Aug

13

Amazon Kindle: The Buzz Goes On

Filed Under Kindle, News, Reader, Readius, e-Ink | Leave a Comment

The media buzz on the Amazon Kindle continues at mid-week, following a Citigroup analyst’s positive estimates of 2008 Kindle sales on Monday.

The Top Stocks Blog over at MSN Money staked out somewhat of a contrarian position. Under the headline, “Amazon’s Kindle unlikely to set world on fire,” the blogger noted that although some think the Kindle will have a first-year sales record comparable to that of the Apple iPod, “[o]thers believe it’s wishful thinking to assume John Grisham will ever be as popular as Jay-Z.”

After noting some features of the Amazon Kindle — ability to download books over the wireless Whispernet network, the glare-free screen and enlargeable screen fonts, the Top Stocks blogger held firm to the notion of print-and-paper books: “Doodling in the corners and turning the pages into a flipbook, alas, can still only be done in regular books.”

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Mar

6

Amazon’s Kessel: Customers Like Kindle’s Wireless Features

Filed Under Kindle, News, eReader | Leave a Comment

From Publishers Weekly comes a report on a presentation on the Kindle by Steve Kessel, Amazon’s vice president for Digital Media, at the annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers.

Amazon’s Kessel offered no numbers on the sale of Kindles, only noting that the company is “working hard” get the e-reader back in stock. While Amazon is shipping readers every week, “demand is still outstripping supply,” Kessel said. Customers favorite Kindle features are that it is wireless and can supply them books immediately, Kessel said.

Amazon is certain that Kindle e-book purchases are incremental rather than simply stealing sales from print editions. He said people have started to “Kindlize” their libraries, noting that one Kindle user bought over 800 e-books. He defended Amazon’s decision to sell most e-books at $9.99–a price that makes them lower than most print editions—as keeping with Amazon’s philosophy of offering the lowest prices possible.

Read the whole article here.