[Milhous]

ping

[Red_Devil 232]

I have to hold a book and turn the pages.

[Pietro]

As a bibliophile let me be the first to wish Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos a special place in hell!

After making him millions he shoves it to the very industry that made him rich.

What do you say to the thousands who make their living printing, publishing, and selling hard copy books Jeff?

Let them eat cake?

[Petronski]

I’ll take dead-tree books any day of the week.

Black-on-white (not dark grey on light grey), no battery or charger, even the simplicity of having two books open on the table at once—and what about the hassle of my particular Kindle dying, or Amazon Inc. dying?

Then what?

[N. Theknow]

I found Atlas shrugged and 1984 online for free as both books on Cd and text versions.

BTW - my wife and I saw this on our way from Florida to South Carolina to visit our daughter and her family:

Ironically, we were listening to CD #3 of Atlas Shrugged at the time.

[ridesthemiles]

FOR ONE DAY ONLY !!!!!

People who got ‘readers’ like Kindle for Christmas were plugging in and getting downloads.

How much of this means that the government will be able to tell who reads what in the future? If I want a book- I go to the book store and pay cash. No government official knows what I read, when, or why.

[Antoninus]

This is a very misleading headline. Who is surprised that virtual book sales surpassed physical book sales on Christmas Day? Christmas Day has to be one of the slowest book-buying days of the year. And when one factors in the fact that some people got Kindles as gifts (not nearly as many as Amazon would have liked, btw) and were anxious to stock them up, it actually makes sense that virtual sales would be higher than physical sales for that single day.

But as someone who is in the industry, I can tell you for a fact that on most days, virtual sales account for less than 10% of all sales. And people in the industry have been telling us for about 15 years now that the book is dead.

When you hear such rhetoric, think of Mark Twain's famous quote.

[blau993]

I was one of those “gifted” with a Kindle for Christmas. I like real books and did not think I would like the electronic format, but I now believe there is a place for both. I will still buy some books in hard cover — serious, meaningful books that I will probably read more than once and will lend to others (and sometimes get back). But I also like non-serious books — mysteries, thrillers, humor, social commentary. They were books I usually bought in paperback format, then lent out (usually hoping I wouldn’t get them back). Kindle is perfect for those. It is also perfect for traveling. It has its place in the world of books.

[VOA]

bump

[kdot]

don’t flame me...
I have a Sony 505 eReader and I absolutely love it. The Sony library can link to the Google Public Domain library (500,000 free titles). I read lots of classics from there and buy my new releases from the Sony store. I just bought Sarah Palin’s new book for $9.99. Don’t expect to save a bunch of money on new releases, but for the convenience, it’s great. My Mom has a Kindle so we just swap eBook readers when we want to share books.

The Sony is different from the Kindle and Nook because there is no cell device to connect you to the bookstore. Sony can’t control your contents like the debacle with Amazon and “1984”. You manage the contents just like an iPod. The software looks like iTunes.

True, it is classic to pick up a physical book, but managing/donating piles of read books became a job. So I’m a convert. The device is effortless, service is seamless, and no more lugging books.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Don’t actually want a Kindle, but I like using ebooks, where I can search and annotate...most of my reading seems to be research oriented history reading. I have seven bookcases full of books, but quite a number also in digital format. There are days when I have to find places for new books that I wish the entire collection was digital...It sure would be a lot easier when it was time to move it around...

[Cicero]

Well, people will do what they want to do. Personally, I have no interest in Kindle.

I do wonder whether Amazon is smart pushing Kindle as hard as they do. They have a real lock on buying things on the net—not only books but a lot of other stuff that is well priced. That business model has done very well for them.

Will they be able to guard their backs if the new ebooks really take off? Will they be able to keep the lion’s share of that business if Google or Microsoft step in and compete with them head to head? Frankly, I think this is very, very risky for them. Yet whenever you visit Amazon, the first thing that hits you in the face is Kindle, like it or not. They are really pushing it.

[RJS1950]

Various sources and administrators at a lot of schools including the one I’m at keep pushing us to move to e-books for our students wherever possible. When I looked into it I found little difference between the e-book and the physical text as far as price. The specialized texts are just as expensive regardless of format and one other consideration is that I couldn’t find “used” e-books so you pretty much pay full price everytime. I want the physical book where I can flip pages and compare page 122 to page 355 by simply flipping back and forth. The e-books will have to be a lot cheaper on Amazon to pull anyone with a brain away from the used paper versions.

[MadelineZapeezda]

Just curious as to how much a Kindle goes for?

[RayChuang88]

The e-book trend will REALLY accelerate as Apple's much-rumored iSlate tablet computer arrives around April 2010. You know Apple has carefully studied the good readability of the Amazon Kindle and Sony e-book readers and came up with an improved LCD display that allows for long periods of reading comfortably.

Now that I have an 802.11b/g Wi-Fi "hotspot" running at my house, I am seriously considering getting the iSlate.