Kindle

Amazon's website for the Kindle
 
Sales figures:
Amazon doesn't release sales figures so the best we have are estimates:
2007 - 189,000 units
2008 - 380, 000 units
 
Comparing the Kindle to other com tech devices first year sales:
Nintendo Gameboy (1997) - 2.8 million
Blackberry (1999) - 165,000
iPod (2001) - 376,000
iPhone (2007) - 5.4 million
 
Kindle book sales
Amazon says that currently, for books available on the Kindle, sales are 35% of the same books in print
in other words, if a hard copy sells 10,000 units, the Kindle version would sell 3,500 units
 
Price wars! Walmart, Amazon and others going to $9.95 for most best seller hardcovers
Unique content - Stephen King's "Ur"
 
Legal issues:
1. copyright
"text to speech feature"
is this a new performance right that requires copyright clearance?
or is this the equivalent of "reading aloud?"
March of 2009, Amazon backs off and says it's up to the publisher.
 
2. content control
George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm"
 
from the Associated Press, July 18th, 2009

NEW YORK —  A pirated e-book of "1984" led to an Orwellian moment for Kindle customers.
Users of Amazon.com's e-reader device were surprised and unsettled over the past day to receive notice that George Orwell works they had purchased, including "1984" and "Animal Farm," had been removed from their Kindle and their money refunded.
It was conspiracy time on the Internet. Big Brother's revenge? Pressure from the publisher? No, says an Amazon spokesman — the deletion of pirated copies that had been posted to the Kindle store.
"These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third party who did not have the rights to the books," spokesman Drew Herdener said Friday.
"When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances.
 
The Orwell ordeal highlighted two concerns in the virtual world — that a book already paid for and acquired can be revoked by the long arm of an e-tailer (the Kindle operates on a wireless connection that Amazon ultimately controls); and the difficulty of stopping bootlegged texts.
 
Issues
Will it eliminate the printed page?
What impact might that have on literacy skills?
Will authors have to frequently update their books?
 

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