Liveblogging the Amazon Kindle E-Reader Show with Jeff Bezos
Erick Schonfeld
64 comments »
Amazon has summoned the NY press and blogger corp to the W Hotel on Union Square to watch Jeff Bezos unveil it electronic book reader, the Kindle. We’ll see if there is anything left to learn. Peter Ha from CrunchGear is sitting right next to me bloggingand taking pics (can you say overkill?). Here we go:
9:41 AM: Jeff Bezos takes the stage: Shows a tablet, then some papyrus, then a codex, a picture of Gutenberg (”invented mass production of books,” thanks jeff). He made 180 copies of his most famous book, the Gutenberg bible.
Bezos: “This is a 500 year old technology. We forget it is a technology. As readers we don’t think about this often. You print books 16 pages at a time or 32 pages at a time, that collection is called a signature that gets folded, the edged get abraded. the printing press has definitely gotten a lot more sophisticated since Gutenberg’s time. Gutenberg would still recognize a modern-day book.”
“Why are books the last bastion of analog. they have stubbornly resisted digitization.The book is so highly evolved and suited to its tasks that it is hard to displace. the key feature of a book is that it disappears when you read it. All of us readers know that flow state when we read,we don’t think about the glue, the paper, the stitching, allof that goes away. All that remains is the author’s world, and we flow right into that.”
9:47 AM: “I am a reader. My parents had a tough time punishing me as a child because I was quite content to stay in in my room.”
“The question is can you improve on something as highly evolved and well suited to its task as the book? And how? It has to disappear. it has to get out of the way. Another thing, we knew we would never out-book the book. We would have to take the technology and do things the book could never do.”
“In the early days of Amazon, I was asked, how will you do virtual book signings. We never figured it out because you cannot duplicate the retail book store, you can be inspired by them. We do other things, we have customer reviews, customers who bought this also bought that. Things you cannot do in a physical book store.”
9:51: Shows the Kindle. 10.3 ounces, less than a paperback, and thinner too. Three years in the making.
“We studied how people hold books. You change your posture and grip on the book. It is one of the things that keeps you from getting fatigued and stay in that author’s world.”
9:53: “How do you get content on the book? Traditional answer would be a PC. We did not think that was a good answer. We decided there would be no PC, no software to install.”
“Instead of shopping on your PC, you shop on the device. The content is delivered seamlessly to the device. Normally you would do Wi-Fi. but you have to find a hotspot. We did not like this technology. decided to use EVDO. As soon as I tell you we are using EVDO that should cause a second set of concerns, because everybody knows there has to be a data plan and a monthly bill. We didn’t like that either. So we built Amazon WhisperNet. it is built on top of Sprint’s EVDO network, but we insulate you from all of those things. there is no data plan, no multi-year contract, no monthly bill. We take care of all that in the background, so you can just read.” [Sounds like an MVNO for EVDO, but Amazon pays the freight. How much is that going to cost Amazon?]
“We have 90,000 books you can buy right from the device. And these are the books people want to read. Included on are 101 of 112 New York Times best sellers. And guess what, they are all $9.99. And guess what? they all get delivered wirelessly in less than minute. You can also get newspapers delivered to the device: New York times, Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News. Magazines. And blogs. This is not an RSS feed. this is the full content of the post pushed to your device. (Boing Boing, the Onion, Huffington Post, TechCrunch). Updated throughout the day.” [He stresses that this is not just the headlines and an excerpt, but he ignores blogs that publish their full content in their feeds. Is anyone really going to pay for a blog that they can get on the Web for free?].
“every Kindle comes with a customized e-mail address. You attach your personal docs, and they are delivered to the device, can do this with docs, Jpegs. A resident dictionary one very device [Oxford American Dictionary that is 10 pounds in print]. Another thing a book cannot be is a full set of encyclopedias. We all know the best encyclopedia today is Wikipedia. If you printed it you would need four miles of shelves. because this si a wireless device, you can access Wikipedia from this device.”
“So what do you get with this device? The most advanced EVDO radio in the world, the most advanced reading display technology. on sale right now for $399.”
10:04: Rolls a video.
10:15 AM: Bezos is doing a demo. Shows his magazines and blogs (hey, how did TechCrunch get on there?). Shows how you can change the font size. There is a little scroll wheel on the bottom right, can click on this “select wheel” to underline, add highlights, look up words in the dictionary, you select a line and it gives you the definition of every single word in that line. Shows the store. It is all black-and-white, can browse books, magazines, newspapers, blogs. there is a Kindle Daily Post, and “recommended for you.” Shows you National best seller lists from teh New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post [what about Amazon?]. Also can see Amazon reviews. and details you would see at the Amazon store. Clicks buy. [Interesting, my EVDO got disconnected as he was downloading—coincidence?].
“We archive your book server side on Amazon.com.. If you lose them you can download them again for no cost.”
“The most important thing about Kindle is that it does indeed disappear so you can enter the author’s world.”
Free EVDO connection? The iPod touch should have supplied this as well! Or at least offered it as a non cell carrier based for-fee option.
The only free content available via that free EVDO connection is wikipedia. Even the e-mails apparently cost 10 cents each.
Any indication if it will support PDF format?
Reading this is making me want to ditch my SONY, but right now the SONY does support PDF format. I would even be happy if they provided a tool to convert PDF to MOBI format or allow MOBI generation from your word processor.
Wireless mobile reading pad….but no ability to read RSS feeds?
No ability to browse websites.
Man, another seperate device for people to carry around. Well, at least for U.S. residents.
Steve.
Does the TechCrunch family get paid per blog subscriber?
question, anybody believe this will go for 400$?
why did Amazon not do what Philips did with the senseo coffee machine (or HP with the printers) sell the device at a loss, and recouperate the money via the sales of content (subsidize).
The device is not even cool. It looks like a kids learning computer.
“Let’s be simpleminded. We know this is a feature that’s good for customers. Let’s do it.” not at 400$ Jeff…..
Three years to come up with a design modeled after the stone tablet shown above?
@Sebastian
Don’t worry. Amazon will be selling it as a loss. No one will purchase such an atrocious looking thing.
Two main questions for me:
1). Why is he using a proprietary DRM format? Amazon Unbox sells DRM-free MP3s, and Amazon have always trumpeted the DRM-free model.
2). What happens to public libraries in the future when every book is digital? Can the idea of free access public library co-exist with the publishing industry, when the limitations of physical ‘borrowing’ are removed?
Apart from those issues, I think the Kindle/and other e-readers are clearly the future of books. It looks a bit 1982 though.
“We do other things, we have customer reviews, customers who bought this also bought that. Things you cannot do in a physical book store.”
Uh, no. In a decent physical bookstore you can ask the bookseller if he/she can recommend something, and you can trust their recommendation. Of course you couldn’t do that at Tesco or Walmart, which is where more and more books are being sold. This is the trouble with people like Bezos - they divide the world into Amazon on one side, and Walmart on the other. Everything is consumption, and everything is about features and price (in Kindle’s case, purely about features). Experience is beyond them, except as a buzzword.
“You want recommendations? Great! Our software algorithms will give you all the recommendations you could want! You like knowing what your friend’s just read? We’ll tell you what 10 million people have been reading, so you’ll have a 10 million times better idea what to read! You like reading books? Our book reader has all the features of a book, and you can text search, cross-reference with Wikipedia, and carry all your books at once! That makes it better!”
First they came for my CD rack, now they’re coming for my bookshelf. Wonder what it’ll be next. When I next go to a pet shop to get some kittens, they’ll probably try to sell me fluffy robots that feel and look exactly the same but don’t eat or crap, and I’ll spend five minutes embarrassing myself trying to explain why I prefer a real cat, before giving up and walking out.
It’s just struck me that yet again, technology is driving us backwards in terms of progress. It used to be books were incredibly expensive, but it didn’t matter because no-one could read them. Eventually, mass-production meant that books became affordable to the common man. It was a great leap forward in culture and social mobility. And now, thanks to technology, reading is becoming a luxury again. O brave new world…
I think he had a chat with Gutenberg regarding the design and functionality. The demo video do not show any interactive content functions and live download examples. I think he should talk to Steve!
…and I will make the hard bench mark test with my mother! Tell you more then…
No support for warezed ebooks (PDFs), no success in the marketplace
these technologies are bound to fail. we already have a perfectly decent open standard for transmitting document formats - the web stack. authors need to stop fighting the future and get on board with web technology.
sticking to dead tech like ebooks will just lead the book industry down the same road the music industry has gone down. and yes, you can score a shitload of books on thepiratebay
The Kindle may or may not work out but physical books will be gone in 20 years. Look at what kids are doing. I browse a site called http://www.booksie.com and there are thousands and thousands of authors publishing electronically and people are reading, commenting, etc. The static book is looking more and more like a fossil.
I personally prefer paper and ink but I can’t ignore what I see with my kids, and others.
Is anybody else annoyed at what this doofball gives as his name…
I Am Not Posting To Spam My Blog
Well goody two shoes for you
Call me a dinosaur, but I’m rather attached to “things”. Whan I pay my hard earned cash I like to get something tangible, like a CD, or a book, not some nebulous electronic signal…..
Why isn’t it touchscreen? The track ball/selector is quite a turnoff and frankly I wouldn’t feel satisfactory dishing our $400 for such an old technology. I’m am very impressed with the LCD ink screen. Amazing!
Is the wireless coverage up and running in Canada as well?
The blackberry is an ugly device - optimized for usability - and it sells like hotcakes.
If the price comes below $100, I will buy it, and I’m a light reader. I read maybe 1 or 2 books per month and at that price, I will be glad to get it just for the convenience of not having to go to a book store ever again. There are times I want to get started on a book, but not wait for it to be shipped, and I’m not a fan of typical e-books because part of reading a book is to get away the computer that we’re using all day.
I think it’s cool.
I think $400 is going to be expensive for the average reader to hand over.
So that leaves the Techy people to purchase and most of them will hate the design of the device.
I guess we’ll all wait and see how it does.
http://www.fakesportsblogs.com
I look at this and I think, it looks like old technology. But then I think… can I read in bed. I can’t do that with a PC and my guess is that this is the kind of thing they were looking for, something you can hold comfortably, which means it can’t be too small. It has to have good screen resolution.
I don’t want a touch screen because I will just screw things up by touching it accidentally. When reading there is only one thing you need to do, turn the page.
I think this could work. I for one won’t bet against Bezos. I think he’s proven to be on the smartest guys around.
this is going to be a hard sell at $400 - it seems like it only adds the convenience of many books on one device…but you still have to shell out $10 each, and in the real world most people don’t read more than 1 book at a time. you can almost buy the actual book at $10 so that’s not a strong selling point.
the free network is nice but it sounds like you can’t use it for much of anything but buying more books…so that’s nice but again not a strong selling point.
what’s the device powered by?
$400 for a black and gray device? Are you serious? I own an Ipod touch, Ipaq and a tablet pc, and let me tell you that I way prefer my Ipod touch over the tablet pc for reading news and stuff (lighter, nicer screen,…).
The existing ebook reader devices on the market never took off because they are B&W and pricey.
To the real Steve Job, if you are reading this blog, build a 8-1/2×11 inches Ipod touch with wi-fi and wireless internet connection and you will kill the Kindle and Sony Portable Reader before Christmas 2008. You already have the technology, just do a bigger screen, it’s that simple.
Waste of money.
I think $400 is a bit high. $200-300 would work. If I bought books a lot, I would pay $400. It’s too easy for me to get the books I want for free. Kindle won’t have half of the books I want.
Does anyone know if e-ink would be fast enough for web browsing? I guess I don’t mind that the Kindle isn’t a very good web browser, although I think it is lame that there is no RSS reader. How very proprietary.
@24, techcrunchreader
What about e-ink vs. LCD? E-ink can be read in sunlight. I have heard it is easier on the eyes. Words on a page don’t need to be in color.
i think this is going to be a hard sell at that price
the free network is cool but it sounds like its only for really buying books. good post.
this is in chronological order
FAILURE!!!
“And guess what, they are all $9.99″
Holy fuck! Jeff “RipMyAss” Bezos
Wait for Apple to sell books at 99cts in iTunes and your business model will be wiped out of planet earth
Price too high + ugly = it will bomb.
For that price it should have a LCD touch screen on one side and the digital ink on the other.
Check out CG for a quick review and photos.
utter waste of time, I thought Bezos was with it and up to date. This design looks 10 years old. I get the feeling the EVDO was to make up for the shitty design. This is going to bomb even with amazons selling power.
The ereaders need someone to comeup with an ipod like device and this is not it.
@exapted, E-Ink corp. is the kind of slow company that have (had?) a good technology but nothing really extraordinary comes out of it.
Yes, e-ink can be read in sunlight, and words on a page don’t need to be in color. But what if you were able to read a b&w ebook and a color magazine on the same device? What device would you buy for $400, the B&W only or the color one? Even at $100, the Kindle would be too expensive, we are in 2007, not 1997!
e-ink vs LCD:
Color e-ink paper: 12-bit color in a 400×300 pixel format with resolution of 83 pixels per inch.
LCD: can be a 1080p, 1,920×1,200 pixel
The ipod touch screen has a great resolution, better than Archos devices, better than any small screen that I have seen, so I think Apple set the bar really high.
OK, this is sounding like a bust. Here is why. You seem to have no other way of buying these kindlebooks than using the device. Then once you have them, all you can read them on is the device. You seem to have no way of getting them off the device. It doesn’t seem to support extra memory cards and external storage.
What we are looking at here is an extension of the iTunes model. These guys see the terminal as a way of locking you into the store. Must have the terminal to buy the ebooks, must read them on the terminal.
But we the people see terminals as being things we use however we want. We see books as being things we have bought and now can do whatever we want with (subject to copyright). So, given the choice between this and the Iliad or the Hanlin V9, or even the Sony, all of which allow us to put our bought stuff from other stores on our computers, archive them, move them around as we want, we will go for the others.
There is nothing wrong with the current book model. Use whatever card you want to buy from whatever store you want, and read wherever you want. The ebook model should work just like that. Read on whatever you want, buy from whatever you want.
This sucks!
Erick
Nice liveblogging.
Based on your coverage, it sounds like Bezos is no Steve Jobs when it comes to intros. Any thoughts on that?
Overall - it seems like Amazon has already blown it with the first generation Kindle - they’ve made the Kindle this year’s Zune. The Kindle is another expensive, ugly device designed to let you access expensive content in proprietary formats.
Here’s a more skeptical take on the Kindle introduction: Amazon Kindle: Milestone Or Speedbump?
Quick question … are the books licensed or do you buy them? For instance, can I buy one of the books for $9.99 and resell it on eBay?
The key to ebook readers success is not the online ebook store.
All the efforts on creating pseudo ebook stores are pointless.
Remember. 97% of the content that fills iPods are not songs purchased from the iTunes store, but they are songs that users made themselves from ripping the CDs. MP3 is the key and easy CD ripping help users create 97% of the content!
ebooks are no different. all these efforts by Amazon and Sony will at most contribute to only about 3%. It is user-generated PDFs that will help create the other 97% to fill ebook readers.
Users can now convert printed books to ebooks using a book ripper called BookSnap.
http://www.booksnap.atiz.com
Atiz Team,
I just don’t get this. Tech people will keep using Laptops and data phones because … that’s what we do and this offers somewhat less content at higher cost. Non Tech people are going to pony up $400 for a fancy reader gadget? I’m guessing no.
“Here we go (in reverse chronological order)”
Actually, you shared the events in chronological order. (Reverse chronological order would have listed the most recent event first and then proceeded backwards in time.)
Butt Ugly!
The article was very positive, but almost all of the comments are very negative.
I thought it was pretty cool until I went to amazon.com and looked at it. I will not be buying one. Reasons: high price, small screen, too many hidden costs and I’m unclear about what I would be paying for and future costs of ownership.
Once I buy a real book, there are no future hidden costs, I know where it will be (last place I put it down) and I can re-sell it or give it away (ie, it belongs to me, not some “content provider.” If this is the future, there should be another Boston Tea Party to attend.
Incidentally, I can download books in mp3 and plug them into my iPod for free. I can get my story without the eyestrain, they way people did before Guttenberg. Authors can be bards again and prose can be poetry.
The success of the iPod is partly due to the fact that was build around existing free stuff, namely the mp3 format. Podcasts were also free. Apple just organized and made it sexy. It’s a very different strategy than Amazon’s.
Not sure on the functionality of the system as I havent read it all but first impressions it looks awfull .
In todays world , companies incorporate design aswell as functionality . To me it looks like a computer from the 60’s .
If they had something cool in terms of design ( take tips from apple, phillips , samsung , sony ericson etc they know how to design ) they would sell.
Did ipod sell because it was the first on the market , or its price was better than the others , or it offered more functionality that all the other mp3 players outthere ? NO NO NO .
Ipod only sold because it looked great , sexy and people were proud to show it off. which in term made other people wanting one
“The blackberry is an ugly device - optimized for usability - and it sells like hotcakes.”
correction, it WAS an ugly device, have you not seen the newer models? They look just as flashy as any other US-available phone
Why this will not fly:
1. The name is awful.
2. The device looks like it was designed in 1987.
3. It’s too expensive. I wouldn’t buy one for a third of the price.
4. No one else has been able to sell people on the concept of e-books.
5. DRM means that if you don’t like the book, you can’t resell it.
6. E-books means the end of free public libraries.
This thing is so expensive, ugly and pointless, I am not sure what Amazon was thinking of. It looks like one of those very old fostex mini tape mixers/recorders, damn. I cannot believe this design in 2007, amazing.
Is it better than the Sony Portable Reader System - PRS-500? I don`t like tidea of many hidden costs, and the constraints it comes with.
Ugly? Who cares? It’s not a social status symbol or piece of bling. It’s designed for a specific function - reading. If it works well for that purpose, maybe it will catch on.
Everthing that’s popular now was ugly when first introduced. Example… cellphone. People never thought they would become what they are now because 80% of the population are not visionaries. This is not designed for looks and all the other fluff our society expects these days. It is designed to build a bridge from one era to another. I can envision this product taking a life of its own when other people begin building them. This reminds me of cellphones. Think about that and you will see what I mean.
In Newsweek Steven Levy said “Though Bezos is reluctant to make the comparison, Amazon believes it has created the iPod of reading.” While “the iPod of …” has become a cliché to describe any product with a semblance of distilled design sensibilities emanating from Cupertino, there is one fundamental strategic reason why Kindle won’t be like the iPod: content. I explain why here:
“Why is the new Kindle eBook reader from Amazon and not Apple?”
http://counternotions.com/2007.....vs-iphone/
Maybe, Sipboy, but I’m not convinced. I like my shelves of books. I like how they look and feel. I like to look at them and remember when and where I read them. I like the fact that some of them are signed by the author, in real ink. I like to be able to lend books to people I think will enjoy them. I like to buy them, often for just a few pennies, from sales and second-hand book stalls. I like how they smell. I like not having to recharge them. I like not worrying about whether I’ll lose them, or if they’ll go wrong, or get scratched. I like being able to write on and highlight text books.
I really like gadgets and technology too. I’m often an early adopter, but not just for the sake of it. For people who like books there’s a lot that’s not to like about the ‘Kindle’ (yes, I see what they did there!).
such advanced technology its amazing but only if that guy can grow some hair or artificial hair.
I think the software has potential, especially if they realize really popular and/or useful social aspects of reading, beyond what we already do as bloggers. It makes sense Amazon figures this out from managing all those user-submitted book reviews. And I think it’s a good idea to get past all the wires and gadgetry, interface and contractual distractions, and let us focus on reading.
But I think $9.99 is too high considering there’s no paper, printing, shipping, air-conditioned hand-alphabetized store, etc.
Butt Ugly
Wonder how much of the price is going to the carrier (Sprint) v/s to Amazon. The device itself seems to be $100 (could be driven down with volumes), the markup on the best seller eBooks is zero which means that the rest of the $300 can be spent as follows.
Sprint currently has an mobile broadband data plan that starts at $40/month (which may be about $20 at a wholesale rate * 12 = $240 per year.)
The $60 would serve to compensate for free content and the expectation of margins for the best seller ebooks and other hosting/distribution costs. If we expect even half of this to be the costs, that leaves Amazon with about margins of $30 per device assuming zero repeat buys as a worst case scenario.
It truly is the razor and not the blade.
Thoughts anyone?
I bought one. Sorry haters.
I am big fan of this product, I think its the first generation of many products that could change the way we read.
Musing about my personal list of needs/ uses concerning media portability:
- I need an audio-carrying device, as I fill a 4-hour train commute or a 15-minute walk with MANY snippets of music and spoken-word podcasts (iPod). I need a syncing mechanism with my home-base (iTunes on desktop computer) or with my multi-purpose device I carry around anyhow (iTunes on laptop). I would need an online audio backup service (?).
http://www.felgner.ch/2007/11/kindle.html
I think the Kindle is a nice looking ereader that is easy on the eyes while reading and is easy to use. The batteries last a very long time too.