[kennyc]

Amazon Prime and Free Kindle Fires: Could It Happen?
O'Reilly Media O'Reilly Media, Contributor


This post originally appeared on Tools of Change for Publishing (“Amazon Prime Time“). It’s republished with permission.

By Joe Wikert

Like most technology products, each new version of Amazon’s Kindle eInk reader is lower-priced than the last one. There’s been speculation that the price will eventually go to zero, perhaps taking a page out of the cell phone model where the consumer commits to a long-term plan. There’s no monthly service plan for a Kindle so I always figured Amazon would require consumers to purchase a minimum number of ebooks over a 1- or 2-year period instead.

That makes sense, but there’s a bigger play Amazon probably has in mind and I’ll bet it will eventually feature their tablet, the Kindle Fire.

Think for a moment about the new and likely upcoming competition the Fire is encountering. First there’s Google’s Nexus 7. I’ve heard the Nexus 7 described as “the tablet the Kindle Fire should have been.” If that’s not bad enough, there’s also the iPad mini Apple is supposedly working on.

What if the smaller iPad matches the $199 price of the Nexus and Fire? Will Amazon go to $149? 99? How about free?
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