Me and My Kindle

I'm a Kindle fan. Ever since pal Jeff Belk turned me on to his one day flying from Las Vegas to San Diego I've been hooked. I have some regrets though. When I was in Europe I couldn't update it and that was a bummer. I only wish it had WiFi in addition to the Whisper Network from Amazon and Sprint.

But that one hurdle aside, I've become a Kindle fan because not only does it let me read books without carrying them, I can also read business magazines and newspapers while traveling without the added weight.

Larry Golob of the GIPS team penned a piece yesterday about the Kindle and brought up a very interesting point near the end where he wrote:

At Global IP Solutions, we are seeing significant interest from customers developing real time voice and video applications for the mobile market. Maybe we will soon see a Kindle with real-time voice and video for those unable to attend their book club in person.

This is in alignment with my divergence concept written about after Telco 2.0 last April. Basically, you take a device which is designed to do one thing exceptionally well and add in additional, and complimentary, functionality. Larry's suggestion of adding voice to the Kindle is a dead on the mark application of my suggestion.

From my perspective, the Kindle can be a lot more than it is today and my guess is that it will be more than what it is in the very near future.

Comments

[Len Edgerly]

To me, the genius of the Kindle is that it so carefully hews to the functionality of the book. So I worry about expanding its capabilities to video or other add-ons. I've interviewed 23 Kindle lovers so far on my weekly podcast, and what I hear most often is how much they loved to read before the Kindle, and how much the Kindle enhances the joy of reading. I read more than I ever did before, and my reading takes more diverse places. I hope Bezos and company keep it simple, while improving things like the ability to organize titles in folders, better handling of .pdf files.
Next week's show on Dec. 26 will feature an interview with an Army captain who always has his Kindle with him in Iraq, so he has something to read when unexpected delays arrive. I love how the Kindle is reintroducing people to the joy of reading.
Len Edgerly
The Kindle Chronicles

[John Hermansen]

I absolutely agree with the divergence concept. It seems like a similarly important theme is that usability is king. Devices like Kindle or the iPhone are not only popular because of their functionality, but because they are incredibly intuitive and easy to use. The concept of mobile IP communications is probably confusing to most people, but if applications can be developed that even my mother can use, then that is a big step toward mass adoption.

[ttrentler]

I Love my Kindle. As a Cisco VOIP consultant who travels constantly I have my whole technical library. (About a Dozen thick Cisco Press books and others) at my fingertips.
It would be interesting to see what they could do if they open the platform up.