Reading on the Kindle

In a world of ever greater device integration, ebook readers seem to be anachronisms. iPhones enable phone calls, taking pictures, web browsing, gaming, reading and much more… all in one device!

What do ebook Readers do? Well, they allow their users to … read books. So, what is so special about ebook readers that makes them an item of choice for many? And how can the ebook experience be pushed further to lure more people into purchasing them? These are the two questions I’ll focus on in this first post.

In a second post, I will focus more specifically on the Kindle interface design with its goods and bads.

Why ebook readers?

I remember two specific conversations I had after purchasing my Kindle. In one over MSN, a friend of mine showed his total incomprehension when I said I had bought a device entirely dedicated to reading books. His iPhone could be used to read documents and books. Why would anyone buy an ebook reader? And in another instance, another friend as we were discussing the Kindle with other IxDA members took out the book she was carrying and said that she could never switch from physical books to electronic ones. She mentioned the much wider array of sensory stimuli she felt as she was reading her book – its smell, the coffee stains on it, etc. (More on this in my previous post about Steve Portigal’s research)

Good for any book?

As I was trying to justify my purchase to these two friends it appeared clearly to me that ebook readers are not for everyone, and are not for every book as well. It does not make any sense at this point to purchase a design book or say a book relying heavily on visuals on the Kindle. The technology with the black and white screen is just too limited for that. But I would argue that it only takes a try to realize that for more or less any other kinds of books, an e-version is a very good option.

Good for anyone?

Then, are ebook readers for everyone? Well, in Hong Kong especially where there is very little reading culture, an ebook reader is just not going to be appealing to the mass market. People read very short articles or reports. And for that a mobile phone and a computer are very good reading tools. The great contrast and clarity of eink may not represent a huge plus. The advantages of ebook readers appear more clearly for people who read a lot of books. In my case, I have no significant bookshelf space in my small Hong Kong flat, every book I buy lies around somewhere and ends up being a burden after I finished reading it. Only books that I really enjoy and would read again find their permanent place in my home (this may actually still make me buy real books after I enjoyed reading them on the Kindle).

Giving more choice?

Another major problem – also pretty specific to Hong Kong – is that the choice of books in bookstore is very limited. Many times, Amazon.com is the only channel available to get books here and the Kindle seemed a good solution to alleviate this problem. Unfortunately, a few searches for books in the Kindle store after my purchase revealed that the Kindle’s range of choice was actually pretty limited as well, thus not solving this problem in the end.

Real-time Connectivity

Finally, and for me one of the most important feature of ebook readers is their real-time connectivity, arguably not an ebook feature, but more the fact that they have wireless connection. Now watching a show on TV, reading an article and simply walking in the street, if I see a book mentioned, I can just go on the Kindle store and download a sample of that book to see if I am interested. This really has changed the way I purchase and consider books. I now have around 10 samples on my ebook reader and one of them will be my next read. No more aimless trips to the local bookstore not knowing what to buy anymore.

So, can ebook readers get better?

My feeling since I purchased a Kindle is that this is not a mature product yet. It has great features and changes the reading experience, but it could be much more than what it is right now. There are two main points I’d like to highlight here. The first one has to do with publishers and the other one with social media.

Wake up publishers!
Since BusinessWeek stopped the Asian edition of its printed magazine to refocus on the web, I canceled my subscription. A very high price and articles less relevant to me were the main reasons. I now have resubscribed to BusinessWeek on the Kindle. The price is much more affordable and I do not have to carry any magazine around to read the articles. Still, I wish I could get my Asian version of the magazine back. If printing cost is the main issue why printed magazine are refocusing their activities, aren’t devices like the Kindle opening up a brand new low-cost store front for them? Plus, the ease of purchasing content on the Kindle, the trial periods and the scary lack of realization users have when spending money (better have great self control if you buy a Kindle) really make the Kindle a very attractive platform to sell content. Somehow, I am very ready to pay to get a magazine delivered to my Kindle rather than pay a subscription on a website to get roughly the same thing. There is a huge difference having content “delivered” to you instead of having to “go and get” it yourself.

The new paradigm of sharing
The world is changing and reading has evolve with the times. One of the biggest paradigm shift to me in recent years is the fact that doing is not enough anymore. We don’t do things for the sake of doing them anymore. The end result of what we do needs to have a “resell” value, it has to be shareable and broadcastable, it has to help us build our personal brands. Blogs, like this one, are great example of course. But the change is more profound. Kids are now publishing videos on YouTube explaining others how to use the software or game they just purchased. If nobody knows what you are doing, it seems that the value of doing that thing drops tremendously.

The same shift applies to reading and I personally see great opportunities in this space. What if reading became something we shared with everyone else? What if highlighting content in a book meant it was posted to Twitter? What if we could easily create blog posts out of the notes we took? What if we could create discussions for example on Yahoo Answers around specific aspects or paragraph of a book? What if each book would automatically have its own Ning-like social network? ebook readers and their connectivity really have the power to integrate very well into the existing ecosystem of user-generated content. It looks like Amazon’s competitors and Amazon itself are gearing up to offer more of these. Amazon just released the Kindle for PC for example which could be a great enabler for this kind of additional features.

To conclude

In terms of reading experience, I love my Kindle. I wish it would do more and I feel right now it doesn’t offer a complete experience like the iPhone does for example… but I am confident very soon it will do more and when it does I’m sure I will always keep this device close to me. And Amazon’s latest software release allowing us to read pdfs on the Kindle is a great move in the right direction.