Can the Amazon Kindle really become as mainstream as the iPod?
By Dave Parrack
How essential is your iPod or mp3 player in your life? I’m guessing its pretty high on the list of essential gadgets, but there could soon be another must-have device on that list – the Amazon Kindle. No, really.
When Apple first released the iPod, most people were perfectly content with their personal CD players, and didn’t see the need for a new-fangled device changing their long-held habits. IPods, as well as mp3 players in general, are now an almost-essential piece of technology for most people, with it being more odd for someone not to own one.
So as you sit there reading your favourite paperback with its broken spine and browning pages, you won’t feel the need for anything to replace the traditional book. But there is a viable alternative now on the market, and if early sales figures are anything to go by, it could be about to go mainstream in the same way as the iPod did.
The Amazon Kindle is a basically an electronic book reader. Once the device has been purchased, you can then download ebook versions of your favourite tomes from Amazon (for a price). Does that appeal to you? Yes, no, maybe? Well, enough people have been persuaded to forego the pleasure of buying and reading a real book to make one analyst predict a rosy future for the device.
According to Reuters, Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney told investors to buy shares in Amazon, mainly due to the better than expected sales figures for the Kindle. We recently reported on estimates putting Kindle sales at around the 240,000 mark. That seems to have been confirmed by an upping of the official sales estimates for 2008 from 190,000 to 380,000. Mahaney said:
Turns out the Kindle is becoming the iPod of the book world.
The iPod reference is because its been noted that first year sales of the Kindle are on a par with first year sales of the Apple iPod, and we know what happened next. So can the Amazon Kindle do for books what the iPod did for music: revolutionise the marketplace?
I wouldn’t actually bet against it. Prices will have to come massively down, but if that happens, I could well see many people preferring the simplicity of being able to carry their whole book collection around with them on an electronic device rather than lugging around a virtual library. Books will continue to sell, but then the iPod hasn’t killed off physical musical formats quite yet so the precedent is already there.
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August 12th, 2008
I think everyone is already carrying the iPod for books – their cell phone. If you have internet on your phone then with a few clicks you can find and install books from http://mobile.booksinmyphone.com If not they have some other install paths via a PC and an easier to browse site at http://www.booksinmyphone.com
The phone is old tech – but it’s small and always with you – I’d hate to go back to a book free phone.
January 6th, 2009
The Kindle will start to fizzle within 1 to 2 years as iPhone, Android and similar devices become mainstream. The trend is toward INTEGRATION (eg, ONE ultra-convenient handheld device to do it all). The Kindle will increasingly become viewed as just one more device to lug around.
If Amazon wants to maintain market share, it MUST make books available on other handheld devices for the majority who already–or soon will–realize the convenience of carrying one device.