Not sure whether you have heard about Amazon’s Kindle yet, but do check out the videos on their site and the Newsweek article on Kindle.  The article not only talks about Kindle, but also about the evolution of writing in general.  Sure eBooks have been around for a while now, but I don’t think none has had such impact as Kindle will.

There are already a lot of negative reviews for the product on Amazon, but they really boil down to a couple of topics: large next and previous page keys, no PDF support, and DRM restriction.  This product to me is quite amazing–it’s revolutionary and it may have a great effect on how we consume written media and save the environment.  Yet, these people are going off on topics that are completely irrelevant; thus my frustration here.  First, if you are not intelligent enough to pick up an object from a different angle and fumble on keys, then perhaps you should really not buy the product; just send it back.  Second, if you want to read PDF documents, read them on your PC or better yet, on your cell phone.  Kindle was not created to be a PDF reader.  Finally, people have to get over the fact that they’re not going to own an object when the pay for something.  Do you own a film after you pay $11 to watch a movie at a theater?   Books on Kindle are digital, and yes, if you have no space on your device, you will have to trust Amazon to keep the content for you.  True, in essence you are borrowing the books.  We seem to accept the very same fact with on-demand movies and other media content, but I guess that it will take a while before we get over our Neanderthal instinct of owning something and feeling it in our hands.  If you’re an avid and evolving reader, you wouldn’t read the same books in 20 years that you are reading today.  Classics yes, but if you feel like reading a couple of books over and over again or lending them to your friends, then get a couple of paper copies.  Kindle and physical books can co-exist.  Kindle is great for reading contemporary literature, newspapers, magazines, and blogs.  For the price a movie ticket, you get any book on your device that lasts as long as, well, Amazon will exist.  Even when Amazon ceases to exist, I’m confident that someone will take over the technology and convert it to some other format.  So your mind can be at peace–you’ll most likely die before the format of the content is outdated; and if you’re really lucky, there are smart people out there who will make sure that your Kindle content will be available for your grandchildren as well.  In case you really think that they will read your Oprah Book Club books from 2007!?

One more point about the environmental benefits.  If you haven’t seen Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth yet, go see it now!  You obviously know about global warming, but when you see Gore’s story, you start thinking about it differently–you’ll start thinking about saving energy, buying Teslas, halogen bulbs, etc.  When you put Kindle into the context of the environmental benefits, the product becomes quite compelling.  Here’s a related quote from the Newsweek article:

“Microsoft’s Bill Hill has a riff where he runs through the energy-wasting, resource-draining process of how we make books now. We chop down trees, transport them to plants, mash them into pulp, move the pulp to another factory to press into sheets, ship the sheets to a plant to put dirty marks on them, then cut the sheets and bind them and ship the thing around the world. “Do you really believe that we’ll be doing that in 50 years?” he asks.”

Now excuse me, I will go ahead and order a Kindle.