves — as demonstrated by the release of the iPhone ‘Kindle’ eBook reader and the company’s work-around to keep Apple away from any iPhone-generated eBook revenue.

The Kindle hardware exists to kick start and accelerate the uptake of eBooks, and as well as creating Kindle reader software for other mobile platforms, similar to what the company has already done on the iPhone, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Amazon one day license its Kindle platform to competing hardware eBook readers. As I said, it’s clearly about shifting content, and to achieve this, owning the eBook ’standard’ and therefore default store.

To do this Amazon knows it has to create the best eBook reading experience and offer the largest catalog. And it’s arguably leading on both these counts already, in the US at least. Publishers know it. Consumers know it. And Sony – and other competing eBook hardware makers – know it. Hence Sony’s decision to ditch its own proprietary eBook format going forward and support the more open and industry-backed ePub standard.

If Sony can’t stop Amazon owning the eBook standard on its own, then embracing an open format along with other players in the market seems like the best way to prevent the online retailer becoming the dominant force in the e-publishing industry, as Apple has done in the digital music industry, able to dictate prices and control distribution. Something that not only Sony and other hardware makers but publishers across the board are right to be scared of.

And then there’s Apple and that rumored iTablet, eBook reading capability and all.

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Amazon to Apple: keep your hands off our iPhone Kindle eBook revenue

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:01:10 +0000

iPhone Kindle app

At first glance it seems innocuous enough: Amazon has launched a version of its Kindle eBook store optimized for the iPhone’s web browser to make it easier for users of Apple’s device to purchase new eBooks for the iPhone’s Kindle application. “The most common feedback we heard from customers was that they wanted a better experience for purchasing new Kindle books from their iPhones”, says Ian Freed, vice president of Amazon Kindle operations.

In the updated iPhone Kindle app, a “Get Books” button opens the phone’s Safari web browser and takes users straight to the new iPhone-friendly site. Any new purchases made then show up in and are downloadable from the iPhone Kindle app itself.

The result of which is that Amazon has made it relatively simple for users to purchase Kindle content in a way that replicates the iPhone’s upcoming ‘in-app purchases’ feature, all without giving Apple its 30% cut or, presumably, breaking any terms of service.

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Amazon MP3, Wal-Mart and Rhapsody just made buying music more confusing following iTunes’ lead

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:21:57 +0000

With the major labels cajoling Apple into upping the cost of the most popular tracks on iTunes, I wondered how long it would take other music download stores to follow suit. Not long it seems – less than a day in fact – with paidContent and Ars Technica reporting that Amazon, Wal-Mart, Lala and Rhapsody have followed Apple’s lead and introduced ‘variable pricing’.

Of course, none of this down to the stores in question. The major labels set wholesale prices for tracks, and each download store then follows suit, give and take varying margins and the odd, possibly loss making, promotion here and there. Some might argue that ‘variable pricing’ alone isn’t necessarily a bad thing, although it does sacrifice the simple buying experience that Apple first introduced with its 99c per track rigid pricing structure on iTunes. What’s certainly short sighted is to use ‘variable pricing’ as an excuse to raise the upper limit of price per track, especially in a time of recession and when less and less people still pay for music anyway.

There’s also a complete inconsistency in pricing across each store on a track by track basis. It’s not even as simple as paying more for the most popular tracks. For example, Amazon is cheaper than iTunes on some top 40 tracks and vise versa. As paidContent notes: “comparing like with like can be difficult”.

Update: ComputerWorld’s Seth Weintraub is reporting that the major labels are giving Amazon more favorable terms over Apple– cheaper wholesale prices — which would be consistent with past behavior.

Sources at Apple tell me that Apple is getting different prices than Amazon from the recording idustry. The record companies are, and have been for awhile, favoring Amazon. In fact, Amazon is selling songs for less than the price that Apple pays for them in some cases.

The motive: The majors are determined to weaken Apple’s power in the music industry, and with some success, punishing them for selling all those damn iPods.

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Google helps add 500,000 public domain eBooks to Sony Reader store

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:38:59 +0000

Not sure if this is such a big deal but owners of Sony’s Reader – which includes my dad – can now access over half a million public domain books via the company’s eBook store, courtesy of a new partnership with Google Book Search.

Titles include an “extensive list of traditional favorites”, according to the joint press release, such as “The Awakening,” “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” and “Black Beauty”, along with Jane Austin’s “Sense and Sensibility” and “Emma.”

In their statements both Google and Sony were keen to tout the partnership as testament to their ‘openness’, a direct dig at Amazon’s Kindle, which uses a proprietary eBook format compared to the Reader’s support for the standards-based ePub.

However, as paidContent notes, the real picture isn’t quite as clear cut. Prior to today’s announcement, eBooks downloaded from Google Book Search either as text files or PDFs could already be transferred to and read on both the Reader and Kindle, albeit with the process on Sony’s device being a lot less cumbersome. What’s changed today is that by supporting the ePub format and adding its catalog to Sony’s own eBook store, Google just made it even more user-friendly and, for the time being at least, makes access to free public domain content – if you’re into that kind of thing – a key selling point for Reader over Kindle.

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Usability guru: Amazon’s Kindle is great for reading novels, poor for everything else

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:31:59 +0000

Usability guru Jackob Nielson has given Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader the once over. His conclusion: perhaps unsurprisingly, the device is great for linear reading – think books, and in particular novels – but falls down badly when consuming non-linear content, such as electronic versions of magazines or newspapers.

Additionally, Nielson says that although he has previously questioned the viability of eBook reading devices in general, the Kindle’s e-ink screen technology and his own reading speed using Amazon’s device (less than 0.5% difference compared to the exact same paperback) has changed his mind.

On the Kindle’s linear reading strengths, Nielson gives praise to the device’s dedicated page turn controls:

… turning the page is extremely easy and convenient. This one command has two buttons (on either side of the device). Paging backwards is a less common action, but it’s also nicely supported with a separate, smaller button.

The device thus offers good support for the task of linear reading — appropriately so, as Kindle’s design is centered on this one use case. While reading, your only interaction is to repeatedly press the next-page button.

However, “anything else is awkward”, writes Nielson.

In particular he criticizes the Kindles smartphone-esque 5-way controller. “Repeatedly flicking the 5-way to move the cursor around the screen is extremely tedious. It doesn’t feel like direct manipulation at all. The 5-way owns the cursor, not you, and getting the cursor where you want it requires a lot of work.”

Overall, the User Interface, outside of consuming linear content, is poorly thought through. The reason, says Nielson, is that the Kindle’s design is dominated by the book metaphor.

So, the design decisions that make Kindle good for reading novels (and linear non-fiction) make it a bad device for reading non-linear content. Sure, Amazon designers could fix simple UI stupidities, such as the interaction design for a newspaper ToC. But doing so would simply apply a band-aid. To truly optimize the non-linear user experience, they’d have to completely reconceptualize the Kindle design.

Ouch.

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What Kindle on iPhone says about Amazon’s eBook strategy

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:00:09 +0000

The news today that Amazon has released a Kindle client for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch says a lot about the company’s eBook strategy. Amazon’s Kindle device has often been described as wanting to become the iPod of books, but unlike Apple it’s clear that the e-tailer sees itself in the business of selling content and not just to drive sales of hardware.

In terms of music and video sales, Apple’s iTunes Store exists purely to add value to and increase uptake of the company’s iPod and AppleTV devices, with the major record labels and Hollywood studios receiving the majority of revenue from any content sold. Until fairly recently, content from iTunes could only play back on Apple’s hardware – for movies and TV shows this is still the case – helping to lock customers into the iTunes/iPod ecosystem. In contrast, eBooks bought from the Kindle store are now able to be read on at least one non-Kindle device, Apple’s iPhone, with more to come. This suggests to me that Amazon is taking a large enough cut from each eBook sold to justify potentially diluting sales of the Kindle device itself.

Having said that, Amazon is publicly pitching its iPhone app as being complementary to the Kindle rather than competing directly against it. And in some ways this is true. There’s a high degree of synergy between the Kindle experience on either device. Using technology Amazon is calling Whispersync users can pick up reading where they left off from the Kindle to iPhone and vice versa. Additionally, since eBooks purchased through the Kindle store are kept on Amazon’s own servers, you can access any content from your existing Kindle library ‘over the air’ on the iPhone or iPod touch.

However, aside from the Kindle’s superior e-ink screen technology, which is optimized for readability, there are a number of features that are missing from Amazon’s iPhone app. Most notable is the inability to browse and make purchases from the Kindle store directly within the app itself, instead you’ll need to fire up the iPhone’s web browser or make purchases first via a Kindle or desktop PC. Another omission, reports mocoNews, is access to newspapers, magazine and blog “subscriptions”, which due to copy-protection are currently tied to a single Kindle device.

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Roku rolls out Amazon Video-On-Demand support

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:31:33 +0000

No longer limited to Netflix support-only, today Roku announced that its $99 set-top box, following a software update, can now be used to rent and purchase movies and TV shows from Amazon’s Video-On-Demand (VOD) service.

Amazon VOD (US-only) has a library of over 40,000 movie and TV titles, with new releases offered on the same day they are released on DVD, something that Netflix is currently unable to match, instead focusing more on back catalog material offered as part of a fixed monthly subscription that also includes traditional DVD rentals by post. In this sense, the two services both compete and complement each other, depending on how much and what kind of content customers want to consume.

The Amazon tie-in also takes advantage of the e-tailers’ expertise in ‘cloud’ computing. Since the Roku digital video player is only capable of streaming not downloads, purchases are stored on Amazon’s own servers, making it possible, for example, to begin viewing a movie on the PC and then continue on the TV via a Roku set-top box.

Video demo courtesy of NewTeeVee after the jump…

Amazon VOD on the Roku from Chris Albrecht on Vimeo.

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First look: YouTube’s e-commerce leaves lots of room for improvement

Daniel Langendorf — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:37:12 +0000

In an effort to make money from YouTube, Google introduced this week an e-commerce component to the popular video-sharing site that allows users to click buttons to buy music, video, and games from iTunes or Amazon.

The idea has merit, but its execution — at least in this early stage — is in need of improvement. It’s not unlike other Google initial-release products.

Here’s how it works: The Good

Say you’re messing around on YouTube and you watch a video from an artist you like — Katy Perry or Raphael Saadiq. Just underneath the video, below the ratings and the sharing and social network links, there are two buttons to download the song or video from Amazon’s MP3 store or iTunes.

Clicking on either one takes you directly to the song at either store. The purchase process is exactly what you’re used to at AmazonMP3 or iTunes.

“If you like the song, you don’t need to leave Google or leave the site to buy it,” Bakari Brock, business affairs counsel at YouTube, told The New York Times. [See also Advertising Age]

That’s not exactly true. Clicking on Amazon, of course, takes you to AmazonMP3, while clicking on iTunes takes you to, naturally, iTunes. But you still leave YouTube, although the page you were viewing remains intact.

Here’s how it doesn’t work: The Bad

But that’s not where YouTube’s e-commerce fails. Ironically — for the undisputed king of search — finding songs to purchase is an awful process and calls into question whether you’d want to use YouTube as a purchase conduit in the first place.

For example, I searched for a new Raphael Saadiq song, only to find I can’t purchase it using YouTube. Also, because there may be many versions of a video on YouTube, finding the one with purchase links can be hit or miss. (Look for “Official Video” in parenthesis next to the video title, if it exists.)

I chose another few songs before I finally found purchase buttons for Saadiq’s “Be Here,” which I already own and don’t need to purchase again. I searched for other artists of interest, but these also did not have purchase links.

Playing around on YouTube, looking for music or videos to purchase, may be interesting at first, but ultimately it’s an empty experience. If you like an artist, why not go directly to iTunes or Amazon MP3?

What YouTube e-commerce is good for

Ultimately, where YouTube e-commerce will shine in the short term is serendipity. You’re rooting around YouTube, looking for bands and artists to watch and listen to. If you like a video or a song, there may or may not be purchase buttons. If there is, great, it’s a convenience. If not, you move on.

What might be helpful would be a way to search for music and videos — and ultimately TV shows, films, video games, books, and concert tickets — available for purchase.

“There’ll be lots of different solutions for lots of different problems,” Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube’s director of product management, told Reuters. “We’ve tested a lot of things already, and we’re going to be testing more in the future. Some will work, some won’t.”

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Sony continues to plug along, introducing promising third-generation eBook reader

Daniel Langendorf — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:44:55 +0000

Sony announced its third-generation electronic book reader this week at the same time it appears that the iPhone has overtaken the Kindle as the industry’s No. 1 reader.

Stanza, a book-reading application available through Apple’s App Store, has been downloaded more than 395,000 times and continues to be installed at an average rate of 5,000 copies a day, according its developer Lexcycle [via Forbes].

Forbes notes than Citigroup has estimated that Amazon will sell around 380,000 Kindles in 2008, making the iPhone — at least in loosely-defined terms — the No. 1 eBook device. Titles available for Stanza are mostly public domain, not best-sellers.

Sony, which entered the eBook market long before Amazon or Apple (through third-party developers), isn’t expected to sell nearly as many Readers as Kindles or approach as many users as Stanza on the iPhone. Even so, with its third-generation Reader Sony continues to plug along and, in nearly every respect, has the best eBook device.

Without actually seeing and using the device, it’s hard to say if the new Sony Reader will live up to its specs and is worth $400, but the improvements seem substantial with a few exceptions.

Substantial improvements

The Reader uses a new touch screen, perhaps the biggest improvement; readers can “swipe” page-turning instead of pressing buttons — annoying on the Kindle, acceptable on the current Sony device. It’s not unlike gestures on the iPhone.

Readers can annotate and highlight text with a finger or stylus and save notes for future reading — possibly a great enhancement and differentiator, depending on its execution.

The Reader includes an important feature that has been missing from electronic book devices: a built-in LED that illuminates text in dark settings, which could come in handy when reading in bed.

Inconsequential improvements

The Reader uses the same E-Ink technology that Sony and Amazon currently use on their readers, but it’s still not color.

The display refreshes slightly faster than the previous generation, but its screen refresh wasn’t that bad to begin with.

The Reader is slightly smaller but, again, its size wasn’t much of an issue unless Sony’s goal is to shrink its Readers to the size of iPhones.

Sony continues to improve the aesthetics of the Reader — this one sports an all-black finish with textured accents that (testers say) feels comfortable in the hand — but, then again, the last Reader wasn’t all that bad-looking (and certainly a heck of a lot more attractive than the Kindle).

(Speaking of the Kindle, pictures of the second-generation device has been leaked — see also Boy Genius Report). It’s doubtful Amazon’s eBook reader will be available before Christmas.)

No improvement

The biggest disappointment is that the Sony Reader still does not have cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity, which is the main advantage the Kindle holds. Sony has promised this functionality “sometime in the near future,” but when?

The omission of wireless connectivity will continue to hurt Sony in its quest against Amazon in the eBook market. “Kindle can’t really be threatened because it’s the only one with a wireless store built into it, and that’s an amazing convenience,” Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey told Forbes. “The Sony Reader has always been a good device. But without the critical content piece, an eBook is just a bunch of wires and a screen.”

The $400 price tag is also a disappointment. It will cost $40 more than the Kindle and $100 more than the current Sony Reader.

In the end: tepid applause

The other big advantage the Kindle enjoys is superior access to eBook content through Amazon’s Website. Even so, Sony says it plans to have 100,000 titles available by the holidays and it will revamp its much maligned online bookstore in the next month.

Ever so slowly, Sony is improving its Reader, the eBook-reading experience (it’s open to more eBook formats and standards than the Kindle), and its commitment to the electronic book market. If Sony incorporates wireless into a future Reader, look out Kindle.

Photo credits: Boy Genius Report and Wired

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Review: MySpace Music is perfect for those who like MySpace

Daniel Langendorf — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 02:20:58 +0000

The new MySpace Music is exactly what you’d expect from MySpace: organized clutter, lots of Flash movement, overwhelming advertising, banner ads, and everything screaming for your attention at once.

For some of us (read: older folks and those with no interest in MySpace), MySpace Music holds little interest. But to the tens of millions of kids and young adults who cruise through MySpace daily, MySpace Music might be just what they want.

Developing MySpace Music is an excellent strategic move by MySpace, but how successful it will be in the long run depends on its execution and relationship with Amazon’s MP3 store.

I spent the day playing around with MySpace Music, and this is what I found — besides a wonderful R&B album by Raphael Saadiq.

MySpace Music Basics

All four major music labels are participating, giving MySpace Music the world’s largest online catalogue available for streaming.

The catalogues from Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Music includes full-length songs, the freedom to create playlists (see below), and the ability to buy DRM-free (yeah!) tracks from Amazon’s MP3 store.

There are not many indie labels participating just yet, a contentious point at the start of MySpace Music.

There is no subscription fee. MySpace Music is supported by an unbelievable amount of advertising.

Beyond selling advertising, MySpace Music is designed to attract its 120 million global users to a mix of unlimited free music and concert tickets, merchandising, and other social entertainment features.

About those 120 million global users, MySpace Music initially will be available only to those in the U.S.

Using MySpace Music

You must have a MySpace account and be logged in. Easy enough. Working your way around MySpace Music depends on your familiarity with MySpace. I find it frustrating, but The Kid has no problems with it.

You can create an infinite number of playlists, each containing up to 100 songs, and share these publicly or keep private. This works well, although the interface implementation could use some work — just like the rest of MySpace. Clicking on the plus sign adds a song to a playlist, but the UI doesn’t remember your last list, forcing you to re-select it each time. Painful.

Supposedly, every song will be searchable by title, artist, and album, unlike the current setup that requires you to go to each artist’s MySpace page in order to listen to or add songs to playlists. That alone is a great addition to MySpace Music. You can browse songs entered by friends and top songs from major artists, indies (limited), and unsigned talent (limited).

You will be able to follow friends’ playlists through a simple newsfeed interface.

The music only can be played on a computer connected to the Internet.

The MySpace Music player is quick to start but slow to load, depending on the amount of songs you’ve saved in playlists. It’s not bad quality, really, although the giant ad in the bottom right corner is annoying, but who’s really looking at it? A nice touch is the artist update (their MySpace activity) in the upper right corner, if the artist makes updates available.

As it is streaming content, you cannot fast forward or rewind to certain points in the song.

If you want to transfer a song to a portable device like an Apple iPod or Microsoft Zune, you must buy it through Amazon’s MP3 store. All tracks are free of DRM.

Supposedly, MySpace Music makes purchasing music from Amazon easy. Click on the Buy Album button or a Buy link and go to Amazon without leaving MSM (only works if you are logged in to Amazon). But I found this to work intermittently, but I expect this will improve over time.

MySpace Music vs. iTunes

Many pundits pit MySpace Music against iTunes, but after seeing MSM in action I’m not sure it will make a dent into iTunes’ success unless Amazon itself is involved. To learn more about this dynamic I went straight to the experts — kids, not tech media.

The majority of MySpace users are kids and young adults. Music and video fans of all ages pop in and out of the site to search for new artists and talent.

Before MySpace Music, kids would download free music from the site, if available, and if they really wanted it they’d hop over to iTunes to see if it was for sale there. Others would simply check Bit Torrent.

iTunes is noted for its downloads, whereas MySpace has been known for its streaming content. iTunes’ store is set up for music and video lovers of all ages. This is especially important for kids without credit cards, whose parents often buy iTunes Cards to fill up their “music bank,” so to speak. iTunes Cards are given for birthdays, Christmas, and other special events.

Amazon doesn’t have a program like this. You must have a credit card attached to the account to download music. Even if you have Amazon credit (which, sadly, I am without at the moment), I am not sure you can apply it to music purchases like you can books and DVDs.

Except for the well-off, I don’t know many parents who give their kids credit cards or free reign to download music on iTunes, Amazon or any other site. Paying for their text messaging and cell phones is bad enough.

Lack of indie bands and unsigned artists

Another point of contention for MySpace Music is a perceived lack of indie artists and self-produced music made available by unsigned bands — who, don’t forget, use MySpace to make their work available to fans and to be (hopefully) discovered. These are the ones kids say they are most interested in, not necessarily the established stars signed to one of the four big labels.

As it stands now, kids will continue to look for free downloads from indie artists and unsigned bands on MySpace, but if their work is not available through MySpace Music/Amazon, then they will continue to go to iTunes.

Conclusion

For those who like and are familiar with MySpace, MySpace Music is a strong beginning. These are the ones who will put up with the clutter, the claustrophobic ads, the clumsy interface. On this alone, MySpace Music should be successful as kids will stream music from their playlists as they surf the site and the Web.

But MySpace Music’s ultimate success depends on making not only music from the big four labels available but also content from indie artists and unsigned bands. That and having a kid-friendly, parent-approved, iTunes Card-like payment method will go a long way into taking a bite out of Apple and iTunes.

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Amazon’s Video on Demand service poised to give Apple’s iTunes a run for its customers

Daniel Langendorf — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:49:46 +0000

Say goodbye (and good riddance) to Amazon Unbox and say hello (and welcome) to Amazon Video on Demand.

Amazon launched its new video streaming service Thursday. After a quick downloading and viewing of the TV show “Eureka,” we say Amazon Video on Demand is a worthy contender to Apple’s iTunes.

For one, Amazon’s new video service works where Unbox failed — it plays on Macs. And, another plus, the video starts steaming instantly. A big improvement over the boxy Unbox.

Like Apple’s iTunes, Amazon Video on Demand will offer rentals for $3 to $4 and movie purchases for $10-$15. Most TV episodes are $2 each, with season passes available at a small discount.

A big advantage Amazon Video on Demand has over iTunes is that it offers NBC content, some of which is available free on Hulu, the joint venture between NBC and Fox. The VOD content, however, does not have commercials and is more consistently available, depending on the show.

Another semi-advantage Amazon Video on Demand has over iTunes is that content will play on some Sony TVs and TiVo DVRs, as well as on Windows Media Center PCs and Microsoft’s Xbox. iTunes TV shows and movies only play on Apple devices like the iPhone, iPod touch, iPod with video, and the AppleTV.

Of course, that advantage is also a disadvantage for the millions who own those Apple devices. Another downer is that Amazon Video on Demand lacks HD content, a deal-breaker for many living rooms and home theater aficionados.

The question is this: Does Amazon Video on Demand have enough sizzle to rock the video side of the iTunes Store? Maybe, maybe not. We give it a decent shot, however, as video on iTunes hasn’t dominated like music on iTunes.

Amazon’s music store, MP3, has steadily moved up the ladder to become one of the top online downloading services, but it’s far from unseating iTunes from its lofty perch.

Video is a different story. As it stands today, Amazon Video on Demand isn’t enough to rewrite the rules, rerouting viewers from physical disks to online downloading. But Amazon’s presence — and its consumer muscle and brand — is certainly enough to keep the video streaming business model moving forward and give iTunes a run for its customers.

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Kindle 2.0 is looking more like Kindle 1.5

Daniel Langendorf — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:17:45 +0000

Peter Burrows of BusinessWeek today wrote an even-handed post about the coming of Kindle 2.0, the much anticipated update to Amazon’s much ballyhooed eBook reader. And while he feels the Kindle revolution is “awfully evolutionary,” he also questions just how evolutionary it really is.

Burrows says he can confirm that McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Tim Bueneman [via Seattle Post-Intelligencer] has been saying recently: Amazon will unveil a larger-screen Kindle aimed at college students in the coming months. Burrows also says there will be an upgrade to the Kindle base model, which will be thinner, with a better screen, more stylish, and will include fixes to some of the user interface quirks from Kindle 1.0.

Burrows quotes a source who has seen Kindle 2.0 as saying it is a big leap from its predecessor as the iPod mini was from the first iPod. “They’ve jumped from Generation One to Generation Four or Five,” the source said. “It just looks better, and feels better.”

Wow. Kindle 2.0 must be one heck of a device.

But I, like Burrows, wonder.

A larger-screen Kindle aimed at college students is nice, but if it’s too large it will cross the line with small laptops, which a majority of college students already carry. A larger Kindle may save students from hauling bulky, heavy books, but whatever savings they might realize from the eBook reader it will be eaten up by the cost of the device — expected to be $300-$400 — for at least a semester or two.

Also, from what I see and hear, students are asking for documents as Word docs or PDF files — so they can read them in their iPhones (or BlackBerry, Nokia, or Windows Mobile smartphones), which they already carry. While the Kindle offers the same mobile advantage as the iPhone (with a larger screen to boot), it’s also one more single-use device.

An improved screen and user interface is always welcomed, and stylish colors may make the Kindle less bland and a bit more hip, but are these enough improvements to attract college kids other than lit majors?

“The Kindle revolution feels awfully evolutionary . . . if it exists at all,” Burrows writes. “I don’t see Kindles around in the real world [neither do I], and I’ve never heard anyone express the desire to own one [I have, but not at the current $349 price]. Even if Kindle matches the first year sales of the iPod . . . I can’t imagine the Kindle approaching the unit sales or cultural impact of Apple’s music player went on to have.”

If Amazon was to build on the pervasive wireless connection already in the Kindle, and if it offered improvements like a color touch screen, no digital rights management, and integrated support for Amazon-owned Audible.com (recorded books), then Kindle 2.0 might be worthy of the iPod Gen 1 to iPod mini comparisons.

As it appears, Kindle 2.0 is more 1.5.

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