Amazon and Kindle: The Big Picture
Amazon, one of the world’s largest online retailers of physical products, is embracing digital content in each of Amazon’s original core product ranges (books, CDs, and DVDs).
Amazon now has an online movie download shop with unboxed, a DRM-free mp3 digital music shop, and now an ebook shop and device with Kindle.
This is big.
But there’s one important caveat: Unlike Amazon’s international retail presence, Amazon’s digital content shops are US-focused. None of the above are available in Europe. This gives Amazon’s rivals time to watch, learn and react, possibly with something better.
Other thought: why is it right for Amazon to drop DRM from legal music sales, but equally correct for Amazon to rely upon DRM for movies and ebooks? Especially, if different DRM systems hinders consumers, and means that ebooks bought from Amazon-owned Mobipocket will not work with Kindle?
I wonder what the Kindle may do to libraries and our concept of the book. Will our children have a completely different understanding of the word “text.” I found a good discussion on the matter at pandalous. It’s here: http://www.pandalous.com/topic/is_the_world_ready_for
Annie
July 27, 2009 at 1:00 am
I suspect children already have a different understanding of text, because of the web, because of TV, and because of everything else digital.
In many ways Kindle is trying to turn back the clock by creating a new way of reading legacy documents, rather than embracing what digital offers.
Kindle should be as good for books as for websites, rather than offering web browsing and blog subscriptions as a poorly implemented afterthought.
Ian Fogg
July 29, 2009 at 8:58 pm