WIll Oprah Double Kindle Sales?

Apparently the diva of spirit lurves the Kindle tremendously, and Amazon has responded to that love by offering those who type in the OPRAHWINFREY coupon code a $50 discount! This according to a Financial Times article that postulates that this could be the American Idol moment for e-readers.

American Idol moment, you ask? What I mean is to draw a connection between this and how SMS voting fueled the mainstreaming of texting in the US.

An endorsement by the Big O has made millionaires of more than a few entrants in the book world. So there ya go!

"Rock on, Oprah!" Or should that be, "Read On!"

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

All New! Well, Some New! Kindle 2!

The Boy Genius Report blog has a number of photos of the new Kindle. Check them out here. From what I can see, the 2.0 version is a significant upgrade in that the keyboard looks better, and gone are the long "next page" "prev page" side bars and Praise the Lord Besos for that!



Go over to the BGR - they've got all the scoop.

It's bigger, which I'd have to hold to determine whether that is a good thing or not. What's making it larger is that keyboard -- you'll recall that on this blog earlier this week I showed a picture of the Sony Touch Screen, which is decidedly smaller.

Well, let the eBook steel cage match begin!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

New Sony Touch Screen PRS-700 EReader: Kindle with Keyless Entry!

I like my Kindle. A lot. But the keyboard is nothing short of horrid. It is reminiscent of Commodore 64. I'd imagine that the upcoming Kindle 2.0 will offer a major improvement.

But Sony's upping its game with its new eReader, now on sale in parts of Europe, and a-comin' to the US ASAP.

Sony readers didn't set the world on fire, but did OK. And one of the problems they see, according to this article on Ars Technica, was that people don't like the IDEA of ereaders very much, but tend to like them when they get hands on experience. Ars Technica reports:

To overcome this, Sony's trained 1,000 people that will be set loose in some of the 3,000 retail outlets that carry the Reader in an effort to expose more of the public to it. The company is also launching a program that will see it donate Readers and eBooks to schools.

...

The key feature is its touch-sensitive screen, which allows users to manipulate the device with either the included stylus or a finger. Reader users can now directly select text, type on an onscreen keyboard, and page through content with gestures, swiping pages to turn them or shuffling rapidly through a book with a swipe-and-hold gesture. The E Ink screen seemed more responsive than the Kindle's, which makes the responses to gestures seem fairly direct. The onscreen typing, however, still feels a bit sluggish.

John Timmer of Ars Technica later stated:

In my brief hands-on time with it, the Reader's hardware seemed superior to the Kindle in nearly every way, but it still lacks some of the Kindle's killer features: brand recognition, a huge content library, and always-on wireless. Haber made it clear that all of these are in the works. Sony plans to have 100,000 titles available by the holidays (although that's still just about half the Kindle's content) and its trained sales teams should be in the stores by then. Wireless will come, too, but Haber said, "it needs to be on an open foundation" before Sony will release it.

I think the crux of the challenge for Sony is in their brand versus Amazon. Sony=electronics, Amazon=books. And a prospective ebook buyer wants assurance that a reader will offer a good bookish experience.

But that doesn't mean I won't be looking it over...

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Kindle Sales Massive? Not Quite So Fast, Matey...

Were earlier estimates of Kindle sales a bunch of unfounded hype? Silicon Valley Insider is reporting that Amazon spokespeople are...distancing themselves from the high estimates that leading bloggers (and me) reported a couple of weeks ago. Here's an excerpt from a Seattle Post Intelligencer story they cited in their story:

Amazon officials gave McAdams Wright Ragen analysts the impression that high-end estimates on Kindle sales reported by TechCrunch and a Citigroup analyst are not reasonable.

Amazon managers "told us that the Kindle is definitely selling very well, but they also said the analysts and reporters giving out these extremely high estimates 'did not run them by company,'" Bueneman wrote.

To my knowledge, Amazon has NEVER released sales figures for the device. Why that is is anyone's guess. As a public company it is unlikely that they would consciously leak such info -- the initiative is important enough that IF they release the data, they need to do so publicly and openly.

Kindle Fever Says Citigroup

According to Reuters, Citi has upped its estimate for 2008 Kindle sales from 190,000 to 380,000. That, my friends, is double. Citi is estimating that Amazon will sell at least 150,000 in Q4, which would be a very nice quarter indeed for the device. Now that Amazon has been able to up the quantities of the device that are available, the future of the device looks bright.

Interestingly, Citi also projects $10B in sales for Kindles and Kindle content by 2010.

Bingo Bango Bosco for Monsieur Besos.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.