Comments on: Memo to Jeff Bezos

By: Cat Faber

Cat Faber — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:34:37 +0000

What I’d like to see from Amazon:

1) sell e-books that will display on any reader. Amazon has the biggest selection anyway–you don’t need to tie those books to a particular reader and untying them would actually *increase* your market so you’d sell more books.

2) sell Kindles that can use any kind of e-book. The Kindle has (in my opinion) plenty of advantages that make it the best reader around–long battery life, eye-friendly screen, the ability to look up words, take notes, search for terms across books and across the web and download new reading material without a computer–you don’t need to tie the Kindle to your great selection of e-books and untying it will increase your sales because it will open up the market of people who already have e-book libraries and who won’t buy a reader that can’t play what they’ve already paid for.

3) For god’s sake make some sort of folder organization possible for books. I love being able to carry hundreds of books in a cargo pocket, but it’s hard to find my stuff.

What I *don’t* want from Amazon.

1) don’t put in an LCD screen; those things make my eyes hurt after a while. If your heart is set on a “backlight” check out the new Sony for ideas.

2) don’t strip out the wireless; the ability to check the weather forecast while riding in a car is one of the things I love about the Kindle, not to mention I also love being able to download free public domain books when I’m half a continent away from my computer.

3) don’t strip out the keyboard; I love being able to search and annotate documents.

By: Rita

Rita — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:34:03 +0000

If you strip out the eink screen from the Kindle then it’s not worth purchasing. Backlit LCD is hard on my aging eyes and I went with eink because it’s easy on my eyes. I moved away from reading on a Palm because of blinding headaches and poor battery life. Eink screens are $$$, Sony and Amazon only have one supplier because it is proprietary. The screen is what it is. Until eink screens can be produced in far larger quantities, demand and price will stay high. You want a cheap ebook reader go buy an old Palm.

I don’t care for Kindle’s semi-closed system but have you ever heard of Apple? Seems to me they’re pretty closed, too. With the Kindle you are not restricted to buying books from Amazon. 95% of my books are from other sources both free and pay but all legal.

Want support for Epub? Download MobiPocket software and it will convert Epub to .prc or .mobi (can’t remember which) and the Kindle can read both. I’ve had success with the conversion.

I, too, read on my Touch but not that often. The small lit screen is fine for very short sessions but I far prefer my Kindle because it’s larger and doesn’t bother my eyes. I read the smallest font on it with ease.

What I would like to see is Amazon selling ebooks in more formats. They own MobiPocket so why not offer books in .mobi format? Amazon could charge more than they do for the .azw format if they wanted to do so. Heck it’s basically the same format as .mobi just tweaked a little. Or even sell books in epub so you could roll your own ebooks.

Don’t think that will happen as long as the Kindle keeps selling out.

By: Roger

Roger — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:59:06 +0000

Okay, children, 2009′s pledges will include no more whining and moaning about Jeff and his Kindle.

By: pond

pond — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:15:12 +0000

Yeah, #4 is the killer for me, too. Let’s strip out the extra stuff, and sell the Kindle for $99.

We can start with eInk screens. Let’s go back to the green-gray screen of the original Palm Pilot. 160×160 pixels, yeah, now we’re talking!

Next to go must be the subsidized wireless connection. Let readers go home, order from Amazon on their PCs, then d/l to the new Kindle.

The lower-powered screen and lack of wireless will mean that 1 or 2 AA-sized batteries will power it. So we can do without the costly Li-Ion batteries and charger. Heck, don’t even include the batteries. ‘Batteries not included.’

Maybe we can get the price down to $50, at that.

By: BookishReader

BookishReader — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:23:37 +0000

I’m with you, because of the Kindle proprietary software design, a lot of ebooks that can be read on the Sony are not in the Kindle program. Also, the high price of the device is what has kept me from getting one.

By: Jose Alvear

Jose Alvear — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:52:02 +0000

M
Maybe it’s the champagne talking but I think Bezos will read this and make it mandatory reading for all employees. Great points on all the innovative pricing models.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon actually implements some of these ideas.

By: Dallen

Dallen — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:23:39 +0000

Kindle is a bit bizarere to me, Who on earth wants to read black letters on a grey screen? It isd depressing, reads poorly and was designed by a moron who probably doesn’t read for pleasure, if at all.

A light parchment color with black lettrs would be an infinetely easier and more pleasant read, and a slight backlight would help a lot. As soon as someone markets this kind of screen I’ll be lined up to buy one as soon as it comes out, so will millions of other people.

Dallen

By: Offbeatmammal

Offbeatmammal — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:04:07 +0000

Good points, all of them.
I’ve wanted over the years to get somesort of ebook solution to stop the boxes of books taking over my life but never found technology that’s better than the real thing.
The Kindle is close but priced out of the water. If I could get every book I can buy via Amazon or walk into Borders on it then of course I’d make the switch.
If I could lend a book to a friend, or give it to them… then I’d make the switch
If I got a decent discount on the book (after all, there’s minimal production costs, no shipping and inventory beyond a few cents of bandwidth) so don’t make me pay that same as a hardback… then I’d make the switch

until then… sorry. Guess I’m not convinced