It should be noted, though, that Bezos is keeping sales figures close to the vest. He doesn't want to give away too much in terms of stats, so who knows exactly how well the Kindle brand is doing. But the device received a price cut last week, and that is an interesting little tell in terms of the viability of the technology. In fact, one friend of mine is hoping the price continues to drop below $349 because he is bullish on buying one. I never thought I'd hear anyone in my circle even mention this thing in casual conversation.

While the Simon & Schuster vote of confidence shows that Amazon is on the right track with the Kindle, I still am reticent about its ultimate future. I see the platform as more of a showcase for shorter technical documents that don't need to be stored in print format to be fully enjoyed. Also, short stories and/or novellas that might be hard to place in literary markets also would be of great value to Kindle.

Jeff Bezos has got an interesting technological experiment on his hands, and while I know that I will always read novels the old-fashioned way, I'm willing to bet Kindle still has at least some growth ahead of it.

Disclosure: I don't own shares in any company mentioned here; positions can change at any time.