Oops! Guess I Use Kindle Now

The concept of portable book readers has long appealed to me. Unfortunately, when I lived in Canada, the Kindle was not available outside the US. By the time I moved to the US to go to school, I was in school, and thus my leisure reading declined in favour of cases and textbooks. Sigh.

Over Thanksgiving, I rekindled my love of books, but having gotten used to the touch-screen convenience of my iPhone, the buttons on the Kindle kind of annoyed me. How can I get used to such an archaic device when I was so used to the function on my iPhone? (Yes, this sounds ridiculous, but if you've ever flipped through photos on an iPhone, you'll understand.)

Just before Christmas, Barnes and Noble put out a tempting offer for my eBook reader desires: the Nook. It had a touchscreen, and as far as I could tell, was otherwise competitive with the Kindle. Although I wasn't ready to make the purchase myself, I did think it might make a lovely Christmas present. They were, of course, sold out, but my Mom suggested I look into a book reader app for my iPhone.

Of course, there is an app: a Kindle app. And it's free to download. So I installed it on my phone, and now I buy most of my books that way. I actually bought my first book for school that way today.

When I got an email from Amazon today informing me there is now an application for my computer to read all my Kindle books, I realized that without even purchasing one, I've become loyal to the Kindle. My library is currently being built up with books, all of which need to be accessed on some sort of Kindle related app. If I ever buy a portable book reader (not sure if the iPhone battery cuts it for long plane trips and reading books), it will be a Kindle, not a Nook, after all.

It's funny, because the same thing happen with Apple to make me iPod dependent. Apple just put up this convenient, easy-to-use store and application that just made it SO, SO easy to download .99 songs and create CDs. When I made the leap to portable music player, it had to be an iPod.

So, what does this mean for business? Having just completed my strategy course over spring break, this seems like a great strategic option. It's not an accident on Amazon's part that I now use the Kindle. Their use of integration created barriers to entry for other potential eBook readers by raising the cost of switching for me. As I slowly build up my collection of eBooks, the cost to replace them with another devices format gets higher and higher.

Anyway, I won't continue to theorize on how this strategy is successful. Instead, I will just hope that Amazon can take a design cue from Apple and produce a Kindle with a convenient, easy-to-use, shiny touch screen by the time I'm in the market.

Kindle DX

One of the exciting things about moving to the US is the ability to take advantage of things that should be available in Canada, but are not. These include: hulu, iTunes TV shows (sorry iTunes Canada, but I DON'T watch Little Mosque on the Prairie) and the Kindle.

A Kindle is a device produced by Amazon that allows you to download books and read them in one handy portable device. Just recently, Amazon produced the Kindle DX which has a larger screen and better graphics display than the original Kindle.

The really exciting thing is that Darden has a partnership with Amazon to do a pilot project on using the Kindle in academics. If I am lucky enough to be part of the pilot project, this would mean no paper cases and no textbooks to haul around. Plus, it would mean I get a free Kindle to test out, which would be awesome.

Anyway, if you are a fellow incoming Dardenite (I keep calling us that, if I'm wrong, someone please correct me soon!), here is some information on the project:

Darden Announcement: http://www.darden.virginia.edu/html/news_article.aspx?id=19238
UVA Announcement: http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=8566
BusinessWeek Article: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/blogs/mba_admissions/archives/2009/05/amazon_chooses.html
Darden Admissions Blog: http://dardenadmissions.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/amazon-selects-darden-to-participate-in-kindle-education-project/