Google getting into book selling is a much bigger deal
Google getting into book selling is a much bigger deal. Fictionwise’s current meltdown where they apparently can’t even report and pay royalties on time or properly is a big deal given their size in the eBook market and number of publishers involved. The fact that you don’t even need a Kindle reader to buy and read Kindle books seems seldom mentioned. (A free Kindle reader app is available for iPhone/iPod Touch and there are millions more of those out there than Kindle hardware.)
Now another pundit tells us that Kindle must change, or die, in 3 years. Kindle is excellent for its intended uses. It’s purpose built to provide eBook reading in a thin format with a very readable screen in bright light, weeks’ long battery life, limited browsing, multiple formats, bookmarking, annotation, and sharing the book across multiple devices, and no-worries wireless connection. Also, lots of books available for it from the biggest bookseller on the planet. It’s hard to see who is going to beat out that combination easily in the near future. I’d just as quickly predict the iPod demise as the end of Kindle.
Where do I see Kindle in 3 years? Cheaper, if production catches up to sales. Better browsing and better integration of its features into other formats (e.g. annotations on PDFs). Content (e.g. Newspapers) delivered to it by subscription replacing dead tree physical delivery. Or possibly limited to a hardware niche market while their reader software is running on every significant portable device with a screen large enough to read on.
One way or another “Kindle” survives as a brand as long as Amazon doesn’t abandon it themselves and keeps developing the product.
My personal opinion? That the people predicting Kindle’s demise are the ones who hate it in the first place and are trying to talk it away.
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