The Kindle: Great Business Tool or Just Another Gadget?
For the longest time, I had no desire to own a Kindle. Books are convenient, plentiful, and cheap (free if you got them from the library.) But as ebooks started cluttering my hard drive – ebooks I never read, because staring at a computer screen for more than 10 minutes made my eyes ache – I thought an ebook reader might be a good solution.
So I got a Kindle for my birthday last month. Showing it off to a colleague, I bragged that it was going to revolutionize my business. With the Kindle, I could finally catch up on all those marketing blogs and ebooks I’ve been meaning to read – without feeling like my eyes were going to bleed.
As for other ebooks, I put myself on a $10 a month Amazon.com budget, and reasoned I could supplement my reading by downloading free versions of the classics.
In doing so, I learned three things. Number one: $10 a month does not buy a lot of books.
Number two: I don’t particularly like the classics.
And number three: The Kindle is not as convenient an ebook reader as I had hoped. For starters, most of the books didn’t fit on the screen. Check out this example from Chris Guillebeau’s ebook “279 Days To Overnight Success:”
It’s hard to tell without a frame of reference, but that text is TINY. And zooming in only cuts the text in half, so I have to constantly scroll back and forth to read each line.
Reading blogs is a similar experience. It’s hard to enlarge the text to a readable size without zooming in and cutting the page in half. I suppose I could have gotten a larger Kindle, but who wants to lug that around?
The Kindle does come with a few perks. Mine has an attractive leather cover that I can bring to any business meeting without having to worry about clients judging me for having a dog-eared copy of “New Moon.”
The instant gratification of downloading new ebooks is also a plus. I’ve been able to buy several new books without having to pay $24.95 for the hardback edition.
The audio book feature is pretty cool, too. You can download books from Audible.com, or turn on the text-to-speech feature and have the Kindle read to you. I anticipate this will come in handy during my 40 minute commute.
Overall, I’m happy with my Kindle. But I take back what I said about it revolutionizing my business. Until Amazon makes it easier to read ebooks and blogs, the Kindle will be more of a fun gadget than a great business tool.
Do you have an ebook reader? If so, do you use it for business or pleasure?
11 Responses to The Kindle: Great Business Tool or Just Another Gadget?
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You may want to check out http://audible.com (owned by Amazon) – better for audio books for sure than text-to-speech. I tend to go: fiction & business from Audible, tech manuals in ebook (read through Kindle for Mac or Kindle for PC – free software), then anything I get signed I get in paper. Still a young market though
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Thanks Courtney! I downloaded one Audible book using the coupon code for This American Life, and I really like it so far. I may sign up for their monthly plan — at least for the first three months when it’s only $8.
Does the text size change from book to book?
I’m no expert, but I think it does if it’s in PDF format. If the ebook is formatted for the Kindle or as a text file, then the font size is pretty standard and can be changed to whatever you want.
The only use i can think of Kindle is, you can speed up buying books with it. They not even save much of your money as you described. It is just another gadget IMO. It can’t be another business tool unless they add some cool features. iPad (close competitor) and other such Gadget may have probably much more potential.
Kindle is going to save lots of Papers every year on the other hand. Good news for environment lovers
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Gillette had a classic marketing ploy dubbed “give away the razor and sell the blades,” which I think we’re seeing with the Amazon Kindle. Granted that $139 is not actually giving it away but by selling these at a reasonable cost they have established a pipeline to sell their “content.”
I have gotten accustomed to the ease of navigation with other devices (IPOD’s, Androids, etc) and this seems rather cumbersome…unless you want to buy something from AMAZON.
Good point, Euell. I have noticed that despite the relatively low price of Kindles, the price of ebooks has been going up dramatically lately.
There are plenty of free books available for the Kindle. If you really don’t like the classics then it’s worth watching out for promotions where publishers are pushing a particular author.
The price of e-books has definitely gone up of late. It’s because many publishers have moved to the agency pricing model where they set the price rather than Amazon. Personally, I don’t see how this can continue in the long term. People won’t stand for it.
You will see the comment “the price of the book has been set by the publisher” printed below the price of certain books on the Amazon website. Those are the ones with the artificially inflated prices (my opinion).
Love your picture in the header by the way!
Apparently, Amazon does make a lot of money with its eBooks. Some people are making ridiculous suggestions that the Kindle will be given away for free.
But the Kindle can be an awesome tool for business; I use it for that reason all the time.
thx.
ziad recently posted…The Amazon Kindle as a Business Tool
Amazon makes a lot of money, period. Wish I had bought stock years ago!
Just another gadget I think. Connection to the rest of the world via a screen and internet connection is a must for businesses and hugely convenient for personal use. However, when it comes to reading books, or anything more than 1000 words or so, I much prefer the paper version, it’s so much easier to read!