Amazon Bows Kindle 2 Digital Reader

Amazon on Monday (Feb. 9) introduced Kindle 2, the second version of its fledgling digital reading device, which boasts of a thinner design, improved navigation, longer battery life, and several more media partners--including USA Today and The New Yorker.The new Kindle is available for $359 as of Feb. 24. Like its predecessor, Kindle 2 enables users to wirelessly download full-length books in less than a minute for $9.99 each. The Kindle’s screen is designed to imitate the look and feel of books, rather than a traditional computer screen.Officials said that the digital reader, which is primarily being marketed to book lovers, will gradually become a alternative for print reading—particularly longer form journalism--for a growing portion of the population. Amazon now offers subscriptions to 31 newspapers and 22 magazines along with over 1,200 blogs, including blogs from Wired and Vanity Fair. However, at this point the Kindle is not much of an advertising platform. Users pay between $5.99 to $14.99 per month for ad-free newspaper subscriptions and $1.25 to $3.49 per month for ad-free magazines. They can also opt to subscribe for continuously updated subscriptions to blogs for 99 cents to a $1.99 per month.And while users can surf the Internet using the Kindle, Amazon officials downplayed that functionality at Monday’s press event in New York, saying that the device was best suited to deliver Kindle-optimized version of newspapers and magazine via subscriptions, particularly for business travelers and commuters who want to read in places where wireless access in not available, such as airplanes.During Monday’s presentation, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos indicated that he envisions the Kindle elevating the reading of longer content like books and magazines in much the same way that computers and mobile devices have boosted shorter content. “Long form reading is losing ground to short form reading,” he said. “We change our tools, and our tools change us.”For print in particular, Bezos said the new Kindle offers “really dramatic improvements in newspaper navigation”--allowing users to jump from section to section and story to story with more ease.Besides Bezos, Monday’s press event featured an appearance by Stephen King, who read an excerpt form his new novella Ur, a which is being offered exclusively for download via the new device. The novella’s storyline also prominently features the Kindle being used by several characters.

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Amazon Bows Kindle 2 Digital Reader

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