Does it follow that if content is going digital, then a product such as the Kindle, which makes this content portable, will likely be a great success?
My feeling is that portable reading devices will eventually become the norm, but it certainly won’t happen overnight, for several reasons. First and foremost, there is fundamentally nothing wrong with the paper book. People like books. They are used to them. Books don’t crash. They can be shared. I think the baby boomer generation will take a lot of convincing to move to electronic books. The advantages are negligible for the average casual reader. Second is the cost. The Kindle is being launched at $399, plus $9.99 for each book. That is a lot of paperbacks for little advantage. In addition, Amazon has decided to charge for a lot of information that is free on the Web, such as newspapers and blogs. Had they provided this information for free and just charged for books, they might have attracted the Web generation. As it is, early adopters will download the blogs and newspapers onto their smartphones and stick with paper books. “So as a Content Creator, Should I Ignore the Kindle?” No!
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