June 03, 2008

Splurging on a Kindle

This past quarter, DPCI was fortunate enough to be involved with a major University's efforts to publish its content using Amazon's Kindle technology. We have had some really cool projects this year, but everyone in the office was excited by how well that one went. However, none of us owns a Kindle, so we couldn't really see the results as a customer...

Now once I set my mind to buying something, I usually create the usual refractory period between 'impulse buy' and 'well-thought purchase.' I do this partly in deference to my wife, who is a smart shopper, as well as to show her that I'm not one of those male hunter types that will go out and harpoon a WII or XBOX and lug it home with me the very next time she sends me out for light bulbs. I also have to give some credit to my father, who often would take years to purchase anything -- including entire rooms of furniture. But thats a different story.

The last two gadgets I bought, for instance, were a widescreen TV (took 18 months between decision and purchase) and a Blackberry (resisted the temptation for about 7 months, but buckled due to my growing loathing of the Treo form factor).

The Kindle is a personal technology purchase record of sorts, taking me about 3 months. I must admit that this was the hardest to resist of all, since I have been craving that device ever since I read about it last year. However, once we did the Kindle project here, thats when I made the decision I was going to buy it.

I looked at other book readers in the market, but there were two reasons I was sold on the Kindle. First, Amazon. Say what you will about that company and its role in hastening the demise of the beloved local book shop, but I've been a fan of Bezos' one-click convenient shopping for years. My usual MO is browse Web, see reference to an author or book, click to Amazon, type in book, purchase. Book shows up in 1-3 days. Heaven for an avid reader.

One small problem: I read the books but once. Except for reference books and a few very special titles (including historic texts) I'm not much of a collector. I generally give books away, or loan them to people in sequence. However, recently I figure that maybe I don't need to be consuming that much paper after all, so if there were a device where I could download the books I want to read, that gets me away from being part of the environment problem.

I'll back up a bit and share another personal story, which is I am not a fan of paper. I never have been in fact. I remember going to my father's office back in the late 60's. I was very small. I remember computer printout paper stacked up very high -- higher than me. I felt a visceral reaction -- I certainly didn't know the word at the time, but that is the only way I could describe it today. Somehow I was horrified with all this paper and clutter in that office. I imagine that having gone into a career in digital publishing technology shortly after college that my childhood reaction may have had something to do with it.

The second reason I went with the Kindle was the on-board wireless transmitter. I am NOT a big fan of connecting devices to any computer, so I love the notion of sitting anywhere (airport, beach, home, coffee shop) and purchase any content I might find in Amazon's 'long-tail' list of options.

I move forward to yesterday when I received my Kindle in the mail. I'll add that I was a bit disappointed by all the packing cardboard and plastic and paper that came along with it (Jeff, think about it. Can you ship the thing in a manner that is consistent with the device's raison d'etre?). My disappointment ended there.

What a joy. I turned the device on and was pleased to see that the half dozen books I browsed for and purchased the day before had already downloaded onto the device care of its built-in wireless transmitter! What a joy! My first e-books: Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and a few other very un-digital tomes. I figured if I was going to test out the technology I'd do it with content chosen from a few thousand years of authors.

The interface is really easy, in my opinion, although it is also pretty easy to accidentally click forward and back page (too many buttons, methinks). I love the eInk digital 'paper', courtesy of my old fraternity brother Joe Jacobson (Brown class of '87, MIT grad, tenured professor at MIT, founder of eInk, etc).

A bit about the technology. About a decade ago, Joe Jacobson had a serendipitous notion that he could take the principles of electrophoresis, but instead use charged microcapsules within plastic sheets of paper, to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. The electronic 'paper' (they really need to come up with a new word for this thing rather than an acronym -- maybe Eeper?) is still a bit expensive to produce, but the production costs are definitely coming down. This makes it practical not only to install it into book readers like the Kindle, but possibly pre-made textbooks or other formats so that students and others could download a year's worth (a life's worth?) of content onto the one device.

The paper doesn't really handle color at this point, so there is limited application for graphic-intense content. I'm sure there will be breakthroughs on that front in time.

Enough said: I'm going back to read some of Marcus Aurelius' musings on stoicism...

Posted at 01:12 am by Joseph Bachana

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