EVERY TIME I OPEN Amazon.com, I'm reminded of the phenomenal success of the third-generation Kindle. Amazon's front page declares it is the best-selling product in Amazon’s history, for many good reasons. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made a couple of statements about the new Kindle, emphasizing the product’s low price point as the key to its success and downplaying tablets as competition. “We’re seeing that many of the people who are buying Kindles also own an LCD tablet. Customers report using their LCD tablets for games, movies, and web browsing and their Kindles for reading sessions,” Bezos said. That would also be the story in our household where our three-year-old wants the iPad to colour, play instruments on Garage Band, or watch videos. In my anecdotal experience, I see more Kindles on trains and buses throughout Ireland than iPads. Although that might mean that iPads and other tablets haven’t hurt Kindle’s sales, it might also mean that people without cars can't afford iPads. I'll have to get a Kindle before the start of the next semester because I want to ensure our fourth year creative multimedia students at LIT-Clonmel can convert electronic text to ePub, manage an electronic bookshelf and share reflective comments learned through the use of e-ink. I also want to take a Kindle into Mikey Ryan's pub, exposing it to the glares of pub goers inside and the threat of diving crows outside in the beer garden. This rigourous ePub session will be even more mesmerising if it's complemented by Liam Noonan's Kindle comments at the table. Check back for the results of this compelling field test.
Amazon's Kindle is available from fine online vendors worldwide.
