lol
"last week" == Feb 2010?
"But last week Michael Arrignton at TechCruch reported..."
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/12/amazon-wants-to-give-a-free...
Free Kindle This November
31–40 of 105 posts
Re: Free Kindle This November
#32This is exciting for many reasons but one being educational systems may finally start adopting the digital tablet.
Studies have shown the kindle is not robust enough for most classroom settings. Lack of note taking, slow page turning, etc. slowed down classes and caused students to eventually print out assignments: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/201... http://www.fastcompany.com/1727292/apple-ipad-officially-pas...
I pretty much agree with that and prefer my iPad for those types of things. But the Kindle will evolve and just the thought of getting away from the textbook fix would be nice.
If Amazon Kindles were starting to appear in schools, iPads and Apple would be right there. Apple has always been good about getting computers into schools.
The textbook industry got so crazy that most kids have TWO of each now because they need them for school and home, because the 5-6 2 inch thick books of outdated materials are too heavy. So what is more kludgey and when could you ever really write in books themselves? I never wrote in textbooks even though I bought them and never took the time to sell them. Can't people take notes outside the book?
Plus if you have Kindle accounts/books you can also pull these on other devices (maybe now) and especially laptops and PCs.
Re: Free Kindle This November
#33Even though Amazon is not a wholesaler like Sam's or Costco, but I won't mind getting movies at $35 per year. $79 is too much an yearly renewal for what appears to be just a guaranteed free delivery.
$79/yr is $6.60/mo, which is less than Netflix's streaming-only plan and includes free 2-day shipping on Amazon products.
Re: Free Kindle This November
#34Kind of the ultimate blow to the iPad and iBook. Even if the iPad has color and is backlit, just how many people will choose a $600 book reader over a $0 book reader that's 'almost' as good?
Re: Free Kindle This November
#35This is exciting for many reasons but one being educational systems may finally start adopting the digital tablet.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nookstudy
I expect that is more likely to make a bigger difference since it has buy-in from the publishers, BN effectively runs most the college bookstores, you can type faster with a keyboard, and most students don't want to carry a ton of books. Would be nice if it supported Latex for Math/Physics notes.
Re: Free Kindle This November
#36Makes sense. Like game consoles, they make the money on the content. But, unlike consoles, provided a kindle doesn't need the latest, fastest technology, they can keep getting cheaper, til it's negligible relative to the benefits of acquiring a customer.
To note, they don't care to make money on the device, thats why you can read your kindle books on Android, iPhone, PC, etc.
It's not they don't care to make money on the device directly, it's just they don't know how to.
Re: Free Kindle This November
#37Kind of the ultimate blow to the iPad and iBook. Even if the iPad has color and is backlit, just how many people will choose a $600 book reader over a $0 book reader that's 'almost' as good?
Those who want a device that can be used for more than just reading books.
Re: Free Kindle This November
#38The use of the graph is ridiculous in this post. If the author wants to predict a free Kindle in the near future and back it up with some one line quote from Bezos, fine. However, that graph is pointless. I can craft countless other curves to those four points that are just as "predictive" as that one yet would predict vastly different prices. Further, if that graph was correct, Amazon would start paying us to take Kindles soon after. Just keep following that time axis!
Fitting points to a time line and drawing it out to infinity is a pointless and erroneous predictor. Read Proofinesss by Seife. He talks about these and other mistakes made by people trying to back up their arguments with error prone data and approaches.
Re: Free Kindle This November
#39also interesting is that we're at the end of February, right where the line crosses $100...
Re: Free Kindle This November
#40By this logic, Amazon will pay you to take a Kindle by the start of next year. Amazon makes future money on Kindle owners because they're avid book readers and they buy a lot of eBooks. If Amazon were to give away Kindles for free a lot of non-avid readers would pick them up just to have one, which would kill the model. I think a $99 price point (maybe $49 with Prime) makes a lot more sense.
Wouldn't Amazon be able to tell if existing customers are avid readers or not by their purchase history? Perhaps, rather than thinking they would give them out on a street corner, they would gift them to customers who reach a purchase $amount/frequency.