Comments on: Does Kindle’s embrace of cell phones spell trouble for news orgs?

By: MichaelJ

MichaelJ — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:29:29 +0000

Bezos has said many times that the Kindle is designed for readers. As a reader, I have to say he’s got it just right.

What keeps being ignored is that readers are niche market.

Bezos has built his business by serving that niche market. The reality is that it is better to read on a Kindle, for many technical reasons having to do with the design of the appliance. Making content available on mobile phones will probably not affect the core market for the device.

By: Carlos

Carlos — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:50:49 +0000

I am quite annoyed with the way businesses market their product in order to make money and really not give a damn about the consumer. I have an ebook and as I travel alot they are great than carrying books with you. But, on Amazon, the demand you to buy a Kindle, you have to registe it on the Amazon site then you can purchase the books. What about people who already have a different ebook? They can’t purchase the books.

Well, I prefer not to purchase from Amazon because of this. Not giving people a choice!

By: Chris Kindle

Chris Kindle — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 09:24:34 +0000

Just came across your blog on Google. Interesting post, you bring up a few good things to think about. Good luck with the blog.

By: Why the Kindle will fail » Nieman Journalism Lab » Pushing to the Future of Journalism

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:00:36 +0000

[...] I wrote the other day, the distribution model behind the Kindle is much more likely to be a success. But I think [...]

By: Joshua Benton

Joshua Benton — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:39:06 +0000

We welcome the arguments, Rudolph! We don’t pretend to know all the answers.

I don’t argue or a minute that a Kindle is a better pure reading experience than a cell phone. But a print newspaper is a better pure reading experience than either, and we see where that’s going. I think the web shows people are willing to accept a lower-quality reading experience for a convenience. And for news, I think a cell phone is always going to be many times more convenient than a single-purpose device like a Kindle.

By: Rudolph

Rudolph — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:38:00 +0000

Joshua:

As this Time article points out (and as Martin Langeveld points out above), the experience of reading on an e-reader that uses e-ink is superior to the experience of reading on a Web site or on an iPhone.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1877161-1,00.html

This is an insight that Digital Immigrants bring from the Old World, and so it may not be as appreciated by Digital Natives who have grown up in the Web’s attention-deficit-disorder environment.

People who appreciate this difference are willing to pay for content on an e-reader, even though they can get the content for free on a Web site or on an iPhone.

Because the reading experience is superior on the e-reader, newspapers have a competitive advantage in today’s content oversupplied world in the e-reader format than they don’t have in the Web site format or the iPhone format.

For this reason, newspapers should strive to drive readers to the e-reader format.

The industry should immediately cut deals to sell e-readers that come bundled with newspaper subscriptions.

Another way to drive readers to the e-reader format is to start charging for content on a Web site. This provides an incentive for readers to buy their content through an e-reader (or stick with print, where most of the money is still being made).

The discussion about whether newspapers should charge for content online often focuses on the disincentive of the reader having to pay for what he’s been getting for free.

But charging for online content also provides an incentive to buy the print product or buy the content on an e-reader.

The post below by Edward J. Dulaney is spot on. His line of reasoning is what newspapers should be concentrating on.

By the way, it’s really cool that I get to argue with you Harvard types since I’m not anywhere close to being in your league.

By: Joshua Benton

Joshua Benton — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:29:56 +0000

David: More than 10,000 people already pay that ($14 a month, actually) for the NYT. Somewhere in that neighborhood for the WSJ, and lesser amounts for other papers.

By: David Hakala, Denver, CO

David Hakala, Denver, CO — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:28:30 +0000

“the newspaper hope for the Kindle is that people will be willing to pay $10 a month (or so) to subscribe to their news on the device.”

Are you SERIOUS??? BWAH HA HAHAHAAA! Why would I pay ten bucks a month for something I can’t even wrap fish in? A Kindle device is no more portable than a newspaper.

By: Martin Langeveld

Martin Langeveld — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:25:09 +0000

Before Kindle, there were phones and there were computers. Kindle has wedged itself in there with a separate device for separate purposes, and despite the criticisms of 1.0, it has carved out a good niche that will continue to grow, because the experience is different enough from a phone experience. They sold maybe 250,000 1.0s, of which more than 10,000 got NYT subs. NYT was available on phones during the entire time those subs were sold. If they can sell 2.5 million 2.0s and 25 million 3.0s, NYT could see 100,000 and then 1 million subs in those stages. Close to 200 million iPods have been sold, so 25 million Kindle 3.0s (or equivalent e-readers) is feasible. Bezos’s pronouncement that he wants every book ever printed to be available makes clear the scope of their ambitions.

By: HereAndNow

HereAndNow — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:21:31 +0000

Magazines should still do OK in this model. I can imagine subscribing to Business Week or Rolling Stone, etc. to get a packaged product I could read on my device on the weekend or while traveling.

I think it is the “packaging” that the news organizations need to focus on, to make subscriptions more compelling.