Seth's Blog: Random Thoughts About the Kindle
I’m a week late writing about this post from Seth Godin. I largely agree with him on his points about the Amazon Kindle, except for #4:
4. The Kindle does a fine job of being a book reader, and a horrible job of actually improving the act of reading a book. This is a surprising design choice, I think, and a mistake. Here are three simple examples of how non-fiction books on the Kindle could be better, not just cheaper and thinner:—Let me see the best parts of the book as highlighted by thousands of other readers.
—Let me see notes in the margin as voted up, Digg-style, by thousands of other readers.
—Let me interact with hyperlinks and smart connections not just within the book but across booksI can think of ten others, and so can you. Instead of making this a dead end (like a book) they could have made it a connector (like the web).
This isn’t what I want at all. What I like about books and the Kindle is that they aren’t hyper—be that hyperlinked or hyperactive. When you read a book (physical or electronic), you aren’t web browsing or channel surfing. You’re immersing yourself in something. You’re taming your ADD and actually focusing on what you’re reading. That isn’t a dead end. That’s truly experiencing a written work for what it is rather than what it links to.
I don’t want to be shooting all over the web and interacting with others as I try to read a book. I want to deeply understand what the author(s) have to say. The Kindle does a wonderful job of helping me do just that.
I hope that Amazon doesn’t take the Kindle in the direction Godin advocates in #4 (or that they at least make it easy to turn off those features if they are added).
Based on Jeff Bezos’ latest Letter to Shareholders, I doubt Amazon will be going down that road. I love this Bezos quote so much, this is the second time I’ve blogged it:
We hope Kindle and its successors may gradually and incrementally move us over years into a world with longer spans of attention, providing a counterbalance to the recent proliferation of info-snacking tools. I realize my tone here tends toward the missionary, and I can assure you it’s heartfelt.
That’s a mission I can really get behind.
