Purchase Kindle Amazon

Here is a good discussion on the new Kindle Amazon from students and professors at the University of Pennsylvania. Amazon announced the launch of an e-book device called Kindle. It weighs 10.3 ounces, costs $399 and can download books in less than 60 seconds. It acknowledged upfront that the e-book landscape is crowded with other efforts, most of them unsuccessful, but Bezos thinks that he has a winner. Kindle lets users download many new books for $9.99 and it can be used without a computer -- offering instead a free high-speed wireless data network from Sprint. It can also download newspapers, magazines and blogs for a fee, can store up to 200 books, uses an eye friendly screen and lets readers increase the type size as needed. So, what's not to like?

We asked marketing professor Peter Fader, Don Huesman, senior director of information technology and management professor Dan Raff to give us their reviews of Kindle. In the interest of full disclosure, we would like to note that Knowledge@Wharton's content is available on Kindle.

An edited version of the transcript follows:

Knowledge@Wharton: So, Pete, Dan and Don: Will Kindle be a best seller or is it doomed to flop, like most other e-book efforts before it?

Fader: Well, how about something in between? I think that this is a great move for Amazon per se. Maybe they won't sell out of these things, but the fact that we're having this conversation; the fact that they are getting some buzz about it, the fact that they've found a way to integrate this hardware technology with what they do -- selling books -- and reminding people that they are a big online book store -- and can add value to readers in ways that other book stores can't - I think that's all terrific.
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How much money will they make off of it - off of this device, per se? Not much. But, maybe the subscription service... there are other ways of making people more engaged with the things that they sell -- I think that it can be successful.

Raff: It has striking elements of continuity with Amazon's initial operation strategy. As a business, the great problem of retail book selling over the entire history of the American Republic has been having the retailers investing in inventory, which the customers who come to them don't want, in hopes that someone will eventually walk into the store looking for just that book.

In the very beginning, Amazon had physical possession and ownership of only a tiny fraction of the total number of titles it sold. It was essentially an attempt to run a retail business in books without running inventory risk. And, again, this is a way of selling book content without actually owning a lot of physical books.

Huesman: I've very skeptical of the physical device itself; a limited purpose, relatively bland, uninteresting handheld device doesn't seem to me to be compelling in today's market. On the other hand, there are two hidden gems here. One of course is the force and personality of Bezos himself, who is on the short list of people who could legitimately claim to have invented e-commerce in the first place.

But in addition to that is the subscription service which I think is very interesting in a lot of dimensions. The concept that you could have [and Bezos hopes to put into play] access to any book, both in print and out, within 60 seconds, in your hands, is interesting. The ability for any subscription service to The Wall Street Journal or for The New York Times to appear in a device that's handheld is also interesting. Much of this has already been available of course, through existing handheld devices. I get news regularly on my BlackBerry. People can read 20,000 titles on their iPhone's today. So, I don't think that the marriage to the device... I see the point of it - but I don't see that as a long-term sustainable approach.

Knowledge@Wharton: Let's turn to your point about Bezos. It's absolutely true that when he launched Amazon.com, Bezos reinvented the Book Store. But now he is trying to reinvent the book. Is he insane or is he just incredibly innovative?

Huesman: Well, he certainly is incredibly innovative. I do think however, that this particular device doesn't show that innovation. It has a single use; it doesn't have the collection of features that would make people want to carry around an additional device, I don't think, in their briefcase, after an initial flurry of interest in the device - just for its innovative side.

So, I do think that in the longer run the real value that he has and the interesting thing to exploit is this relationship with authors and with titles. And, I'm looking forward to what's next [at least what I'm expecting to happen] when the device fails.

Fader: In some sense, Bezos is giving people what they want. They want digital content. They want to have 'it' - whatever it is, when they want it, where they want it. While it is possible to do some reading on a BlackBerry, it's not quite the same thing. So, whether or not this device will bring digital content to the next generation, who knows? At least though, it means that we are moving there and that it will be more important for other devices to deliver the goods, in a better way than current devices have done so.

Raff: And to pick up on another point, that was just raised. You can see the appeal of such a device, such a distribution channel to publishers, publishers of books, publishers of newspapers -- all of whom would like to have readier access to willing consumers of their goods.

And, this will enable demanders to have much easier access than they would if they were to simply rely on bricks and mortar sorts of sources, news stands which only ever have today's papers....If you go away for Thanksgiving, you miss the news.

This really brings libraries, major library scale collections of books and periodicals and so forth, within very easy access. And, maybe people won't want to slip such a thing into their pocket. But you can easily imagine them slipping it into their suitcase as they pack for a trip.

Knowledge@Wharton: Bezos told The Wall Street Journal that "Kindle is designed for people who really love reading." How many people are there out there who really do love reading, is that number dwindling and are they really more interested in being on the social networking sites and playing games?

Raff: Well, if you've been reading the newspapers recently, you'll be aware that that number is in secular decline. On the other hand, it's probably concentrated in parts of the income distribution that are willing to pay for content.

Fader: I think that people are interested in reading or at least having content brought to them. Who's to say what the next generation of this device is once this kind of device converges with other digital doodads to bring content to people in places where they weren't reading the content, because it was inconvenient or they were busy with other things. Now, maybe I'd rather read the paper than write postings on other people's Facebook walls, or something like that. And so, I think it levels the playing field a little bit. It doesn't necessarily stop the decline, but slows it down.

Huesman: And I would also discount some of the reports about the decline in reading. To some extent, it is reminiscent of the discussions about the decline in serious news, because of the decline in newspapers. In truth, I think the generations younger than I get their news from a multiplicity of sources, not just the evening news and not just newspapers, but from blogs, from RSS feeds, from text messaging. And, I think that in many ways a lot of reading happens in that format as well.

One of the things that I think is interesting in this sort of emerging model that Amazon is playing with is the possibility of seeing that sort of diversity in distribution of fiction and in what we would have traditionally turned to a hardback book for, through additional streams. For instance, I found it very interesting that I would be able to get a chapter of virtually any book that Amazon currently provides, available in my hands now, at no charge, for sampling. I think that this is very reminiscent of some of the things that we have seen in the digital music sphere in that regard.

Raff: If I were the manager of a local public library system, I would read these articles about the Kindle device with some alarm, because part of what this device will mean is that people don't have to wait in the queue to get the book from the library, if that was how they're going to read it.

Knowledge@Wharton: You mentioned

Product Overview

Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.

Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.

Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle-whether you're in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.

Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.

More than 120,000 books available, including more than 98 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers.

New York Times® Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes-all auto-delivered wirelessly.

Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times-all auto-delivered wirelessly.
More than 300 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN's Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post-all updated wirelessly throughout the day.

Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.

Holds over 200 titles.

Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones-so you never have to locate a hotspot.

No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments-we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read.

Includes free wireless access to the planet's most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia-Wikipedia.org.

Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.
Included in the box: Kindle wireless reader, Book cover, Power adapter, USB 2.0 cable

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