Amazon Says Kindle 3 Is Its Best Selling Product "Of All Time...."

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Amazon is selling all these Kindles and yet no one I know owns one.

that's ok, I don't know anyone who owns a Sony

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

that's ok, I don't know anyone who owns a Sony

I don't either. Maybe I need a new environment.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Amazon is selling all these Kindles and yet no one I know owns one.

I do. I've sold three to family and friends. SIL sold one to his mom.

Its getting to be a 'family thing'

[oggelbe2007]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The "worst" *system*? By whose standards?
VHS was multi-vendor from the beginning, Beta was Sony proprietary until it was too late. VHS's recording length was better suited to the way people used the product. VHS Players were cheaper. It had more movies available for purchase and rental.
The Myth of Beta superiority has been debunked repeatedly but like the villain in bad slasher flicks, it keeps coming back...

Satisfying customers instead of pundits is no crime.

Beta actually DID have better video quality compared to VHS and the tape transport system was a much better design and easier to repair but lost out due to ALL the other points you mentioned. I doubt that Beta could have withstood the VHS design even without the proprietary mindset of Sony. The VHS format was the next logical step in video recording. Ironically the Beta format was used in High End Video Recording long after the VHS format disappeared from the marketplace.

[fulltimer]

I gave my wife a K2 for Christmas a year ago.

Since then two of my daughter's bought K3's for themselves and my son gave his wife a K3 for Christmas this year and my wife gave me a K3 when I was in the Hospital in October.

So, I know a few folks with Kindles.



don

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Amazon is selling all these Kindles and yet no one I know owns one.

I do, I know several people with Kindles (2 just received them for Christmas), but the only owner of a non-Kindle reader that I know is my mother, who inherited my Astak when I got my Kindle a couple of months ago.

Regarding the inference that all (or at least most) Kindle owners are guilty of "lazy researching and sheep mentality", I'm sure that may be true of some, but contrary to what some people around here seem to believe, I think there are a lot more people out there who do their research and make an educated choice. Every Kindle owner that I know (4 including myself) did. Maybe I hang out with a more intelligent and/or cautious group of people than average (I don't think so, but maybe), but most of the people I know aren't going to drop over $100 on a gadget without doing a little research first to make sure they're getting the one that will work best for them.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Feeling defensive?



I know it makes you feel "special" that you don't own a Kindle, but pretending that the Kindle doesn't offer very real advantages for many users just shows how defensive *you* are about your own e-reader purchase. If you were really confident that your nook was all that, you wouldn't be *constantly* attacking Kindle users for being "sheep" or "kindlebots." You would be talking about whatever advantages you thought your Nook might have.

You are not better, or smarter, or 3l337 because you own a "Nook."



No, popular *doesn't* mean bad. It simply means popular. And for many people, the Kindle does offer very real advantages over other readers. Advantages that may not be important to you, but are important to other people.

Such as the fact that you don't need a computer to buy a book, that you can buy from Amazon, and that you don't need to sideload (but you can).

Nook and Kobo don't have Pearl; Sony doesn't have wireless unless you pay $300 (and even then the buying experience isn't as good as the Kindle's); NookColor is LCD.

Of course you may not care about buying from Amazon, you might not care about paying $300 (especially for a touchscreen), you might like having a tablet, or library books may be more important to you than Pearl. That's perfectly reasonable, and I don't object to anyone who has those priorities.

But many people prefer the priorities offered by the Kindle, and they are not "wrong" to do so, even if a lot of people seem to like those priorities.

And the thing is, you are *not* just buying an e-reader. You are buying an e-reader *and* an e-reader infrastructure. And many people prefer the Kindle+Amazon infrastructure because the integration is tight, there plenty of books...and, yeah, Amazon is looking more and more like VHS to other reader's Beta.

defensive? I actually looked at the kindle before the nook. The only one sounding defensive is you .
Which I can understand, an iphone and a kindle? Not extacly setting any trends or thinking to independantly are ya?

But I'm not trying to get into any flame war here. My point is the average person, who are the bulk of these sales, are buying kindles basically because that's all they've seen or think "this is the one I've heard of, so it's got to be the best"

while I know sheep mentality or sheep consumerism isn't exactly flattering but it is what every company tries to achieve with it's product. Apple is the current master at creating this and Amazon is doing nicely with this with the Kindle. It's actually a patt on the back to Amazon's marketing department. Nike had it in the 1990's.

Again just because a product is popular doesn't auotmatically make it the best. I can name at least 3 mp3 players that are far and away better than any iPod, but what is by far and away the most popular. I can name at least 4 phones that are better than the iPhone, but again what is more popular.

consumers are driven by what is perceived to be the best not what ACTUALLY is the best in most cases.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by oggelbe2007

Beta actually DID have better video quality compared to VHS and the tape transport system was a much better design and easier to repair but lost out due to ALL the other points you mentioned. I doubt that Beta could have withstood the VHS design even without the proprietary mindset of Sony. The VHS format was the next logical step in video recording. Ironically the Beta format was used in High End Video Recording long after the VHS format disappeared from the marketplace.

Exactly; Beta had a more impressive specsheet... to techies. The core technology might've been better but the consumer *product* wasn't.
To the people that voted with their wallets it *wasn't* a better system because they had to live with the entire ecosystem, not just the specsheet.

The same thing is ongoing with Kindle vs the ADE horde.
Both camps have good products on paper and reasonable, well-informed people can and will buy and be happy with either. But Kindle outsells the entire ADE horde by a mile or two because it is cheaper *and* it doesn't need a PC. That is a very compelling argument for a lot of people, even computer literate ones.

Different people have different needs and different value judgements which is a generally good thing when it comes to market dynamics. Product variety and vendor competition is good for everybody. But it requires vendors to understand their product and their competitors' and what about them is driving sales. And right now, as the ebook reader industry is still very young, there are a quite a few vendors who don't really understand what sells the gadgets. Amazon, however, is not one of them; they understand what sells the Kindle and have shown no interest in changing their approach until the market tells them they have to change. So far, that isn't happening.

This subject announcement is them reminding their customers, might-be customers, and critics that they are doing just fine. It might be helpful to take note of this and consider that their sales numbers are telling us something meaningful about what the market does and doesn't value and not just dismiss it as the result of uninformed or misguided buyers.

As the saying goes; "If you keep on doing what you always did, you'll keep on getting what you've always got."

Amazon outselling the field is a reality.
The real question isn't by how much but rather what, if anything, competitors are going to do about it.

[wallcraft]

The Kindle 3, in particular, is dominating the market because:

• already the biggest company in ebooks
• with the most ebooks for sale
• with arguably the best hardware, and
• arguably the best mix of software features
• very low price
• industry leading customer service
• heavily advertised on TV in the US

It is really a miracle that anyone else is selling ebook readers in large volume in markets where Amazon is a big player. There are some negatives to Amazon and the Kindle, but a large fraction of the buying public, by luck or by careful research, have bought a very good product.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Exactly; Beta had a more impressive specsheet... to techies. The core technology might've been better but the consumer *product* wasn't.
To the people that voted with their wallets it *wasn't* a better system because they had to live with the entire ecosystem, not just the specsheet.

The same thing is ongoing with Kindle vs the ADE horde.
Both camps have good products on paper and reasonable, well-informed people can and will buy and be happy with either. But Kindle outsells the entire ADE horde by a mile or two because it is cheaper *and* it doesn't need a PC. That is a very compelling argument for a lot of people, even computer literate ones.

Different people have different needs and different value judgements which is a generally good thing when it comes to market dynamics. Product variety and vendor competition is good for everybody. But it requires vendors to understand their product and their competitors' and what about them is driving sales. And right now, as the ebook reader industry is still very young, there are a quite a few vendors who don't really understand what sells the gadgets. Amazon, however, is not one of them; they understand what sells the Kindle and have shown no interest in changing their approach until the market tells them they have to change. So far, that isn't happening.

This subject announcement is them reminding their customers, might-be customers, and critics that they are doing just fine. It might be helpful to take note of this and consider that their sales numbers are telling us something meaningful about what the market does and doesn't value and not just dismiss it as the result of uninformed or misguided buyers.

As the saying goes; "If you keep on doing what you always did, you'll keep on getting what you've always got."

Amazon outselling the field is a reality.
The real question isn't by how much but rather what, if anything, competitors are going to do about it.

Also what I think the bigger question is how much of the total market has ereader grabbed and how much is left as an untapped market?

I take the train into work every moring and it's not even close between the number of people reading books as compared to ereaders, the kindle nook or otherwise.

This past holiday season was supposed to be the ereaders coming out party to the general public, we'll have to see.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

The Kindle 3, in particular, is dominating the market because:

• already the biggest company in ebooks
• with the most ebooks for sale
• with arguably the best hardware, and
• arguably the best mix of software features
• very low price
• industry leading customer service
• heavily advertised on TV in the US

It is really a miracle that anyone else is selling ebook readers in large volume in markets where Amazon is a big player. There are some negatives to Amazon and the Kindle, but a large fraction of the buying public, by luck or by careful research, have bought a very good product.

i think the last reason is 99% of the reason they are leading.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Amazon is selling all these Kindles and yet no one I know owns one.

I don't know anyone who owns and iPad or an iPod, and I've never seen one in the wild. they must be miserable failures.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by carld

I don't know anyone who owns and iPad or an iPod, and I've never seen one in the wild. they must be miserable failures.

you've never seen an iPod out in the wild? Seriously? Just look for the people wearing the infamous white earbuds.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by boswd

i think the last reason is 99% of the reason they are leading.

You don't think competent hardware and a low price are driving factors?

[carld]

Originally Posted by boswd

you've never seen an iPod out in the wild? Seriously? Just look for the people wearing the infamous white earbuds.

Maybe I'm just not observant, but nope, have never seen the earbuds.