2009 has been a good year for Amazon, and a lot of their success has been due to the Kindle ebook reader. The original Kindle was launched in November 2007. It sold out in five and a half hours and new stock wasn\’t available for months.
Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February of this year, and it featured several enhancements over the original model. They then followed up very quickly with the large format Kindle DX. Amazon now had a \”family\” of Kindles and, helped by a fair bit of free publicity from bestselling writers like Stephen King, partnerships with universities and colleges together with a lot of discussion by political bodies, the Kindle quickly became synonymous with e-book readers.
Of course, Amazon\’s competitors were also checking out the nascent e-book reader market and wondering how to get their share. Currently, there is a very impressive list of manufacturers who all have their own e-book readers in development. Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Barnes and Noble and Asus are just a sample of the competition lining up against Amazon.
Any e-book reader which displays potential is instantly dubbed the \”Kindle Killer\”. The technical features of each new reader are scrutinised and reported upon, especially when it incorporates a feature lacking from the current Kindle – the touch screen control of the Sony Daily Edition reader for example.
As important as the technical spec of e-book readers is, it is only one part of the equation. The large choice of books available on the Amazon website, the ability to wirelessly download books – with no monthly fees and no internet connection and Amazon\’s highly trusted brand name were all critically important to the success of the Kindle.
A number of the new readers will feature wireless connectivity. The Barnes and Noble Nook reader will allow users to choose from a selection of over 1,000,000 books on the company\’s website. However, the one common theme that seems to be emerging among the e-book readers in development is the format of the e-books.
The majority of the new readers in development seem to be going for a format known as ePub. However, the Kindle format is proprietary, which means that Kindle books can only be used on the Kindle reader.
At the moment, bearing in mind that the Kindle is pretty much the only game in town, that\’s not a big problem. However, in the future, readers may want the ability to transfer e-books from one reader to another and to lend books to family and friends.
In a very short space of time, the Kindle has become Amazon\’s bestselling product – bar none. So Amazon won\’t surrender their market leadership role without a struggle. Maybe next year will see the launch of the Kindle 4. It will almost certainly include a number of technical improvements – but could it be that Amazon might also adopt the ePub format, or perhaps provide some type of translation service?
Read more about the Amazon Kindle reader and learn how you can save money by getting free Kindle ebooks direct from Amazon\’s website.
