After the explosive hype around Amazon’s launch of the Kindle, things have gone kinda quiet on the new e-book reader, with the exception of reports on shipping delays last month. So are people buying the Kindle? Are they using it? Are they liking it?
I can’t answer any of those questions, but I can relate one Kindle user’s experience. A certain unnamed relative of mine received a Kindle last Christmas. She’s not a techie. She’s not using the Kindle to keep up with RSS feeds or for most other Web uses related to the Whispernet connection. She’s using it to read books. Lots and lots and lots of them. And she loves it.
Said relative is the kind of customer Amazon must covet for the Kindle. Recently we talked about buying a pair of books and then exchanging them next time we saw each other. I went out and bought my book in short order, but she decided she couldn’t wait and ordered the book for her Kindle that day. Turns out she already had a hard copy too! It’s a good thing Amazon warns users when they’re about to re-purchase an e-volume.
I could regain half the real-estate in my house if we ditched real books for their electronic versions. It’s not likely to happen any time soon, but clearly the Kindle is a good substitute for some book junkies. And if anyone reads books in the next generation – the truly digital, but also ADD generation – the Kindle is proof against Sony that e-reading has a promising future… delivering instant gratification.
