And yet...

And yet, the Kindle sold out within six hours of its initial release. It then sold out again last year, leaving Christmas shoppers high and dry. Analysts are predicting that the little reader will generate as much as $1.4 billion in sales by 2010, and Amazon's ever-expanding collection of e-books includes most current bestsellers. It has inspired numerous competitors, most of whom will be silenced by the release of the new Kindle model, which has more memory, a better display, and a more user-friendly design than its progenitor. Perhaps most importantly, the price hasn't changed.

For all these improvements, however, the Kindle only represents the bare beginnings of reader technology. In its way, it is the Model T, the Eniac, the first, clunky televisions of the late 1940's. For a glimpse at the next generation, one need look no further than the Plastic Logic. A super-light, super-thin reader, it has an 8 1/2" x 11" surface that enables users to enjoy magazines and newspapers in their original display ratios. With built-in wireless capability and a super long-lasting battery, it transcends many of the limitations that currently plague the competition.

Even the Plastic Logic, however, is only an early step in the evolution of this technology. It doesn't have color, and won't for a few years. The display, while cutting-edge, will undoubtedly improve in future generations, as will the accessibility of books and periodicals. Still, it is the first reader that offers a compelling alternative to traditional print media, and will likely be a huge seller when it is released in late 2009/early 2010.

I love books and magazines, which is part of why the reader revolution excites me. As newspapers become more expensive and declining sales threaten the publishing industry, electronic readers may offer the most compelling solution for saving the written word. While comforting, traditional paper-based media is also expensive to produce, distribute, and purchase. With newspapers and publishers facing bankruptcy and dissolution, it is hardly surprising that so many are embracing digital technology.

Movable-type printing has stood Western Civilization in good stead since 1455, when it replaced illuminated manuscripts, a more expensive, less efficient technology. Nowadays, traditional books are increasingly becoming undone by their own limitations: in addition to being expensive, they are also unwieldy; for a generation that has grown used to instantaneous searching, the idea of thumbing through a tome in search of a quote seems wasteful. What's more, with e-mail, texts, twitters, and chats making it incredibly easy to pass information from person to person, having to scan or retype a written page is almost a deal-breaker.

Readers offer publishers the opportunity to streamline their business models, while giving customers the chance to massively enhance their access to the written word. Perhaps most important, they can give the publishing industry its ticket to the future!