Pittsburgh Ventures

I was heartened to read about the announcement of the new Sony eReader; it was a nice surprise, and the size of the competitive field of electronic book devices is growing and promising.  I have written a couple posts about the “tween screen”, and am a somewhat proud owner of Amazon’s Kindle2.  The Kindle is such a new device that I am constantly asked when out and about whether or not I like it; everyone wants to touch it and play with it.  My colleague and fellow blogger, Aaron, likes to hold it up to his ear and pretend it is a cell phone.

The easiest response to whether or not I would recommend it to someone is:  yes and no.  I am slowly warming up to the Kindle, after initially thinking I would just return it.

The “yes” side of my recommendation centers around the fact that I love reading, and I love having my content with me wherever I go (books, RSS, etc). The Kindle puts it in a very readable form, and can hold a seeming limitless amount of content. I tried using my mobile phone (HTC TouchPro running Windows Mobile) to read RSS and other content, but it is just too darned small and still lacks many important features, such as  sharing.

The form factor of the Kindle is nice – so thin, it fits in the small of my back when I don’t want to hold it walking down the street, so it goes everywhere with me.

ALAS, it could be so much better! The biggest downer about the Kindle is the fact that, as a platform, it is SO CLOSED.  Thus far, I have only been able to find two services written on top of the device (KindleFeeder and Calibre) – they are lifesavers in terms of getting my content on my device, but both have pluses and minuses that are largely driven by the fact that Amazon doesn’t make it easy for developers to build compelling, robust services on top of the device.  And the Kindle was just named to the list of products that are Defective by Design (!).

If I were an Amazon product manager, here are the issues I would be focused on:

1) No Color screen and Backlighting – I know this may not be in Amazon’s hands entirely, as the eInk supplier doesn’t have production color screens yet, and may not have backlight ability; but devices like the Apple Tablet and the CrunchPad are most certainly going to be color with backlighting, and big competitors to the Kindle.

2) No Touchscreen – the new Sony eReader has a touchscreen; it makes navigation so much faster than the slow joystick that the Kindle has.

3) Whimpy Web browser – the “experimental feature” browser included with the Kindle2 is mediocre; if they had an open platform, all the browser companies (who know how to build browsers) would have published awesome browsers by now.

4) No Open API – this is by far the biggest change Amazon needs to make.  I don’t think I need to convince anyone about the richness of the iPhone since the AppStore allowed independent developers to build apps on top of their platform.  It is the Walled Garden of Gethsemane versus the Open Garden of Eden…

5) High Book/Content cost – at ~$10 a pop for a book, and similar per-month prices for periodicals, I think they limit the size of their pie, and it sounds like Amazon is keeping the lion’s share for themselves, not incenting publishers/authors adequately.  And why don’t we have a used book store?

6) Sharing – despite the wireless connection (which was the game-changing feature of the Kindle) there is no easy way to get information off the device, and no way to share content with others (even though I have a dedicated email address on the device).  Boo-hiss.

The new Sony eReader has key features such as a wireless connection and an interactive touch screen, and it sounds like they are embracing a much more open platform.  Certainly, the Apple Tablet and the CrunchPad will have many of the above features and be very, if not wide, open…

Amazon needs to get their head in the game or they will be a casualty before the real war starts.

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