Monday, February 16, 2009

Will the Kindle take over? I think not


I have never been totally convinced of the market for the electronic reader and the end of books and the printed word.

There has been much talk in the media about the latest Kindle product but it is worth reading Rob Horning's take on the matter

The preference consumers have shown for digitized music and iPods doesn’t seem to translate to books. The usefulness of the iPod derives from its ability to shuffle songs that many people enjoy as background, more or less passively. On the subway I hear about a dozen songs each morning, and it pleases me that they are randomly selected from a list of several thousand. But I wouldn’t want my reading material served up that way. Generally I’m reading one thing at a time, and I benefit from the finality of that decision, when I leave home with one book. Books have the great built-in advantage of preventing me from surfing away elsewhere when the reading becomes arduous or requires an effort of concentration.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like your post and I completely agree with you. The Kindle or any ebook reader will never replace books, at least not in my lifetime.