marclafountain.com

At one point, I participated in the Amazon Associates program, not that it ever made me much money. I still get their emails. And, Amazon is offering a 10 percent fee for online referrals that generate actual Kindle orders. That’s $39.99. Wow!

With this kind of economic incentive, I can see people joining the Amazon Associates program (or asking a friend to) just to save $40 on their Kindle purchase.

I am still waiting patiently for mine. I wish Tuesday would hurry up and get here!

I’m in love with the Kindle. For what I want in an e-book reader, it’s pretty ideal. But, your mileage may vary depending on your needs. I don’t care about reading newspapers, magazines or blogs on the Kindle. And, I certainly have no desire to web browse in grayscale on the Kindle or use it to listen to randomized MP3s. I have computers and an iPhone for all of that.

I just want a fast, easy way to buy e-books that is at least a little cheaper than buying them physically. Thus far, the Kindle seems to fit that bill. One day in, here are my initial thoughts.

Good

• Finding, buying, and downloading a book from the Amazon Kindle Store is amazingly easy and fast. I can go from wanting a book to having a book within two minutes.
• While the prices could be cheaper, they still beat the price of physical books by a good bit. The most expensive books I’ve seen are $9.99 and many books are just $6 or $7. You also save the gas you would likely burn going to and from a physical store. which is nice for consumers and the environment.
• I like that if you delete a book from your Kindle, you can download it again later for free. Very cool. Apple iTunes could learn a lesson here.
• I also like that I can buy an e-book either via the web or via the Kindle and the Kindle downloads it immediately either way.
• Being able to download free samples of books to the Kindle is nice.
• The Kindle’s display is crisp, easy to read, and doesn’t seem to tire my eyes.
• The Kindle is thin, lightweight and easy to hold.
• I know it’s a small thing, but I love the random images the Kindle displays when it’s in sleep mode.
• The battery life, especially with wireless off, is amazing.
• I had read that many are frustrated by the time it takes e-book readers to turn pages. It hasn’t bothered me at all.

• Being able to sort and filter content on the Kindle is nice, but you can’t assign your own categories as far as I can tell That’s a big oversight. The Kindle can hold 200 average-sized books. I can think of several categories I want to have. Read and Unread. Fiction and Non-Fiction. Work and Personal. Biography, Mystery, Suspense, Humor, etc.
• I wish the Kindle was designed so that most of keyboard was hidden when not in use. There’s a core set of five or so keys on the bottom row that I use often (Home, Text Size, the two keys for Sleep and Wake). The rest of the keyboard I never use unless I’m shopping for a book. But, I’m constantly pressing other keys accidentally while reading because they’re in the way. Granted, most of the keys don’t actually do anything when I’m reading, but it’s distracting to constantly feel keys depressing and wondering if they’re going to do anything. I hope a third party vendor makes a shell that can pop on/off or hinge up/down to hide and reveal the keyboard but always leave the core keys on the bottom row available.
• Small thing, but I also hope a third party makes a rubberized port protector to cover the USB, power, and headphone ports to keep dust, sand, dirt, etc. from going into the ports.
• The click-wheel needs to be just a little bit bigger. It’s a little hard to grab and manipulate.
• There are seven books I want now (or at least in the near future), but only five of them are available on the Amazon Kindle Store. In Amazon’s defense, the Kindle is a new product and they are adding more e-books everyday. So, this should improve.

• While the vertical buttons on the side of the Kindle make it very easy to page forward and backward, they also make it very easy to *accidentally* page forward and backward. I can understand wanting to translate some of the physical experience of a book to an e-book reader. But, this was just a poor design decision.
• $400 is a hefty price tag, even for a device this impressive, If Amazon can get it to $249, they’d have a much larger market and could reap the rewards of selling more content.
• The carrying case kinda sucks. It’s attractive enough, but having to stretch an elastic strap on and off the case every time I want to use the Kindle feels inelegant. And, without the elastic strap in place, the Kindle flops around in the case. Perfect opportunity here for a third-party to do a kick-ass case.
• Amazon charging to subscribe to blogs that are free on the web is just stupid. Ugh. If you need to charge customers for more extensive data network use, just offer that as a freakin’ option.

I do something strange (and lazy) when I read physical books. Very often, I’ll flip pages ahead to see if a paragraph break / scene change is coming up or if a chapter is ending soon. If I have one of those easy, achievable goals in my sights then I keep reading until at least that point. If not, I will often stop where I am in the book until another time. Am I the only weirdo who does this?

Anyway, I have discovered an unexpected benefit (at least for me) to reading e-books on the Amazon Kindle. On a Kindle, you can only see one page of text at a time. So, the next psychological goal is always just one page away. I see a new page and think, “Oh, that’s so short, I can read that.” Then, when I click to the next page, I think, “Oh, that’s so short, I can read that.” Before you know it, I’ve read a ton. And, I don’t even try to page ahead to find a break or chapter ending because, let’s face it, changing pages on an e-book reader is just too damn slow for that sorta thing.

I think the Kindle is actually making me a better reader. Thank you Jeff Bezos!

Dear Jeff Bezos,

You don’t know me. But, I buy at least an e-book a week on the Kindle Store and evangelize the Kindle to strangers literally every day who ask me, “Hey, what the heck is that thing?” So, I have two favors to ask.

First, could you give us a place on Amazon.com to request that specific books be Kindlelized? I’m sure you’re already focused on bestsellers and new releases. But, if you give Kindle users a chance to express our desires, we might surprise you. For example, here are a few I’d ask for:

• Fast Food Nation
• The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst
• The Great Book of Amber: The Complete Amber Chronicles
• Star Wars: Death Star
• Love the One You’re With (for my lovely wife)

Next, could you make the main web pages for Kindle books include “Add to Wish List” buttons? We kinda have to dig to find them right now. Having them on the main pages would be really handy.

I’ve been blown away by the Kindle in the few months I have been using it. Thanks for making this amazing device. I can’t wait to see what you do next!

Marc :-)

After seeing many positive reviews, I finally read The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria. It’s an excellent, thought-provoking book and I recommend it highly. It’s made me realize what a bubble I live in when it comes to following world events and trends.

After finishing the book, I picked up the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, which Zakaria was once managing editor of. What an amazing publication. I was fascinated by almost every article.

I’ll be subscribing to the print edition of Foreign Affairs. The articles are too long-form to be enjoyable on a computer screen or phone. And, sadly, they don’t offer a Kindle version. (Hint, hint, Foreign Affairs.)

I cancelled my Newsweek magazine subscription today. It felt a bit odd, as Newsweek has been coming to my door every week for over a decade now. It’s been a part of my routine and it’s always hard to change your routine.

When I called up Newsweek to cancel, the woman on the phone wanted to know why I was canceling.

“I’m going to subscribe to your Amazon Kindle version instead,” I said.

“Our Amazon…what…version?”

“Never mind, I just need to cancel my subscription. Thanks.”

I’ve been evaluating the Kindle version of Newsweek for a few days and am pretty impressed.

Pros

• You get it faster. I was able to get the Kindle version of the latest Newsweek on Sunday evening but my print subscription didn’t arrive until Monday afternoon.
  
• No advertising.
• No subscription cards falling out all over the place.
• No magazine clutter.
• Nothing to throw away or recycle.
• You can read article text in a variety of sizes to best suit your needs.
• Searchable bookmarks and annotations, though i doubt I will use them much.

Cons

• No Conventional Wisdom Watch. This is a huge con. With some automated reformatting, I don’t see why this can’t be there. Hope it gets added.
  
• No Perspectives. This is another huge con. Again, with some automated reformatting, I don’t see why this can’t be there. Black and white political cartoons are one of the few types of images that would look great on a Kindle and the quotes text already. Hope this gets added too.
  
• No Dignity Index. Won’t miss it that much. Actually, it’s in there.
• Can’t be easily shared with others. This isn’t a big deal for me. I can always email articles from Newsweek.com to people I think would want to see them.

Pros You’d Think Would be Cons, But Are Great

• No photos.
  
• No illustrations.
  
• No quote-outs nested among story layouts.
  
• You can only see one article at a time.
  

With the print version of Newsweek, I read very few articles all the way through and even skip over many. There are so many distractions in the print version.

On any given two-page spread you have one to three stories, one to three photos, perhaps a quote-out or two, and an ad or two all vying for your attention. It’s even easy to let your eyes wander from one column of article text to another column of text without finishing your current paragraph.

I find that just looking at one story at a time, one column at a time, is a great way to actually focus on what I’m reading. And, if I really want to see the visuals for a story, I can always visit Newsweek.com on the Kindle or with a web browser on a computer or phone to get at least some of them.

If Newsweek ever does add visuals to the Kindle version, I hope they limit them to on photo or illustration at the start of each story.

Cost is a Toss-Up

• If you buy Newsweek on newsstands for $4.95, the Kindle version at 49 cents is a steal.
  
• If you use Newsweek.com to subscribe for a year of the magazine, you pay about 75 cents an issue. So, the Kindle version is still a good deal.
• If you shop around through resellers, such as Amazon, you can get the magazine for 38 cents an issue (perhaps even less), in which case the Kindle version costs more.
• On the pro side for the Kindle version of Newsweek, you can stop your subscription with the click of a mouse at any time and you pay for each issue as it comes out rather paying upfront for a whole or partial subscription.
• On the con side, subscribing to the Kindle version of Newsweek doesn’t get you any price breaks the way that a longer-term subscription to the print version does.

Overall, I’m pretty excited about the Newsweek version for Kindle and hope the remaining bits of print content are added soon. I’m so impressed with the magazine reading experience on the Kindle that I’m getting Atlantic Monthly on it too and am hoping that Foreign Affairs will come to the Kindle in the future.

Since the web is buzzing with rumors of an October surprise (or even a September surprise) of one or more new Kindles, I’ve been thinking about what I want in Kindle 2.0. My wish list is mostly about software improvements rather than hardware improvements. And, since I’m sure Jeff Bezos is reading:

• Navigating to and from footnotes/endnotes is time-consuming and painful. Fix it. How about letting us double-click the scroll wheel on a line of text with a footnote/endnote to view it and then click or double-click the scroll wheel to return to the text? Or, how about assigning a keyboard hot-key so we can scroll to a line of text and click the hot-key to go to/from the footnote/endnote?
• Manual downloading is annoying. Support scheduled downloading. I subscribe to Newsweek and Atlantic Monthly on the Kindle and get a fair number of book samples and books. I have to turn on the wireless connection, waiting for any download(s) that are ready, and then remember to turn off the wireless connection so my battery doesn’t drain. Why not let us tell our Kindle to turn on wireless and check for downloads on a daily or weekly schedule?
• More newspapers and magazines. The Kindle store has virtually the same list of periodicals now as when it opened. Why isn’t the selection growing? If publications already have their content in digital form for the web, getting them to sell it on the Kindle shouldn’t be that hard. For example, I would think the Foreign Affairs crowd is affluent, travels a lot, and thinks about the environmental impact of printing and shipping. Why not get Foreign Affairs, which is just about all text anyway, on the Kindle?
• Support USB-based charging. I almost always have my laptop with me, even when I travel. And, I usually have my iPhone USB-based charger with me too. It would be awesome to not have to carry a Kindle charger and just be able to charge via a USB cable.
• Make buying books from samples seamless. When I’m done reading a sample, I have to note my place in the text, buy the full book from the link at the end of the sample, delete the sample, open the full book, and find my place again. Ugh. When I buy the full book from the link at the end of the sample, the sample should just expand to become the full book and I should be able to keep right on reading from where I am. (Also, make the progress bar of a sample based on the length of the full book rather than the length of the sample so a reader knows what they’re in for if they buy the full book.)
• Make deleting things easier. Let us delete anything by scrolling to it, clicking the wheel on it, and choosing delete. Don’t make us deal with the content manager, check boxes, and confirmation windows for a simple delete. Painful. And, when we close out of a book/periodical at or very near near the end, ask us if we want to delete it.
• Let us file/categorize things. I want to be able to browse my Kindle content by read/unread, fiction/non-fiction, sample/full-book, my favorites, etc. Make it easy to create folders or labels to support organization.
• Put an “Add to Wish List” button on the main pages for e-books on the Kindle store. Seems like a no-brainer, but we still have to go to another page, like the full comments for an e-book, to be able to put an e-book on our Wish List.

Early thoughts:

• Amazon is learning from Apple. The Kindle 2 packaging is pretty cool. It uses letters in lots of different typefaces and languages as the first Kindle did. But, The packaging now says “Once Upon a Time…” on an outside edge. And, the external packaging is all black while the internal packaging is all white. It makes for an elegant contrast.
• Text does look crisper in 16 shades of gray instead of four and pictures are much more detailed. Page refreshes do feel slightly faster.
• The five-way controller is a big interface improvement over the earlier silver ribbon.
• I was hoping the new “Whispersync” system would know what books and magazines I had stored on my original Kindle and offer to put them all on the Kindle 2. Instead, I am having to move magazine subscriptions and download books one by one. Not a huge deal, but not elegant either.
• I got the case and I think it’s attractive and holds the Kindle securely. With the original Kindle, I would always read the device out of the case. I’ll be interested see if I still do that or if I leave the Kindle 2 in the case. My guess is I’ll still take it out most of the time.
• Apparently you don’t turn the Kindle 2 off. You just put it to sleep or wake it up. Nice. Edit: Actually, you can turn it off by holding the slider down for four seconds. But, I will probably leave it in sleep most of the time.
• Having a physical switch for wireless on the original Kindle made syncing fast and easy. I will have to see how doing it via a software switch often feels.

Overall, I am very impressed so far.

Having used my new Kindle 2 for a few weeks now, I adore it more than ever and still feel it’s a significant improvement over my beloved Kindle 1. But, nothing is perfect, and there are still improvements I’d love to see with the Kindle. Some of these were suggestions I made earlier when I was using my Kindle 1:

• The Slide Switch. The slide switch on the top edge of the Kindle 2 is too hard to see or feel without holding the device at an awkward angle. And, it’s often hard to know if you have partially versus completely moved the switch. Sometimes I wait for the device to wake up thinking I have moved the switch completely when I haven’t. Making the switch easier to see/feel and giving an immediate visual or tactile confirmation that the switch has been moved completely would be great.
• The Home Button. Jeff Rock made a good point about the Home button that I hadn’t considered on my Kindle 1 or Kindle 2. It really doesn’t need to be where it is and another Previous Page button would be much more useful in its place. The Home button should go lower.
• Distractions. Having a logo on the front of the device and having always-on displays for things like document progress, battery level, and wireless signal level can be distracting for readers. They haven’t bothered me, but I know they have bothered Jeff and others. Marco suggested to me that Amazon should simply have a button or key that would show and hide all the display indicators. Sounds like a good idea to me.
• Scheduled downloads. I subscribe to Newsweek and Atlantic Monthly on the Kindle and get a fair number of book samples and books. I have to turn on the wireless connection, waiting for any download(s) that are ready, and then remember to turn off the wireless connection so my battery doesn’t drain. Why not let us tell our Kindle to turn on wireless and check for downloads on a daily or weekly schedule?
• More periodicals. We need more newspapers and magazines on the Kindle. The Kindle Store still has nearly the same list of periodicals now as when it opened and year and a half ago. Why isn’t the selection growing faster? If publications already have their content in digital form for the web, getting them to sell it on the Kindle shouldn’t be that hard. For example, I would think the Foreign Affairs crowd is affluent, travels a lot, and thinks about the environmental impact of printing and shipping. Why not get Foreign Affairs, which is just about all text anyway, on the Kindle?
• Make buying books from samples seamless. When I’m done reading a sample, I have to note my place in the text, buy the full book from the link at the end of the sample, delete the sample, open the full book, and find my place again. Ugh. When I buy the full book from the link at the end of the sample, the sample should just expand to become the full book and I should be able to keep right on reading from where I am. (Also, make the progress bar of a sample based on the length of the full book rather than the length of the sample so a reader knows what they’re in for if they buy the full book.)
• Let us file/categorize things. I want to be able to browse my Kindle content by read/unread, fiction/non-fiction, sample/full-book, genre, my favorites, etc. Make it easy to create folders, tags, or labels to support organization.

Overall, I continue to be impressed my what Amazon has done with Kindle and look forward to future improvements to the product.

I was pleased to discover that The Economist is available for Kindle as of June 30th. This was the last print publication I was subscribed to, so I can now go paperless for all of my reading.

Also, as I have written before, the bare-bones nature of the Kindle reading experience is more immersive for me than magazine and web pages that have ads, quote-outs, multiple photos per page, multiple articles per page, etc. I think I will be able to read The Economist more quickly on the Kindle and in a more focused manner.

The ratings on Amazon.com for the Kindle edition of The Economist are abysmal. This is because a Kindle subscription is essentially the same price as a print subscription. No savings from the obviation of printing and mailing are being passed on to Kindle readers and this has angered many of them. But, I think that anger is somewhat misplaced.

Amazon is thought to keep 70 percent of the sales price for content on the Kindle. And, no Kindle content contains advertising as far as I can tell. So, unless it was able to negotiate a special deal, The Economist is having to pay its pound of flesh to Amazon while also losing ad revenue each time it sells a Kindle edition instead of a print edition.

Savings from not having to print and mail Kindle editions may let The Economist recoup some of the Amazon and lost advertising costs, but perhaps not all of those costs. So, keeping the Kindle edition pricing on par with the print edition may allow the magazine to maintain its margin (or at least lose less if its margin).

The real problem here is Amazon and its 70 percent charge. It’s simply too high. At some point, a viable low-cost challenger may emerge that will force Amazon to lower their rate. In the meantime, The Economist is likely doing what it must to remain profitable on the Kindle. That The Economist can keep their Kindle price high when other publications like Time and Newsweek can’t do so speaks to the strength of The Economist relative to other publications.

Foreign Affairs doesn’t even mention its Kindle edition on its website. This may be because its Kindle edition margin is lower and it doesn’t want to drive its print subscribers to a lower-margin product. My guess is that Foreign Affairs is hedging. It’s trying to keep its current print subscribers while using the Kindle to snag new readers and prevent readers from defecting to other Kindle publications. A number of publications may be in this boat.

On a final note, there is one issue that I do have with The Economist and many other publications. Subscribing to them on the Kindle doesn’t get you access to special content and archives on their websites in the same way that print subscriptions do. I don’t know if this is an Amazon issue or a publications issue, but it should be fixed. I would think Kindle readers would actually be more interested in special content and archives on the web than print subscribers.

My early thoughts on the announcements from Barnes & Noble regarding its eBook software for iPhone, BlackBerry, and Mac/Windows and its partnership with Plastic Logic on a future eReader:

• Who releases software products on a Sunday when media aren’t paying attention? Who follows that up with a hardware announcement that doesn’t have hardware specs, a true ship date, a battery life estimate, or even a price estimate? I hope Fake Steve Jobs tears B&N marketing a new one next.
• I personally have no desire to read eBooks on a Mac or Windows computer. But, perhaps others do. At least it’s a point of differentiation in B&N’s favor.
• It doesn’t appear that B&N is offering electronic versions of magazines, newspapers, or blogs or that B&N is offering document conversion for its eReader software. Perhaps that will change with time. For now, those are points of differentiation in Amazon’s favor. (The magazines are a huge differentiator for me.)
• Amazon has more commercial eBooks than B&N, but I suspect that B&N has the commercial eBooks most readers care about. And, B&N can probably scale up its eOfferings quickly as Amazon has. I don’t view this as a big deal either way.
• I personally like the small size of the Kindle 2 versus the Kindle DX. It sounds like the 8.5 x 11-inch Plastic Logic device will be DX-sized. That means customers looking for a smaller device (and perhaps also those looking for a cheaper device) may opt for a Kindle 2 over Plastic Logic.
• Amazon will have over a two-year head start when Plastic Logic ships in early 2010. A great product that is well marketed could overcome that lead. But, with no product details and no real marketing effort yet, it is too early to know how the Plastic Logic product will go over. But, B&N has tried eBooks before.
• Barnes & Noble has almost 800 stores in the U.S., which could be a huge advantage for Plastic Logic over Amazon. Potential Plastic Logic buyers will be able to take test drives in stores, buy the product there, get training there, and return unwanted or defective product there. As I have said before, I think Amazon should sell Kindles at Best Buy and other electronics stores. Anytime I show my Kindle 2 to someone who hasn’t used one, they are amazed by it.
• Overall, I don’t think Amazon shouldn’t be too worried by B&N and Plastic Logic. The existing Kindle userbase, existing Kindle mindshare, powerful Amazon brand, the multiple Kindle size offerings, and the Kindle’s support for publications and files will be a lot for B&N to overcome anytime soon. And, who knows what Amazon may do with Kindle by early of 2010?