Kiss the Kindle goodbye?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 
Jeff Bezos holding the new Kindle.I’ve said it before—I’m no fan of the Kindle. Not because I think it heralds the death-knell of publishing as we know it, because I don’t. I actually like the idea of a Kindle, I just think it’s painfully a 1.0 tech product. (I know there’s a NEW and improved Kindle, but come on, it’s really more of a 1.1, than a 2.0).
In the sense of full-disclosure, I am a Mac guy (I met John Hodgman in Miami last week, oddly enough, and he’s a Mac guy too). So I will pay a little extra for design and functionality. That being said, the Kindle just bores me. It feels sterile. Or as Sherman Alexie put it, “The Kindle is like masturbating with a condom.”
Plus, I have a lot of love in my heart for indie bookstores, so owning a Kindle would be like working for Chevy and driving a Toyota to work—it just doesn’t feel right.
But things are changing. eBook sales are spiking. And while we aren’t quite through the looking glass, we’re certainly becoming aware of a whole new world taking shape on the other side of the mirror.
And it’s starting with the Nook, Barnes & Noble’s eReader, which does look and smell like a 2.0 product. And while the Nook isn’t a game-changer by itself, B&N’s 700 brick & mortar locations are. While Amazon is selling a product you don’t even get to touch until it arrives on your doorstep (which is why they call it a service), B&N is actually merchandising the Nook. Think of it this way, iPod sales didn’t explode because of the online Apple store, but because of kiosks in Target and Wal-Mart. Like it or not, B&N is going to put a lot of Nooks beneath a lot of Christmas trees this year.
Suddenly Amazon looks naked without a merchandising partner, something they'll need going head-to-head with the Nook. But they won’t get one because their business model has alienated their brick & mortar competitors.
Then again, in a parallel universe, they could partner with indie stores, selling a new Kindle (Let’s call it 3.0) at thousands of retail locations, sharing the revenue of those Kindles and future eBook downloads with those retailers—more co-op than multi-level marketing, but you get the idea. Not a replacement for real books, because real books are irreplaceable, but another platform in the credible locations they need.
Crazy idea. I know. The parties involved would never do it. And in the meantime, the Nook is going to kill the Kindle. Until the next product, whatever that is, or until they adopt the wireless phone business model: providing the device for free as long as you buy a certain number of books.
** Did you just feel that chill in the air? **
Don’t say I didn’t warn you…
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Reader Comments (8)
As for the Kindle, I honestly don't think there would ever be a time I could see myself buying one. I don't really care what awesome geeky coolness they come up with to make it more appealing (and for the record, I'm a compu geek by trade...well, besides writing, that is). I just cannot possibly see giving up the pleasure I get from a physical book.
Now if they gave the device away for free...nah, still not good enough.
Disclaimer: I'm a former Amazon employee and still love them dearly (though I only know of a couple of former coworkers still with the company).
To me, the Nook is an interesting introduction to the ebook market, and I'm glad to see it, but it doesn't seem to be much of a real game changer except that it seems to be a REAL Kindle competitor and not just a similar e-reader device like the Sony ones (it's really just a B&N Kindle, it's not a different enough device like the iPod was related to other MP3 players).
I see two main things going on here.
A) the e-reader market is an odd one. You've got a smattering of older individuals who will like the features (convenience and text resizing and such) and want one (the larger group A), and a smattering of technologist fans who will want one (smaller but spendy group B). Group B is more likely going to end up in Kindle camp. Group A is going to be split between the two camps I'd guess. Amazon and online shopping are no longer "new-fangled" and so a lot of grandmas who are book lovers are already on Amazon and Kindle has mind-share there. The Nook is apparently buying into the Kindle price-point plan (for device and book prices) and mainly trying to compete on the "We have stores" front... which I don't think is necessarily the best option for them. It's a Chevy vs Ford sort of competition and not a Porsche vs Ford one (which is where Apple makes its mark, being BETTER, not just an alternative)
B) Amazon probably should (if they want to "win" the eBook race) pair up with somebody with store fronts, and if it's going to happen the most likely pairing is going to be with Apple I'd imagine. I don't think the Kindle (or the Nook) is polished enough to be an Apple product yet (Kindle 1.0 felt like a Beta device, the current Kindles, the Nook, and Sony devices all seem more like 1.0 - 1.2 devices), but Amazon and B&N have done something interesting with giving away a Kindle reading app for the iPhone, and now the PC in Beta and Mac app coming up for the Kindle (Nook has them already I think). That critical mass of owning enough mp3...err... ebooks that it makes it worth having a special device for them is a likely tipping point.
I think whoever gets the publisher to start selling "e-copy with hard copy" bundles (like the DVD w/ Blu-Ray & Digital copy bundles) will really gain the advantage. I can see a model of instead of that new HB being $9 from Amazon, you can get it for $16 but it comes with an e-copy you can start reading right now on your computer or Kindle. Amazon is uniquely positioned to do that AND to have an "instant upgrade" option for somebody who has ordered a ton of books to be able to pay an extra $3-4 for each of the ones in their library to be available on their Kindle.
Not A or B)
There is also the factor of the mythical Apple Tablet Device that has been rumored the last couple years and is supposedly going to be the real Kindle Killer. That said, I think the Kindle/Nook with their wireless delivery and $10 book price point are FAR closer to what the public wants than the early MP3 players were as it compared to the iPod.
e-books are SO interesting to me because it is a chance to see if the Publishing industry can avoid all the foibles of the Music and Movie industries when it comes to digital content. I don't think there is nearly the chance that books will disappear as much as CDs will, but the market is certainly going to change, and figuring out how to do it is going to be interesting.
Incidentally, I also think that B&N has probably done more to kill the local indie-bookshop than Amazon has.
BTW a fascinating piece on the future of the indie store is: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/11/local-bookstores-social-hubs-and-mutualization/
I've had an iBook for 5-6 years now and LOVE my Mac... but when I finally replace it I'm probably going to have to go with a Netbook for size/convenience/ PRICE. I'm a geek and know how to maintain a windows PC (though I'll probably make my netbook mostly used as a Linux machine for my purposes), and it's tough to justify spending $900+ on the cheapest possible Mac laptop vs $300 on a netbook that will serve 90%+ of my needs (it is for writing, surfing, and occasional text based coding in html/css/etc). My hope is to spend the difference on a PC laptop for my son (who needs it for school stuff) and possibly on a Mac Mini to use at home.
If it's your bread and butter and you're not a geek comfortable with doing your own tech support I'd almost ALWAYS recommend the Mac if you can afford it (and let's face it, most people are spending enough on a fancy cell phone and extra coverage to make up the difference in cost in just a couple months... and if you're using it for WORK, it's worth it to have something that WORKS).
As I was doing stock signings everywhere, it was interesting to watch the Nook roll out into stores. It doesn't seem to be a vastly superior product to the Kindle, but it is "out there"...in the face of consumers.
Borders has a small kiosk with the Sony reader, but it's easy to miss and not really pushed the way B&N is pushing the Nook everywhere you look in stores, online, in mailings etc. It just makes the Kindle's PR/Marketing push look flaccid...
Still not sold on either. They still need a color screen mode, a touch screen, an accelerometer so you can tilt the screen and read horizontally, etc. So many gaping holes in the tech side of the product.
Plus, I love real books. So the whole thing is... meh...
As to marketing, I know I'm not the usual market, but I had seen my first Kindle TV advert (been showing up all the time) before I realized the Nook had moved past a concept piece.
My usual book consumption pattern is:
1) Library (weekly visits)
2) Amazon (daily visits thanks to their random sales and the mp3 store)
3) Borders (one within walking distance of work and right beside my bank branch... BAD combo for my budget)
4) Local Indies/Used stores (generally once a month or two I go to one of two local used book stores to shop around).
5) B&N (many nearby, rarely the most convenient for me to stop at)...
All that pattern means is that I'm really unlikely to buy anything ebook format unless it's purely for research (I've paid amazon a couple extra bucks for a digital copy of something I was ordering for research just so I could win an argument sooner). But when the device costs come down to the $99 range AND a way to port over existing books makes itself workable OR I can pay a pittance per book (like a rental fee, since I'm only renting the information and not owning anything tangible) then I'll be the market.
And just to throw more info on the fire...
http://ireaderreview.com/2009/11/15/kindle-sales-explode-for-random-house-2-9-to-22-6-million/
Kindle book Sales for Random House were $22.6M in September, up from $2.9M a year before... That's not a huge chunk of their total revenue, but it's not a nothing chunk either.
Anyway....
I like the idea of the Nook better than the Kindle. However, none of these eReaders are even something I'll consider until I can use them to get eBooks from the library. I generally only buy books that are by authors I love or if it's a book I read at the library first and want to read over and over again. Otherwise, it would be a waste of $250 for me to get a device I would hardly use.