Light My Kindle

A site called the Boy Genius Report claims to have pictures of the second generation Kindle. While Amazon hasn’t announced anything yet, the photos appear real, and the device itself doesn’t look like a fake.

Assuming the pictures are real, however, there seems little reason to buy the new one if you already own a Kindle. It’s approximately the same size as the original Kindle, maybe even a smidge bigger. The buttons are all pretty much the same, except the keyboard is now one continuous keyboard (rather than having the break in the middle) and the scroll wheel has morphed into a joystick (what for?). The back of the thing is awful - it looks like the back of an iPhone: silver, fingerprint-attracting, and probably really cold while waiting for a train in the middle of December.

The one improvement that I do appreciate is the addition of rounded corners. Sometimes when I’m reading my Kindle outside of the included case, the corners poke into my palms. It wasn’t enough to hurt, or to dissuade me from using my Kindle, but it is enough to annoy me. However, I won’t be buying a second generation Kindle just for rounded corners.

While the pictures appear legitimate, I am worried about a slight smudge that appears just to the left of where the Amazon Kindle logo appears on the current Kindle. Check out the bottom row of pictures in their gallery to see what I mean.

Check out the article and the photo gallery for yourself.

As a current Kindle owner, would the changes entice you to upgrade? If you don’t currently own a Kindle, are the changes enough to convince you to buy one?

Despite rampant speculation about a new Kindle before the holiday season and a bigger Kindle designed for college students to replace their heavy textbooks with, Amazon spokesman Craig Berman confirmed there will not be a new Kindle in 2008.

He spoke to The New York Times and said,

Don’t believe everything you read. There’s a lot of rumor and speculation about the Kindle. One thing I can tell you for sure is that there will be no new version of the Kindle this year. A new version is possible sometime next year at the earliest.

Kindle owners can breathe a sigh of relief knowing their fancy new technology won’t be replaced for at least another four or five months.

In addition to the new Kindle request button being included on books that don’t currently have a Kindle version, Amazon is also including a “read this on your Kindle” button on books that do have Kindle versions available. Check it out under The Mist below:

Great news for Kindle owners today: Amazon has started to include a Kindle request button on books that are not yet available for the Kindle (seen at left on a book called The Year of Eating Dangerously).

The button reads: “Please tell the publisher: I’d like to read this book on a Kindle.”

Once you click the button, you get this response: “Thank you for requesting this title in Kindle Edition. Our goal is to make every title available for Kindle. We will pass your specific request on to the publisher.”

This is a great step forward in understanding what Kindle owners are reading and what they’d like to read. I hope publishers take this seriously and realize they have a great opportunity to connect with their readers with this tool.

The book at left was a book I spotted in Barnes & Noble and noted down to look up on the Kindle Store when I got home. Unfortunately, no Kindle version exists, so I’m holding off on buying the hardcover hoping for a Kindle version. Now with the new request button, I’m able to convey that information to the publisher and hope they listen.

According to TechCrunch, Amazon has sold 240,000 Kindles since its launch in November. They say they have a “source close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the numbers.” According to their numbers, this puts sales of the Kindle between $86 and $96 million, depending on the price-point, which was dropped back in May.

The most fascinating part of the article talks about the Kindle’s future at Amazon:

Scott Devitt, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., predicts that Amazon is on track to sell 500,000 to 750,000 more Kindles over the next four quarters (including this one). He estimates that Kindle owners will buy an additional $120 to $150 worth of books and other content for each device, bringing the total revenues over that time period to somewhere between $225 million and $355 million. Based on that, he values the Kindle as a $1 billion business for Amazon.

Read the entire article at TechCrunch.com.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spoke at a conference sponsored by Fortune and gushed about the wonders of the Kindle. When asked what Amazon will do when Google and Wikipedia create a digital database of books that can be downloaded and printed in minutes, Bezos replied, “I don’t know why anyone would wait five minutes for a book.”

Ouch. Fine point.

He continues to say, “Our vision for Kindle is we want to have every book in print or out of print, all available in less than 60 seconds. The medium time to download a book [on the Kindle] is 23 seconds.”

Currently there are over 140,000 titles available for download on the Kindle. When shopping from the built-in Kindle store, the titles download faster than I can even get back to the home screen. Sending an item wirelessly from Amazon.com takes slightly longer, but never five minutes.

There have been reports (such as on Engadget) that there will be two new Kindle models available in the fall. One will be smaller than the current model and one will be roughly the size of an 8 1/2 X 11″ piece of paper. According to the reports, they will both be available in a variety of colors.

I’m pegging this one as a rumor, mostly due to the descriptions. Kindle owners aren’t looking for a variety of colors (and if they were, they could get them by purchasing skins). I also can’t see how an 8 1/2 X 11″ device is going to make your reading more portable. Most paperbacks are smaller than that, and even most hardcovers are as well. I can see the demand for a smaller device, however, I don’t think it’s necessary. The Kindle is the perfect size to slip into a briefcase, backpack, or even a medium-to-large-size purse. Make it any smaller and you ruin the screen size that mimics a book.

Until I hear it from Amazon, I’m going to stick with the statement from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that a second edition of the Kindle is not planned for some time.

According to an email newsletter from Amazon sent today, there are now over 140,000 titles available for the Kindle.

This count includes books, magazines, and newspapers, but doesn’t mention blogs. It looks like more and more publishers are opening up to this new device and realizing its potential.

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com (the maker of the Kindle), has invested in the social networking / microblogging site Twitter, via his fund called Bezo’s Expeditions.

Twitter plans on using the money to improve their reliability, which will make their thousands and thousands of addicted users very happy.

For the 1000th issue of Entertainment Weekly they did lists of the “New Classics” - movies, TV shows, albums, and even tech gadgets that they call, “the most brilliant, new, outrageous, inspiring, addictive, hilarious, life-changing classics in movies, TV, music, books, and more of the last 25 years.”

The Amazon Kindle fell in at number 23 on the Tech list. Entertainment Weekly says,

Maybe the book won’t die after all - it’ll just be displaced. Amazon.com’s Kindle, a handheld device that lets you download and read book-length texts, is already a success after less than a year.

Also on the Tech list are TiVo, Netflix, Game Boy, and Amazon.com itself. The rest of the issue is fascinating as well, and I’ll certainly be using the The New Classics Book list to guide some Amazon Kindle Store shopping later. Check out the issue on stands now.