Allen WeinerThis is a story whose draft plot has all the makings of a thriller. Add up these story arcs and see what you come up with:
*Amazon’s Kindle and Kindle 2 are gaining early signs of traction in the e-reader marketplace selling, by some estimates, around 300,000 units
*The Kindle (a single function device) is expensive at $379, lessening the likelihood it will be a widely popular consumer device
*The Kindle is pretty good for books, but is poor for reading newspapers and magazines
*Book, newspaper and magazine publishers and distributors are getting nervous about Amazon’s power, so they are working on devices of their own to compete with Amazon as well as provide better newspaper and magazine reading experience. Include Hearst and Barnes & Noble in this mix
*Apple is rumored to be making a device that may or may not be a new iPhone that facilitates online reading experiences
*The Kindle App for the iPhone is among the hottest Apps for the device
*Newspapers are closing their doors left and right (the Boston Globe appears to be next)
*Consumer magazine ad lineage is down
*Amazon is holding a press event on May 6th to announce a new device that is rumored to be better for newspapers, magazines and textbooks. (Thus making my new purchase a paperweight)
*And…The media (that is really press and bloggers) has proclaimed e-readers to be the story du jour
How will this movie end? Here’s a hint: given that consumer adoption of any of this has yet to take hold in any meaningful way, I’d say the story shows promise, but the third act is still a work in progress.
Category: Mobile Newspapers Publishing blogging economy Tags: Amazon, e-readers, Kindle, magazines, Newspapers, Publishing
2 responses so far ↓
1 Jay May 5, 2009 at 9:58 am
Having looked at this technology for a long time (since the initial Sony reader was announced, we even have a handful of the 2nd generation, American-market versions of these), I have concluded this is a product in search of a market.
Gartner would know better than I, but is $300-$400 really where these devices have to be priced to make them (semi-) profitable? In an age where you can carry around 2000 songs on a $100 MP3 player, and an extremely capabale iPhone is $199 and bottom-end laptops can be had for $399, is a $379 single-purpose device really something that has mass market appeal?
The answer is no. Until the manufacturers can solve this, no one’s buying.
2 Allen Weiner May 5, 2009 at 10:55 am
Jay, I agree.
This is the path we are taking in some of our current research.