Amazon Planning E-Book Debacle

Amazon is apparently planning to release a $399 e-book reading device called Kindle on Monday. I'd have thought that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would know better since he was around at the turn of the century, during the first e-book flop.

If the pictures posted on Engadget are remotely close to the final form of the device, I have to say that Kindle is a thing of unsurpassed ugliness. The iPhone it is not. And that's a problem: The iPhone is, in my opinion, the best e-reading device currently available. Kindle's failure to learn any lessons from the iPhone will be its doom.

Back in 1999, I spoke with IDC analyst Sean Kaldor for a PC Computing Magazine article on e-books. He said basically that no one was buying e-book reading devices.

"The fact that we don't see consumers adopting these devices en masse tells me that it's not just a device issue," he said. "It's a fundamental shift in consumer attitudes and actions that needs to happen."

Eight years later, that shift still hasn't happened.

Full story: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/11/amazon_planning.html

Bigger book bonanza

IF you’re a book lover with groaning bookshelves at home, any store that sells books is a dangerous place to step into: because it’s so difficult to leave without buying an addition to those shelves.

Well, fellow book worms, it’s with trepidation I report that the Kinokuniya Bookstores in Suria KLCC has become even more dangerous than it used to be: it’s bigger! From about 2,000sq m, the store has expanded to more than 2,700sq m.

Full story: The Star Online