SDR News

Get Ready for Slower Kindle Growth

It looks like in spite of the economy that you better be a voracious reader to get much benefit from the Amazon Kindle e-paper reader, at least from the economically rational perspective.

ZD-NET's analysis showed that unless you are a student buying groups of very expensive textbooks semester by semester, you would have to read six books per month to get past the breakeven cost of the Kindle and the lower priced best seller books from Amazon.  I have to admit that the hardware is attractive and the geekiness factor even more so - but a quick check of the 401K today convinced me that there is a lot of library time in my future before the Kindle gets much play in my household.

As alternatives such as Boxee emerge that give much of the first run over the air entertainment to the flat screen, and as Netflix/Roku take the heavy lifting for long form entertainment, the times when the book is the preferred delivery mode (on long flights, commuting or on the back porch) point pretty firmly back to the traditional printed page.

Plus, with outlets such as the Green Valley BookFair in the family orbit there's the opportunity to carefully load up on a half year's supply at a time, share among family and friends, and then donate to the library when done.