Kindle is step by step nibbling away the market of as long as 550 years of traditionally printed books, newspapers and magazines, wishing to be the “subverter” of the publishing industry.

 By: Hu Yilin　　

 Ever since the inception of the concept there has been a lot of flaws, and the design is extremely terrible.” Before its official launch, Amazon Kindle had already received the bombardment from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

 Doubtful words such as “Nobody reads now, trying to use reading device to show power is inconceivable”, “Its old look is like someone crawling out of a research institute of 70s in the last century”, “Users having been so stuffed wouldn’t pay US$ 399,” have been continuously coming up following the launch of Kindle.  

 However, when Kindle was first put on the market in November 2007, it was completely sold out within five and a half hours, and created a situation of “hard to get one” lasting for exactly 18 months; because of the supply shortage, second hand Kindle was selling at a price of nearly US$ 50 more than that of the new one at eBay. In 2008, its total sales amounted to nearly 500,000 sets, matching the annual sales of iPod that had just entered the market.

 At the time of economic crisis now, Amazon arrogantly put out a notice on the website: “If you want to get this expensive widget, you must wait for 2 months after making payment, overseas sales are not entertained.”

 The new version Kindle2 received overwhelming reception from the American media immediately after its launch in March this year. Judging by that, people discovered that within two years Kindle is step by step nibbling away the market of as long as 550 years of traditionally printed books, newspapers and magazines, wishing to be the “subverter” of the publishing industry.

 Questionable "iPod of Book Industry"

 Kindle has various advantages, but many people remained doubtful when confronted with the change of reading habit.

 The characteristics of Kindle2 are: its thickness is like that of a pencil, weighing about 280 grams, outside dimension is equivalent to a paperback, showing only black and white, equivalent to one tenth of a copy of newspaper in weight, with only “previous page” and “next page” these two main push buttons. It has simple functions and a single interface, and that's the special feature of Kindle2.

 However, it can store 1500 copies of books in its memory, and recite the words stored in it; and can have free wireless connection anytime without any help from a computer, thus assisting people in realizing “reading what you need” in regards to books and magazines.

 Business Week America writes, “Kindle2 really goes for innovative service”. The latest Kindle2 owners can reportedly at any time purchase 230,000 books, subscribe to weeklies and blogs (as long as they are on the Amazon booklist) in less than 60 seconds, starting from preview, order and purchase; and the set price for the content is only 3% to 4% of the original price of the books.

 What is worth mentioning is the "Whispersync" functionality of Kindle2 that enables it to synchronize with mobile phone. Users reading to any particular spot on the mobile phone can pick it up on Kindke2 to carry on the reading. Every charge of its battery can last for 2 weeks. 

 Kindle has a firm grip on those people from all walks of life who are used to carrying a book in different environments. IPMorgan Chase analyst Imran Khan said in a report, that Kindle’s success is comparable to that of Apple's music broadcasting device iPod. Newsweek called it “iPod library”. Writer’s Guild of America is even worried that the audio reciting functionality of Kindle could cause great damage to the American market of sonant books.

Market analysis organization Collins Stewart’s analyst Sandeep Aggarwal said in a report that, the sales of Kindle trebles this year, reaching US$256 million. It will reach US$ 1.6 billion in 2012 with the sales of 2.5 million.

 But some people are worried about the selling price which is as high as US$ 360. “I prefer to spend US$ 350 on a notebook to surf the net.”

 “Users might go against the restriction that content must be purchased from Amazon.” Some analysts also played down their view on Kindle’s prospects.    

 Among them, most of the objectors reckon “the feeling of people holding books” is the greatest challenge for Kindle. Reading anywhere is inconceivable, just like the electronic magazines that was once so crazy in China, but eventually people still preferred the feeling of touching the paper pages.

 The End of Text Books？ 

 Once people do a lot of reading via the screen, the whole traditional publishing industry would meet the onslaught of revolution.

 On “Shanghai Beach”, a decent girl is enjoying the gentle sea breeze, the reading goes on in her ears; during breakfast time, the wife is busy in the kitchen while the husband is as usual reading New York Times at the breakfast table, only this time he has Kindle’s “papers” in his hand. These are the two scenarios depicted in the advertisement of Amazon Kindle2.

 Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos did not treat Kindle as a digital product from the very beginning, “That’s a real book that gives users the truest sense of the quality of reading, and lets them forget that what they are gazing at is only a 6-inch screen,” he said.

 Thousands of books stored in Kindle eventually change time, “People can make use of time at the time when they need to read, this is its greatest charm and its highest bargaining chip for the price of US$ 360,” analysts at home voiced their view.

 American internet magazine Slate Editor-in-Chief Jacob Weisberg wrote, “Kindle will change the world.”

 An analyst from City Bank Investment Research said 500,000 is an astonishing figure in the traditional publishing industry. Currently, a book that sells 50,000 copies can get on the top list, and a magazine with only the sales of 100,000 can have enormous influence.

 Observers predict, once people do a lot of on-screen reading following the invasion of Kindle, demand for paper will drastically drop, printed text books will be doomed, and a revolution will erupt in the whole traditional publishing industry.  

 One blogger teasingly said, “Papermaking and printing industries might as well pack up as soon as possible, and forest and vegetation can be better protected.”

 As a matter of fact, reading via PC and internet earlier on had already popped up the talk of “text books extinction”. But because of the lousy reading experience, it was not approved by the users at last.” 

 In regards to books distributors, the distribution process will be simplified extensively, and even to the extent of doing it without the distributors. It was reported that Amazon is about to go direct and sign agreement with Stephen King, author of the horror and suspense filled novel “The Shawshank Redemption”, and the former may be the only publisher of fast selling books in future.

 As such, this will save the cost of the expensive printing and channeling, but is a huge profit to Amazon. As for creators, paperless reading makes it more readily available, shortening the distance between writers and readers, and effecting a migration of literature lovers and people in need of text from the paper medium to the digital medium.

 “Terminal Conspiracy” of Amazon

 Online Digital publishing platform is truly the biggest conspiracy of Amazon.

 Outwardly, Bezos only launched a very popular digital device, but is actually trying to make use of Kindle2 to detonate a bigger “bomb”

 In February this year, Amazon announced that it would open up its electronic library platform to the third party mobile phones, and launch software possessing the Kindle functionality; mobile phones with approval can obtain various book and magazine resources from Amazon and read, just like Kindle.

 Obviously, this will extensively expand Amazon’s digital distribution channels, and promote the sales of Kindle2. The sales of 500,000 sets of Kindle implies the potential of 500,000 electronic circulations, and “by means of Amazon’s formidable book and customer resources, starting from bookstore online, gradually moving from sales link to “publish” this crucial link on digital publishing online platform, this is actually the biggest conspiracy of Amazon.” Domestic analysts expressed their views to “Elite” reporter.

 Forbes also published articles stressing that providing content for more facilities is undoubtedly a wise and essential move by Amazon. “If Kindle really replaces printed books, the many values of publishers will be out of existence. Writers and editors may have to reorganize under a different mode, and Amazon itself may become the biggest publisher……”

 It can be said that, Kindle, as a terminal, becomes the core that is hidden behind the Amazon’s competition. The fine content of Amazon has to make use of a terminal to find a landing spot and provide the surrounding service, and then open up to all terminals, conspiring digital publishing eventually.

 But can the need of “reading” support a new terminal market? Some people reckon that, if Kindle’s functionality is concentrated on the original terminal such as mobile phone, Amazon will be extensively weakened. 

 Of course, Kindle is not short of competitors in the market of reading devices. 3 years ahead of Kindle, Sony introduced its first reading device eBook that sold 300,000 sets. Sony has currently reached an agreement with Google, allowing its electronic reading device to visit Google’s electronic books of more than 500,000 copies. Sony CEO Howard Stringer hoped that their sales would be doubled within the year, in order to challenge hegemony of Kindle. Samsung also said they would launch a touch screen electronic reading device in South Korea this June in order to compete. All these are not underestimated by Amazon.

 In China, given that Kindle could greatly impact on the interest of the traditional publishing industry, there would certainly be a ombined effort to counteract.

 It seems, the day of Kindle getting popular in China is still far off.