Had a question to put to you guys -- especially since one of you has a Kindle and is no doubt now part of a secret Masonic society of Kindle owners.*
Read a great NYT article about how the Kindle eliminates the possibility that you can see what someone is reading or vice versa. But I take issue with one item:
“It’s really expensive,” she said of the Kindle 2, which Amazon sells for $359. “If you’re going to pay that, you’re giving a statement to the world that you like to read — and you’re probably not using it to read a mass market paperback.”
First off, the first person I met with a Kindle was a total gadget hound; I can see a lot of people getting it just because it's the new new technology.
Second, why wouldn't you use it to read mass-market paperbacks? This reeks of snobbery. Some of the more voracious readers I know are readers of paperback mysteries and genre fiction. And really, what's more likely to be available on Kindle -- the collected works of Stephen King or the new translation of *insert obscure foreign writer here*?
Is buying a Kindle really a proclamation that you are a Reader who enjoys mass quantities of Literature on Serious Subjects? Do set me straight on this one.
*Speaking of Masons, I must admit I am kind of excited for the new Angels and Demons movie. But can it compare to National Treasure?
Kindle Me This
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I really think this article misses the point about the Kindle and probably does more to push people away from the new technology as it is appealing to outdated norms of how people "should" read, rather than embracing the fact that people are looking for new ways to facilitate reading. I find this particularly ironic given the article is from the NY Times, who in a desperate effort to maintain readership is working with Kindle to release the new (and even more expensive) large screen version, designed specifically for newspaper reading. The Times is also working on other applications and pricing models to get their material out in an electronic, handheld format.
Nevertheless, I the article does mention some of the pros, especially the fact that the books are cheaper, but I disagree that you have to be a bibliophile to want one. You already mentioned that technophiles are interested, which is true. However, as Keith and I learned a few weeks back, there are other uses for the Kindle as it comes with "free" Internet access. I say "free" because I have read the disclaimers that make it sound like fees for its use are right around the corner if you choose to do anything more than visit dictionary.com.
As for your initial question, "why wouldn't you use it to read mass-market paperbacks?"- I would think that you are right on the money. Quick, inexpensive paperbacks that will either get dumped or sent to the used bookstore seem to be the right route for the Kindle. My wife for example, would probably like to use it on trips, given she will take as many as 10 books with her, which can make travel more cumbersome.
Conversely, everything I have read indicates that the Kindle is not quite convenient enough to service the textbook crowd, as students need to rethink how they want to take notes and annotate their assignments. That having been said, the textbook crowd is where the money will come from, especially if e-books can cut the cost of a textbooks to nearly half of their currently bloated prices. I am sure that we will see improved versions with this crowd in mind over the next few years.
An any case, I find this article to be terribly short sighted. I am not part of the Masonic group of Kindle users, but I think articles like these refuse the fact that the way society consumes media is changing. If anyone hasn't noticed, even Playboy may be in trouble http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/11/playboy-losing-its-pants-intends-to-save-print-business-by-increasing-prices/.
Bottom line: If you like to read and can afford it, give the Kindle a try!
First of all, what an obnoxious fucking article. Ooh, we're all intellectuals, how will we make snap judgments about people based on the books they're reading? Give me a break, seriously. I'm sure you'll just move on to other ways of prejudging people, like the clothes they're wearing or their accent.
Audrey: While I don't know anyone else who owns a Kindle, it certainly seems like Amazon is marketing it as much toward the gadget-minded as toward the serious reader. And I agree with your disagreement :); I get no sense that Kindle owners are plunking down money because they want to make a statement about being lovers of serious literature. That... that doesn't even make sense to me. And like you said, a lot of the stuff available for Kindle is new mass market paperbacks. Though all the real classics are available too, and are very inexpensive.
Joe: Say it ain't so! It's not like I use the web browser all the time, but it was a cool perk. And I agree that it's consumable paperbacks that are most suited for Kindle; better than taking an entire library with you on a trip.
And to totally change gears, I was wondering how long Playboy was going to hang around. Honestly, pornography gets more and more social acceptance as each generation replaces the previous one; ultra-soft-core stuff like Playboy is pretty much doomed at this point.
Nice roundup of the pros and cons! I wasn’t aware of the Net access – and now I’m curious how good/reliable it is. Also, I think it’s tremendous that they’re branching out into textbooks, a field where people have to buy the new edition of a book every few years. What a racket! And I have to imagine that those textbooks publishers will save tons on printing and paper and shipping.
I think I liked the Kindle article* because it validated something that I had been insisting to some friends of mine – namely, that Kindle was not going to eradicate books, because there are some pleasures that you can only get from physical books. That said, the Kindle will definitely grow in popularity, the only question is: to what extent?
My fear is not so much that Kindle will wipe out books as that it will wipe out independent bookstores. Because while such bookstores are no good for finding a particular book, they’re awesome for discovering things you didn’t even know existed.
On the Playboy note, I wonder if Hefner sabotaged himself by going too far into the mainstream. Girls Next Door (which I love, by the way) showed an old man doddering around a 70’s-era mansion with three bubbly blonde twentysomethings. Sure, there was occasional nudity and Playboy photo shoots, but more often it was about pet outfits, visiting relatives, home improvements, etc. By becoming more popular with a new audience (young women), they lost their edge with their core audience (men).
*On the pretentiousness front: I enjoy the New York Times’ Sunday magazine, but sometimes the ads selling NYC penthouses and parcels of land for your country house kind of get me down.
This whole Playboy thing is very interesting, and sad in a way. Playboy made its name by being somewhat taboo, but always somewhat tasteful. They always made a point of keeping celebrated writers on the payroll to ensure that there was other kinds of "content." As I recall, they used to do very good sports previews, long before we had all of these specialized magazines.
What I think is killing Playboy the most is the fact that they haven't really changed in years and therefore have nothing new or different to offer consumers that can't be found on the Internet. This makes the "Ultra soft-core porn is doomed" theory all the more real.
I think if they want to survive they might need to become a magazine people actually "read" again, morphing into more of a Maxim meets Men's Journal meets old school playboy.
If society keeps accepting pornography more and more, as you mention Keith, then Playboy should take advantage of the fact that they are already over the line and promote it. The publishing industry has to take a long hard look in general to see what niche they are looking to fill and decide if they are going to have the readership in that group to stay viable. This is a hard, but true fact in this economy.
Post a Comment