info NeoGnostic: e-Book Reader in the news

Slightly delayed (just to keep us guessing!), but now on nearly every blog, Amazon's offering - the Kindle - is set to launch on Monday (and, I presume, in the UK shortly after that...).

TeleRead has several offerings: Amazon-sized ego? Kindle to shun .epub? And, yes, the ugly box is the FINAL design (IS it that ugly? Not sure it needs the keyboard, but...); PDF capabilities in Kindle: Newsweek puff job reveals more details (yes the Newsweek article IS worth reading - it extends to 7 pages and moves on to discuss more than the Kindle) and - again - Huh? The Kindle e-reader ISN’T ugly? So says Steve Levy, author of Newsweek puff piece—in response to my Publishers Weekly blog. Print is Dead offers Amazon’s Next of Kindle: new eBook device debuts and if:Book offers amazon kindle due out monday and another reference to the Newsweek article: newsweek covers the future of reading (as does iLibrarian: Amazon’s E-Book Reader). Even Talis' panlibus is a little bit excited with Amazon Kindle book reader interest, and (like me!) DigitalKoans has brought some of this together at Light My Fire? Amazon's Kindle E-Book Reader Launched. And from Ellen Hage: Ugly is the new cute, while Joe Wikert (A Hands-On Review of Amazon's Kindle) points to a review from someone who has a Kindle. Verdict: this is the first generation product - promising, but...

I think Amazon are really going to have to produce a Kindle or two in the UK!

TeleRead also has an interesting twist - E-books to go ’straight to the deadpool’ if Amazon Kindle fails? - which seems to be placing just a little more power to Amazon's elbow than might be reasonable. There is no doubt that Amazon weild a lot of power, but there are some other big players in the e-book market - certainly, outside of the personal user market, and selling to libraries, but aggregators such as NetLibrary have captured a fair share of the market while the reference collections of Oxford Reference Online, Credo Reference and Knovel are very attractive to libraries too.

My view of the Kindle - judged from what I have read (I don't have one yet!) - is that it is a pretty good product with a lot going for it. Amazon have done their research and seem to have got it more or less right (keyboard aside) - the Kindle is reported to:

carry up to 200 books
have a good eInk screen and a reasonable battery life
need no PC in order to download e-books
accept user files loaded easily via a private e-mail
search across all e-books
take notes
download quickly...

and so on.

But this is a fast-moving area. Even before the Kindle is launched, Seiko Epson are announcing a very smart - and light - new product. Granted it is only at the display stage, but it's not going to be long - I guess - before we have another e-book reader on the market.

>>Technorati tags: ebooks; readers; Amazon; Kindle; eInk