[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by Crowl

I think you are mistaken that only avid readers would be interested in a dedicated reader, as prices of ebooks and hardware fall, awareness increases and usability/covenience increases then they will become more interesting for more people.

.....snip.....

As usual, you have decided to yet again repeat your point about what you think the market actually wants and its true multi-function devices will appeal to plenty of people, but the paper book market is huge and those hardware makers who find ways to tap into that market with products that let people read books as easily as they do now, buy books more easily and regain shelf-space are going to make a lot of money in the process.

1. Maybe I shouldn't have said avid reader. I just mean people that read at least one book every month or two. If you read less than that (most of my friends don't read any books--aside from work related or school required reading period, or maybe 1 or 2 a year) then you're probably never going to buy a dedicated reader. It's just not worth it if you barely read.

2. I'm not saying what the market wants. There is definitely a huge market out there of people buying books--look how many Barnes and Nobles and Borders there are.

I'm just saying the market for e-books can also be expanded through multi-function devices. As well as keeping dedicated readers around. It's not an either/or proposition.

Have dedicated readers for the bookworms (and I mean that affectionately) who just love reading and don't give a crap about other features.

Have multi function devices for those of us that do other things more than read and would rather kill a bunch of birds with one stone with a multi function device vs. carrying a Kindle, PDA, netbook, mp3 player etc. around. And expand the market a big by selling e-books to people on tablets, smart phones, pdas etc. If Amazon wants to kill the other e-book stores, they'll get access to the Kindle store on as many devices as possible as quickly as possible and get people locked into the store.


In short, don't be so damn defensive. I'm not saying dedicated readers are going anywhere. There's a sizable market for them. There's also a sizeable market for multifunction devices as we see from sales of smart phones, net books etc. and they offer a great way to expand the e-book market by just simply adding access to e-books stores on those devices people buy for other reasons. And that's good news for everyone--dedicated e-ink reader fans included--as anything to expand the market means more books available, lower prices etc.