[SensualPoet]

Video may have killed the radio star ... but movies didn't kill radio and television didn't kill movies and dvd didn't kill television and people still read a heck of a lot of books. Even, these days, a lot of e-books.

Of course, I wouldn't be investing in manufacturing 35mm film for use in my dad's Pentax. But even Kodak saw that coming and is selling digital cameras and an infrastructure to support them. It won't be long before "ASA 100" will mean nothing to the woman winning the prize for best "photograph" from her local newspaper.

Still, it's a bit early to be readying the dirge for e-readers. Desktops, laptops, notebooks, netbooks, smartbooks, tablets, pdas, iphones, nexuses and a variety of dual-screen hybrids seen at CES 2010 can all "display" e-books. (Does that make items on the display in the window of my local second hand book store pre-e-books?)

I believe a well crafted, inexpensive, easy to reload e-book reader -- with something like the Kindle 2 as a model -- has some future shelf life worth considering. Do something really well that people value ... and you can thrive. Even in an age of "space station tourism", lots of folks still buy and ride bicycles.