Amazon Kindle - Libraries in the Palm of Your Hand

Wednesday November 21, 2007 • Leave a Comment 

I’m a self confessed gadget geek. I’ve been looking at eBooks off and on for a while, but have never purchased one. I’ve usually been put off by usability or the lack of availability of content. That changed yesterday when my new Amazon Kindle arrived on my doorstep.

The Kindle is a neat device. It’s light, about the size of a paperback book, and has an intuitive navigation interface. Best of all, there is no shortage of content. Amazon has “Kindle Editions” of more than 80,000 books, newspapers, blogs, and magazines available for purchase. Book prices range are $9.99 for best sellers and a bit less for older titles.

Kindle is unique in that it uses a cellular data network to download content. Amazon has dubbed this network “Whispernet”. Whispernet uses an internal EVDO data modem to communicate back to Amazon and download newly purchased titles. Downloads are quick and happen without user intervention. Amazon has bundled the cell service with the device. The user doesn’t need to have their own cellular data plan and the download charges are built into the purchase price of the books.

Gadgets are fun and all, but how does a device like this fit into the business world? Think about it. If you are anything like me, you have shelves and shelves of books. Manuals, reference books, business books, etc. I routinely run out of shelf space, both at home and in my office. Kindle promises to help me with that. For example, I’m intrigued by Josh Kaufman’s Personal MBA concept. Over the weekend, I found myself contemplating my home library wondering where I would put yet another set of books. Kindle offers an elegant solution. In fact Josh has already thought of that.

Like all technologies, Kindle has some shortcomings. Chief among them, in my opinion, is its inability to display PDF files. I have huge electronic libraries of PDF formatted documentation. While I appreciate Kindle’s ability to import HTML, text, Microsoft Word documents and the like, I was looking forward to liberating some of my system documentation from my laptop. Hopefully that will come in a later update to the service.

All in all, I’m finding Kindle to be a very usable device. If you travel a lot, or want to have a large reference library in the palm of your hand, Kindle is certainly worthy of consideration.