Even reading has gone wireless. Amazon.com has introduced the Kindle, a wireless reading device about the size of a paperback novel. This new device gives you access to over 90,000 books, top newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and Europe, and the top 250 blogs in business, politics, etc. Suppose you read a book review on a blog (like this one!) and decide that you want to read that book, right now. Well, you can. You simply purchase the book in the Kindle store and within 1 minute it has downloaded both to your Kindle as well as online.
Okay, so Amazon has a great spill, and it seems like it could be a wonderful thing, but I'm not sold just yet. Here are some reasons why:
- The price. I still haven't bought a $100 iPod, let alone a $400 Kindle. Do you know how many real books I could get for that?
- The ease of buying the books. I know this should probably be a good thing, but if I bought a book (at $9.99 each) every time I thought about one, I would be flat broke!
- The reading selection. Even though there are over 90,000 books available, something tells me that they won't be the kind I read. I think I have only read 1 NY Times Best-Seller in my life!
- I'm a bit of a purist. I like to hold a real book in my hands, flip through its pages and even smell it. Somehow, I don't think I would get the same pleasure out of an electronic device.
But all in all, this new device is actually a pretty good idea. I don't think that it will ever replace books, but it certainly is making reading faster and more accessible in a world that thrives on the instantaneous. And anything that can get people to read more is always a good thing!
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