{"id":766,"date":"2007-11-21T21:38:21","date_gmt":"2007-11-21T21:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/766"},"modified":"2007-11-21T21:38:21","modified_gmt":"2007-11-21T21:38:21","slug":"kindle-playing-the-game-backwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/766","title":{"rendered":"Kindle playing the game backwards?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My coworker Steve Savitzky has some interesting musings<\/a> on the Kindle, Amazon’s new ebook reader:<\/p>\n

\n

If you want everyone else’s opinion, see the links after the cut. Here’s mine: interesting play, but it’s in the wrong game.<\/p>\n

You see, Kindle is Amazon’s attempt at an iPod for books. They’re using what they hope is an elegant, convenient, and reasonably-priced piece of hardware (which I’d guess that they’re selling at pretty close to cost when you factor in the pre-paid data plan) to sell digital copies of books (which are fairly expensive considering all the atoms they don’t have to handle compared with their dead-tree counterparts).<\/p>\n

Apple, on the other hand, is using convenient access to an extensive collection of audio tracks (which they sell at pretty close to cost) to sell a particularly elegant and convenient, but overpriced, piece of hardware. Apple isn’t even in the hardware business, really: they understand that they’re in the fashion business, and have made it really easy for other companies to sell accessories for iPods.<\/p>\n

Hands up, who’s going to build fashion accessories for the Kindle? Don’t all speak at once… How many people are going to buy a Kindle for each of their kids? Is anybody going to let their kids loose on a piece of hardware that lets them buy books at $10\/pop at the click of a button? That’s what I thought.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sounds pretty spot-on to me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My coworker Steve Savitzky has some interesting musings<\/a> on the Kindle, Amazon’s new ebook reader:<\/p>\n

\n

If you want everyone else’s opinion, see the links after the cut. Here’s mine: interesting play, but it’s in the wrong game.<\/p>\n

You see, Kindle is Amazon’s attempt at an iPod for books. They’re using what they hope is an elegant, convenient, and reasonably-priced piece of hardware (which I’d guess that they’re selling at pretty close to cost when you factor in the pre-paid data plan) to sell digital copies of books (which are fairly expensive considering all the atoms they don’t have to handle compared with their dead-tree counterparts).<\/p>\n

Apple, on the other hand, is using convenient access to an extensive collection of audio tracks (which they sell at pretty close to cost) to sell a particularly elegant and convenient, but overpriced, piece of hardware. Apple isn’t even in the hardware business, really: they understand that they’re in the fashion business, and have made it really easy for other companies to sell accessories for iPods.<\/p>\n

Hands up, who’s going to build fashion accessories for the Kindle? Don’t all speak at once… How many people are going to buy a Kindle for each of their kids? Is anybody going to let their kids loose on a piece of hardware that lets them buy books at $10\/pop at the click of a button? That’s what I thought.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sounds pretty spot-on to me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}