Originally Posted by Ben Thornton
When travelling by train, although I see a lot of laptops, ipods, NDS etc. being used, there are still a lot of people reading books. A lot of people like to read, so I think there is still a large population of readers who, given the right device and supporting services, would want a dedicated reader. In my view, Amazon has the right policy and will succeed in the UK - we shall see how they've done in 6-12 months.
It's easy, as someone comfortable with technology, to underestimate the value of being able to get content on to the device without faffing about with a computer. I suspect that this might be the single most important factor driving adoption in the US, and keeping it slower elsewhere. When showing people my reader, many were not really convinced of the benefits - the most impressive feature was the dictionary look-up in my experience. I think that shopping on the device might change that.
|