
Is this the death of paper books?
This week,
Amazon (NASDAQ:
AMZN) unveiled its new e-book reader, the
Kindle. As Beth Gaston Moon reported in her
preview, the 10.3 ounce hand-held reader will retail for $399.
I had great hopes for this device, not the first to market but certainly the best. The type appears crisp, promising to be as readable as paper print. The home run here for Amazon is the content delivery system. Through an arrangement with Sprint, Amazon will deliver content to the Kindle on demand anywhere within Sprint cell network coverage, without the need to be a Sprint customer.
Other positives for marketing the device include the availability of newspaper and blog feeds via the same network, as well as free access to Wikipedia and a built-in dictionary. A high-capacity battery and the ability to expand memory via an SD card are also good selling points.