"We don't comment on speculations and rumors" is what I heard today from Genevieve Kunst, Amazon's European Head of Business Development for Digital Media, when inquired about the status quo of the Amazon
Kindle e-book reader. Instead, Mrs Kunst elaborated for almost thirty minutes on how Amazon's
Search Inside! feature helps publishers boost their sales (by a "statistically proven" good 6 percent) and how
Amazon Upgrade, basically an extension of Search Inside!, allows customers to receive full-text access online (for an additional fee of course). Both features are still easily overlooked on Amazon's excessively crowded and busy pages, but Mrs Kunst pointed out that those will be better integrated in near future. She also touched upon the topic of e-books by mentioning
MobiPocket and
eBookBase; but really, nothing new here either.
Now, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for the information embargo surrounding the Kindle reader. Whether just clever marketing or an actual technical reason for a possible delay, it remains open to speculation (here we go again) whether we will see this drool-worthy device unveiled any time soon (like, say, October 15).
Related:
Amazon Kindle likely launch date: October 15!,
Kindle Launch at Frankfurt Book Fair?,
"Kindle Editions" showing up on Amazon