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By Joe Wikert

joewikert Amazon is wasting its time on the Kindle initiative if you believe Liz Gunnison’s article published via the Wired’s site. It’s typical of so many other short-sighted articles.

"Designing the game-changing e-reader, it seems, is more like designing the game-changing harpsichord than the iPod," she concludes.

Ah, the ever-present iPod reference! I continue to tip my hat to Steve Jobs & Co. for the incredible imagework they’ve done with the iPod, iPhones and iTunes. Jobs has converted Apple from a computer company into an enormously successful consumer brand. That’s pretty hard to do. Just ask Microsoft. I’m sure they’d love to pull off the same trick. But back to the iPod comparison. Yes, the iPod and Kindle are not on the same scales when it comes to unit sales. It’s not even close. But does that mean the Kindle will never be a huge success?

VCR parallel

image Anyone who was around in the ’70′s and ’80′s probably remembers the dawn of the VCR. The first one I saw was in the late ’70′s at my high school. They were big, bulky and incredibly expensive, but worth the investment for a school. Shortly thereafter the prices came down to the sub-$1,000 level. That’s when I noticed a neighbor or two splurging on them for home use. I bought my first VCR in 1983 for $500. Five hundred bucks! I’d hate to see what that works out to in today’s dollars after adjusting for inflation.

It seems like 1983 or 1984 was when VCRs really started to take off, even in the $300-$500 price range. But that was at least 3 or 4 years after they were first available to the general public. I don’t know how many hundreds of millions have been sold since, but I’ll bet everyone would agree that the platform was a huge hit (desipte the fact that it’s given way to DVDs and DVRs).

My point? I think the Kindle is likely to follow the VCR adoption curve. Early adopters have jumped aboard. 240,000 units to date, if that number is valid, isn’t anything to be ashamed of. But that’s for a $350 device, similar to the days of $1,000 VCRs. I can’t wait to see how this market evolves when Amazon introduces new devices at more mass market pricing levels. In the meantime, let’s enjoy the VHS vs. Beta debate (Amazon vs. Sony) and look forward to the day when millions of these are in use around the globe.

 
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