The Kindle – only a threat to books, not newspapers?
October 19, 2009 by Douglas Chalmers
Amazon's Kindle reader
That certainly seems to be the view of BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. Trying out Amazon’s new Kindle ‘moving global, but still only available from the USA’, he found it very easy to use: “Plug it in, charge it, download your first book and you’re away. Then subscribe to a digital edition of a newspaper and it is wired to you in the morning, via the Kindle’s “whispernet” 3g connection.”
He believes that its strong point is its integration with the Amazon store and suggests they are looking to Apple’s iTunes as an example of what can be done using download technology.
He was impressed with the experience of it all: “When I started reading, it felt pretty close to the paper experience. There’s no glare on the Kindle’s screen, so you get simple black text on a cream background, with just enough added bells and whistles. You can make digital notes, search the text, and, if you fall asleep with the book on your face as is my wont, it will remember which page you were on when you turn it on again.”
Having said this, he doesn’t believe that newspapers should feel under threat, the way way book sellers eventually might. This is because reading a book is an ‘analogue’ experience (he probably meant ‘linear’), starting at page one and continuing till the finish. “A newspaper, on the other hand, is more random, more interactive. I scan the sections and leap from one article to another, much as I do on the web. That’s what is already available to me – for free – on newspaper websites, so why would I pay for a less satisfactory digital newspaper?”
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