Comments on: Kindle and the Form of the Book

By: BJMe

BJMe — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:32:11 +0000

I haven’t commented upon Kindle so far because when I first glimpsed its mention on Amazon my eyes immediately darted elsewhere. Nothing against the process, per se, just something obviously not for me.

Trav is right about one thing, I am one of those people who still lust over vinyl — the sound of vinyl, that is. Old records are not things to touch and fondle, they are to be handle carefully and listened to only. As any audophile can tell you today, digital sound quality and sensory experience does not match that of 33 and 1/3 rpms. My older 78s don’t sound quite so good any more, but I admit that I do lust even more for their rare and beautiful musical arrangements.

I definitely recommend you not take Trav up on his bet. As the qualities and sensibilites of life continue to deteriorate (if you haven’t noticed that yet, it’s only a matter of time – that I will make book on), the increasingly digitalized and desensitized consumers of the future will still be happy, as well they should since they can only be what they are, with whatever remarkable new device they are handed. Despite whatever the loss of qualities and values they never know anyway.

By: adaptive path » blog » Peter Merholz » Fire up the Kindle!

adaptive path » blog » Peter Merholz » Fire up the Kindle! — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:06:06 +0000

[...] haven’t written much about Kindle here (After Kindle launched, I wrote about it and e-books in general on my personal site), but in conversations internally, we’re both intrigued and skeptical. We [...]

By: zeph

zeph — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:07:54 +0000

Perhaps Bezos bought the cover.

By: FEVZİ

FEVZİ — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:53:45 +0000

afjkahuıgnsdrkhlier

By: Trav

Trav — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:23:10 +0000

I wanted to try to disagree, but I went through your whole post and couldn’t find anything that could be called a falsifiable statement. “Kindle will never resonate the way iPod has” is not one.

Neither of us was around during the heyday of vinyl, but I imagine that’s how far back you have to go if you want to draw a comparison with music. I’m under the impression that people lusted over the records in their record collection, and the idea of ephemerally storing their music in cyberspace was just as distant as our notions of storing books there.

I’d make you a bet that within our natural lifetime, we undergo whatever conversion upon which you’re calling bullshit — but I can’t find a way to quantify it.

So I’m wondering if you can make a falsifiable statement. For example, are you saying that in every given future generation, more people will collect prose (permanent content involving page-turning?) in current book format than will collect it in some renewable generic-viewer format? I’d so take that bet.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:31:09 +0000

The difference between the Newsweek covers is that in 2004 ipod was already the biggest consumer electronics thing since dvds. And if Jobs has hairy knuckles like Bezos, they photoshopped them out.

By: Jason Fried

Jason Fried — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:30:32 +0000

Peter, I think you’re spot on with regard to newspapers and magazines. To me that’s the real interesting innovation here.

I love reading the paper, but I hate getting the paper. What an enormous waste of resources to get yesterday’s news. With the Kindle I wake up in the morning and the pixels are waiting for me.

This morning was my first morning with the Kindle. I read more of the NYT and WSJ than I have in years.