No.*
* That was the question asked by the Dom Post in the headline an article on Amazon’s new digital reader, the “Kindle”. The article in question is straight off the wire, a piece for the Times by James Bone. Except there it had the rather more sensible headline, “The digital reader that will provide 200 books at the touch of a button”.
The DomPost’s doughty subeditors might have found an answer to the question themselves if they’d looked online to find this disappointing review of the very same device, from, er, the same edition of the Times, and also by James Bone. Go figure.
(Actually, whoever put together the informative sidebar deserves some kind of reward for this bulletpoint: “Like a book, the device’s screen is not backlit and uses electronic ink to mimic paper.”)
The Kindle is going to fail, obviously. There is no market for a standalone book reader. Book-reader functionality will only ever become commercially viable as an add-on for your cellphone.
Speaking of which, I’ve seen this article linked from several blogs today. It’s Slate’s piece on how the new generation is moving beyond email, as they take for granted a range of channels (Twitter, Facebook, texting) each suited to a different kind of communication. At the end of the piece, Chad Lorenz writes: “You can now send and receive every kind of message—texts, IMs, e-mails, and Facebook posts—with most new mobile phones. It’s not hard to imagine a future communications command center where, on a single screen, you’ll be able to choose between sending an e-mail, instant message, status note, or blog post—or sending all of them at once—and then have all those bits of text neatly and securely archived.” Yes, exactly. Except Chad leaves out two crucial channels: audio and video chat. “Telephone calls” will soon be an outdated term. So will individual call/text charges – soon you’ll be paying for the bitstream usage of your phone, just like you do for any other internet connection. And that’ll be the end of having to record your contacts on your cellphone SIM, too, because they’ll all be stored online on your MyCell homepage, as your Friends list.
I mean, isn’t this obvious to everyone? This is hardly Cory Doctorow insightful futurism. We already have all the pieces. How long will it take before someone starts assembling them?
Look for a big telecom to try to buy Facebook sometime in the next year.
7 thoughts on “[mediawatch] Is this The End for the book?”
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Yeah, it’s not radical futurism in any way whatsoever. My new mobile (grudgingly brought once my old one died after five years of uncomplaining service) already has all the tools and software to do almost anything I do at my desktop.
What’s missing, though, is the ease, the speed and, most importantly, the cost. It’d be darned expensive to use my mobile like a PC.
But such things as that will be addressed in a fairly short time, I’d imagine.
I considered getting one of those because of the E-ink thing. I don’t like reading books on computers because of the backing light…
I don’t have a cell phone. I never have, and I seriously doubt I ever will (cell phones are about other people being able to reach the owner, not about the owner reaching anyone else).
Further, video phone calls haven’t taken off in Japan, despite having devices to do this – who would have thought that sometimes it’s nice not to see what someone is doing?
So, basically, bah humbug to this future, however inevitable it may be. I don’t want my data stored on someone else’s servers, I don’t care about “social networking”, and I have no interest in Flickr either. Bah humbug again.
*stir, stir*
I sort of agree with Jamie, except that he has fallen for the “once you’ve bought it you’re not allowed to turn it off” fallacy that so afflicts critics of tv programming. It is *absolutely* the owner’s choice whether they remain in control or make themselves the plaything of other people. A mobile phone which you *turn off* except to make outgoing calls, and whose number you never give to anyone except in emergencies, gives you complete control over who you talk to and when. I had to get a mobile when I moved to NZ because I didn’t have a place for a fixed line. Now I turn it on only when I need to get a taxi or to tell someone I’m going to be late. I actually have more control over “opting in” to being contacted on my mobile than I do with my fixed line.
But in terms of the substance of Jamie’s comment, about not wanting to live my life in public, about not wanting to tangle myself in “networks” managed by someone else, hallelujah brother. I can keep my friends list in my head, thanks: I don’t need Facebook or LiveJournal to “own” that information for me and to mediate my communication with those friends. Let “bah humbug” be our proud rallying call.
When the cyber-revolution comes, you will be the first against the wall-of-shame. Huge networks of teens and tweens and pervs pretending to be tweens will mock your non-existance in their intercybernetfriendwork, and will blow virtual raspberries and virtually spit on you in the cyberstreets. Your lack of onnetinterline profile will put you at the nadir of the information superpopularity lists, along with dead people who aren’t famous and the third-world poor.
Ivan, true enough, that usage of a cell-phone is certainly possible, and the only potentially desirable one from my point of view. It’s just that I’ve never felt the need for a phone even in those circumstances.
Matt: sounds great!
I’d also like to point out that phones, including cell phones, are fairly well designed to do something quite well: voice communication. Which makes me wonder (okay, I know the technical reasons) why companies are so obsessed with making the voice element the least element of it all. Typing on a cell phone? Reading on a cell phone? TTS, STT, people! Sheesh. And another bah, humbug for good measure.
I love the kindle idea… a cellphone with a decent screen resolution and a lot of memory. For me, an open version of that and a decent data plan would be ideal. I’d be able to do 99% of what I want a laptop for in my cellphone. Obviously the kindle is bleeding edge “mum, mum, look what I did” rather than a usable device, but we’re getting there.
Reading books, reading email+blogs, a bit of posting, phone calls, contact list, sending sms/email, a diary/appointment list, sync to PC, always on (with silent and vibrate options). Sounds incredibly useful to me. Ideally there’d be a ruggedised version that is slightly waterproof and more solid (and FFS, why not just supply a bluetooth headset instead of a microphone and speaker? Two less holes in the case and who wants to hold a paperback to their ear). I admit it, I lose a lot of phones to water damage – I carry them everywhere, when it rains I get wet… so does my phone.