The Kindle DX won’t save the news industry, but that’s not the point: a guide to our coverage of e-readers
Amazon just unveiled a bigger, more expensive version of the Kindle that will, depending on whom you ask, “rescue newspapers” or just create “false hope.”
Though details weren’t immediately available, the new, $489 Kindle DX will be available at a subsidized price for those who buy digital subscriptions to The New York Times, Washington Post, or Boston Globe (where home delivery of the print edition isn’t available.) We’ve covered the Kindle and other e-readers extensively over the past six months. Here’s a guide to our coverage, including — after the jump — video from the E-Ink laboratory where the screens for these devices were developed:
In November, we revealed that The New York Times had “more than 10,000 paid subscribers” on the Kindle for revenue of roughly $1.7 million a year. (We also ranked how other newspapers were doing on the device.) In April, I covered plans by several major news organizations to repackage their multipart, investigative series into “digital newsbooks” for e-reader devices — but not the Kindle.
Meanwhile, Josh has written extensively about the Kindle’s potential to boost the news industry. (Magic Eight Ball version: “outlook not so good.”) His provocative column, “Why the Kindle will fail,” prompted some great discussion in the comments. More recently, he observed that the age demographics of Kindle owners is pretty similar to print newspapers. In presentations, one of Josh’s key points has been that the Kindle is “more valuable as a market divider than a value creator” because it separates out the small portion of readers who are willing to pay for content.
Finally, as promised, Ted got a tour of E-Ink headquarters and interviewed CEO Russ Wilcox, which he wrote about in February. Here’s the video he produced:
Photo of Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at today’s event, by Gizmodo.
I’m more than willing to pay for content and even more willing to pay for content that is advertising-free, but I would like to see Amazon better define ownership rights that come with Kindle media purchases. Moreover, I don’t see how this makes sense for someone who reads one or two daily newspapers and subscribes to a couple magazines. The break even point on the Kindle compared to print subscriptions is over two years, by which point the Kindle you bought will be obsolete and its extended warranty expired.
Steve Bezos hits the nail on the head in a letter to customers introducing the bigger Kindle on the front page of the Amazon Web site. This is why the e-reader is the future of newspapers, not Web sites and not smart phones. It’s about READING, not interactivity.
Dear customers,
A strange thing happened on the way to the paperless society. We humans created more paper than ever before. Computer printers (and their evil companion, the ink-toner cartridge) have proliferated, and most of us routinely prinnt out and lug around loads of personal and professional documents. Why? It’s not that buying printers or changing ink-toner cartridges is fun. It’s because reading on paper is better than reading on traditional computer displays. Printing has been worth the hassle.
Kindle starts to change that. People who see Kindle’s display for the first time do a double-take. It looks and reads like real paper.
Also, AT&T exec high on e-reader futures. See link below.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/how-the-next-kindle-actually-could-save-the-newspaper-business/2/
I certainly agree that the Kindle DX—or any e-reader—is unlikely to be the solution to the industry’s woes. But I do think there will be unintended consequences. Namely that, when faced with the prospect of shelling out not-insignificant sums for static black-and-white content on another $500 device, consumers might warm to the idea of paying for vivid, highly functional online content experiences—conveniently available on their existing computer. For more: http://tinyurl.com/pvea97
Paschal,
They might also warm to spending $24.95 for a beautifully illustrated art book with links to the computer experience.