Doug

I’m just sayin’ that it seems to be a bit expensive and extravigant, especially given my current situation. I’m not going to be able to buy too much more this year as a result…

@Chris – Whoever is right needs to get on the ball and pressure the publishers for lower prices and less/no DRM…or better yet, join together and do the same!

Today on ereader.com they are having a NYT bestseller sale where those titles are at $9.95 each. Strangely similar to the Kindlestore $9.99 pricing.

Also of note: The ereader.com claims to be the world’s biggest ebook store, but on the Amazon.com Kindlestore they claim to be “the earth’s biggest electronic book store: 245,000 books”. So who’s “mistaken”?

I am delighted to see all this excitement over ebooks, clearly the result of the press given the Kindle2. At the same time, I can’t get that excited over it, because, as some of you may know, there are a number of new devices soon to come on the market: one even has a folding eink screen, so I am not at present telling others to run out and get a K2.

@pradley – Sorry? You lost me. The Back button was on the right, directly under the Next Page button on the Kindle 1. I used to hit it by mistake all the time.

Now that it is at the very bottom of the K2′s stack (although still on the right side), it’s no longer an issue for me.

Some additional notes: I read the NYTimes every day on the Kindle and find it far more convenient than the print version; I have no problem with the page turning buttons (BTW, Judie, the back button is on the left, not the right); the K2 in its M-edge case is just as thick as the K1 in its, which was a big surprise to me; the page turning difference is, to me, hardly noticeable; the K was designed, at least initially, as a book reading device, so the absence of color is not significant (and for certain magazines, like The New Yorker, color is hardly necessary).

@Chris – you are exactly right about the DRM issues, and it will be a happy day when DRM is either lifted or adapted, so that people can use the reader they want to access all of their content on their device of choice.

Doug

As a Kindle 1 owner there is not enough here to convince me that an upgrade to Kindle 2 would make my life simpler/better.

The Kindle 1 takes some getting used to. Once I avoid pushing the wrong keys I think it operates pretty similarly to Kindle 2 in terms of functionality.

There’s also not a ton of online “chatter” about Kindle 2 leading me to believe it’s mostly a meh upgrade for someone who owns Kindle 1. However it wouldn’t be the first (or last) time I’ve been wrong about something like that.

Something really needs to be done here. And I think you are right. Amazon is the one who will have to bring change, just as Apple did with the music industry. It probably will not be quick or easy…but I think it is necessary and certainly coming.

Doug

Joel’s comment got me thinking, though. Amazon has been somewhat successful in selling DRM-free music files, but they are still a secondary player in that market. This freedom is due to the contracts and agreements they were able to draw from the big music companies.

Apple has only recently gotten on that bandwagon, which they wanted to be on much earlier, but couldn’t due to the contracts they negotiated with the big music companies who then deliberately made more liberal deals with Amazon et. al. in order to break the Apple hegemony. It didn’t succeed and they were somewhat forced to give better terms at re-negotiation time. Hence Apple now can offer DRM-free tracks. Therefore, if it wasn’t for Amazon’s lack of HUGE success with DRM-free MP3 sales, Apple might still be selling DRMed song tracks.

Now we have a similar problem with eBooks, except the big player (in terms of the market size) is eReader. Their agreements with the big publishers are a big part of what keeps their prices high. The book publishers are playing the same games we saw with the music companies. The difference is that there is NO 800lb gorilla called Apple in this mix (in any significant way, anyway). So how are we going to get to a DRM-free state like we now (mostly) have with music?

Amazon needs to succeed in this market in a big way. We need that 800lb gorilla! Amazon is really the only company big enough to “maybe” pull it off (eventually). I have to assume that their current “real” book sales didn’t give them enough clout, assuming they even tried. Let’s hope that DRM-free eBooks happen in the near future, though!

As much of a opponent of DRM I am, I still want a Kindle 2.