The announcement of the Amazon Kindle wasn’t exactly a surprise. News has been trickling out for awhile now. What we didn’t know until Steven Levy’s Newsweek piece [1] are the details. The Kindle was announced at an event this morning and as it was announced the Amazon.com homepage displayed an open letter from Jeff Bezos. It’s available now, you can order it from this link [2] . I went ahead and early adopted for you. My Kindle will arrive tomorrow, and of course, I’ll do a review. On Brief 261, I talk about the specs and it’s potential to be widely adopted. Mike Arrington speculates [3] that past ebook readers, like Sony’s haven’t caught on because of their lack of wireless connectivity. He could be right, but I think it’s more about the availability of books and most important–the price. My suggestion is for Amazon to make the device available at a low cost or for free, in exchange for a year contract…something similar to what Audible.com did with it’s Otis MP3 players back in the early days. I’m excited about the Kindle, but I’m also fearful about it’s UI. Watch the videos [4] on Amazon.com and you’ll see what I mean. My guess is I’m going to wish it was designed by Apple, but we’ll see for sure tomorrow. Links: —— [1] www.newsweek.com [2] www.amazon.com [3] www.techcrunch.com [4] www.amazon.com  Read more... (239 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

The announcement of Amazon's Kindle is not exactly a surprise. News has been trickling out for some time. What I do not know until Steven Levy's piece in Newsweek [1] are the details. The Kindle was announced at an event this morning, as he announced the site Amazon.com sent an open letter from Jeff Bezos. And 'now available, you can order it from this link [2]. I went ahead and adopted in advance for you. My Kindle will arrive tomorrow, and of course I will do a review. Brief261, I mean, the specifications and is likely to be widely adopted. Mike Arrington speculates [3], that readers of eBooks the past, such as Sony have not been successful because of their lack of wireless connectivity. He may be right, but I think it's more the availability of books and most importantly – price. My suggestion is to Amazon to make the device available at low cost or free, in exchange for a one-year contract … similar to what he did with Audible.com 's something Otis MP3 Backin the early days. I'm excited for the Kindle, but I'm also terrible user interface. Watch the video [4] on Amazon.com and you'll understand what I mean. My feeling is that hope has been designed by Apple, but we'll see tomorrow. Links: —— [1] www.newsweek.com [2] www.amazon.com [3] www.techcrunch.com [4] www.amazon.com  Read more... (247 words, estimated 59 secs reading time)