they are convinced it will turn everything around for them.

I cant figure out why they think that.

it’s a reader for the black and white print product, which has no special features (unlike free interactive newspaper websites)

remember when publishers thought that pdf versions of their newspapers would save them?

now, they are convinced a mobile version of the pdf newspaper (for a fee) will save them. good luck with that idea.

The fact that they are discounting books does solve a big problem with an earlier effort in this area, the e-Book (Rocketbook…I forget what it was called) a few years ago..they were trying to charge full retail for their books. I kind of liked that thing, but the idea of a scenario where publishers get to eliminate all their physical production and distribution costs and still charge full price was too much to swallow. Of course, banks tried to charge for online banking at first too…same issue. Fire all the tellers, close all the branches, save a fortune…and charge the customer for the privlege of serving themselves. No wonder Citibank is teetering.

Cons:
* Lack of interoperability (can’t use books on other devices)
* Size–too big to fit in a pocket, maybe too small for reference works.
* No backlight
* Cost of hardware (will likely drop quickly)

The size is the biggest factor for me. Maybe it’s personal preference, but I always find devices this size to be too big to carry with me everywhere but too small to get real work done. It’s the same problem I have with UMPCs.

For years I’ve done almost all my pleasure reading on my PDA phone. I always have my phone with me, it fits in my pocket, it’s small and light enough for extended reading in any position, and it’s backlit for reading in bed without disturbing my wife. The small screen works remarkably well for linear reading.

This is a nice first effort by Amazon, but it’s still not enough to convince me it’s a logical form factor.

i was trying to think where is the killer use for this kind of thing - students, scholars, lawyers - big book people. could you carry all your semester text books on this thing? a whole law library? can you take it to the library and load it up?

but, as i was talking with my lovely and talented LRWife this morning about it, and she was all like, “dude, if it doesn’t fly with the book club mom audience, it isn’t going to fly.” (yes, my wife calls me dude, and that’s only one of the reasons why she rocks.)