FishbowlNY‘s Noah Davis went to Amazon.com‘s Kindle-launching press conference yesterday morning: “The screen’s a tad dark and the buttons too flimsy for my taste, but it seems perfect for reading on a airplane… For curling up in an overstuffed chair in my living room, however, I think I’ll stick with the printed version.”
Evan Schnittman of Oxford University Press: “The commitment that Amazon has shown to give Kindle the iPod effect it deserves is an enormous risk. Amazon has not only committed itself to becoming a device manufacturer (well, at least a branding an OEM manufacturer’s device), it has committed itself to digitizing and converting everything publishers will give them. The combined expense is massive and if it doesn’t show the right return, may deal Amazon a deathly blow that even an 8th Harry Potter book couldn’t fix.”
Jeff Gomez at Print Is Dead: “While this will no doubt cause the usual hand-wringing amongst the literati and bibliophiles, it really shouldn’t. That Amazon is making available electronic books is not much different than when they made books available online over a decade ago. Back then the idea was selection and customer service. The same is true today, except instead of the convenience of overnight shipping, Amazon will be offering instantaneous download and delivery. Works of great literature will now never be more than a mouseclick away.”
Survival of the Book: “This device doesn’t seem all that great, to be honest.”