Kindle 2 for booknerds or gadgetheads?
You can’t swing a dead cat around the Internet today without reading all about Amazon’s Kindle 2. I find the buzz puzzling.
Essentially the Kindle is an e-book reader. Sure you can get some blogs and newspapers and such, but what they’re really trying to pimp is the ability to download and read any book you want, instantly! Here’s why I find this so puzzling, in 2007 only one in four US adults claimed to have not read a single book that year. Not one.
Sure, sure the NEA has reported that for the first time in a decade or so the percentage of adults reading “literature” (ironic air quotes intentional from the booknerd) is on the rise, but still, are these the people who are going to shell out $300+ for an e-book reader?
As I’ve mentioned before. I’m a booknerd. I know a lot of booknerds. None of them are clamoring for a way to carry their entire library with them all the time. Unlike music, it’s not like you can shuffle on to a new book every four or five minutes. Heck, most of the people I know can’t even start reading a new book until they have finished the last one.
I’m convinced the Kindle is purely a device for the gadgethead and not the booknerd. It makes me wonder if makes the gadgetheads actually use their Kindle to read books or is it something they get and play with for two weeks and then resign it to the scrap heap with all the other toys?
Besides, no booknerd in their right mind would spend $359 on a device to read books when they could spend that money on 25 actual books.
