Kindling
Amazon launches their eBook service (both hardware and software) tomorrow, a hand-held wireless device which allows you to download books to your Kindle reader, and then, well, read them, for around $9 a pop, not to mention monthly subscriptions to popular blogs etc. All for the tidy price of $400 (which at my reckoning is about 25 new paperbacks, or a hell of a lot more pengiun classics, not to mention scruffy second handers). It uses pretty cool digital ink technology, its pretty neat lookin', and hey, its Jeff Bezos who is selling these, so they must be good, right?
Me, I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm not the right person to comment, I only bought my first piece of digital music recently. Yup, me, Technical Director of a digital agency, and general geek, only just got around to getting some of that new fangled mp3 action from the interweb. Okay, not quite true, I've 'borrowed' the occasional album from friends via mp3, and i rip all my CDs to mp3 immediately so I have my whole collection at work, but it wasn't until last month that i actually bought something virtually rather than owning it in the meatspace (if you're interested, it was a Lily Allen B side, which I kept hearing on Pandora.com, but hadn't got with the album). Call me old fashioned, but I just like having, in my hands, cover notes, little booklet, crappy plastic case which breaks in the mail from amazon and all, the actual physical product. I think in the case of music, its because i still like digging through my old collection, and finding things i've not listened to in years (mostly due to embarassment). Books, however, are a completely different matter, one of pure emotive connection.
I love buying books. Worst case scenario for me is walking past a Waterstones or Borders after being in a pub, as I'll nip in and come out 30 minutes later with usually more than a hundred quid of wares. I love the process of going into a store, and finding a book which I like the look of (yes, i judge a book by its cover, blurb and smell), browsing around, thumbing through, cocking my head by 90 degrees and scanning the shelves. Then, once you have the book you've chosen to read, breaking the spine, marking pages, folding it, holding it, showing people pages, running your finger across the edge of the pages making the flicking noise. Its almost as much as a physical experience as a literary one - and of course, its a non-digital experience. Ah, yes, its offline. Its a reflective media, rather than projective, you don't get a headache, it doesn't flicker, it doesn't take a while to refresh, it doesn't scroll or animate or beep or allow you to subscribe. It is a step away from my daily life, not in just the story itself, but the technology also.
Then you have the sharing, social aspect of the book, passing it on to a friend, recommending and lending, returning to an oft-read book, dusting off the sand from when you were on holiday with the book, hand written inscriptions and messages from the friend who bought it you, and its okay to take a book into the toilet, but a PDA? How about on the beach?
I'm usually an early adopter, or rather I spend far too much money on gadgets which will often have a shorter period of holding my interest than its battery lifetime, but I might just pass up on Amazon's Kindle for the time being, until they can replicate the same total experience of reading a book - at which point, i'll just have to choose between a book, and a PDA pretending to be a book.
Me, I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm not the right person to comment, I only bought my first piece of digital music recently. Yup, me, Technical Director of a digital agency, and general geek, only just got around to getting some of that new fangled mp3 action from the interweb. Okay, not quite true, I've 'borrowed' the occasional album from friends via mp3, and i rip all my CDs to mp3 immediately so I have my whole collection at work, but it wasn't until last month that i actually bought something virtually rather than owning it in the meatspace (if you're interested, it was a Lily Allen B side, which I kept hearing on Pandora.com, but hadn't got with the album). Call me old fashioned, but I just like having, in my hands, cover notes, little booklet, crappy plastic case which breaks in the mail from amazon and all, the actual physical product. I think in the case of music, its because i still like digging through my old collection, and finding things i've not listened to in years (mostly due to embarassment). Books, however, are a completely different matter, one of pure emotive connection.
I love buying books. Worst case scenario for me is walking past a Waterstones or Borders after being in a pub, as I'll nip in and come out 30 minutes later with usually more than a hundred quid of wares. I love the process of going into a store, and finding a book which I like the look of (yes, i judge a book by its cover, blurb and smell), browsing around, thumbing through, cocking my head by 90 degrees and scanning the shelves. Then, once you have the book you've chosen to read, breaking the spine, marking pages, folding it, holding it, showing people pages, running your finger across the edge of the pages making the flicking noise. Its almost as much as a physical experience as a literary one - and of course, its a non-digital experience. Ah, yes, its offline. Its a reflective media, rather than projective, you don't get a headache, it doesn't flicker, it doesn't take a while to refresh, it doesn't scroll or animate or beep or allow you to subscribe. It is a step away from my daily life, not in just the story itself, but the technology also.
Then you have the sharing, social aspect of the book, passing it on to a friend, recommending and lending, returning to an oft-read book, dusting off the sand from when you were on holiday with the book, hand written inscriptions and messages from the friend who bought it you, and its okay to take a book into the toilet, but a PDA? How about on the beach?
I'm usually an early adopter, or rather I spend far too much money on gadgets which will often have a shorter period of holding my interest than its battery lifetime, but I might just pass up on Amazon's Kindle for the time being, until they can replicate the same total experience of reading a book - at which point, i'll just have to choose between a book, and a PDA pretending to be a book.
