Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Nov 25th edit: I’m now predicting a Feb 9th Kindle 2.0 release. I have a post with the Kindle 2.0 release date analysis, and why I think Version 2.0 comes out right after Amazon’s Extended Holiday Return Period ends.

Shipping Delays for the Kindle are now 11 to 13 weeks. I did write (on Nov 18th) that delays were up to 3-4 weeks and to order a Kindle now if you want it for Christmas. I wish my hunch were wrong – except it isn’t.

Let’s say I order a Kindle now - Nov 24th. It takes approximately 12 weeks to arrive – that’s Feb 24th. 3 months. Are you kidding me? How can you be Amazon.com and still not be able to ship enough Kindles to meet demand. You’ve had a lot of time to work this out.

Who in their right mind would wait 3 months? Especially given that Kindle 2.0 is (hopefully) closer and closer to being released.

This has got to be something more than a parts issue or a major manufacturing problem. The only thing I can think of is that the Oprah effect was more than just a spike. Even though Google shows that Oprah related kindle searches are down, the general Kindle buzz seems to have remained.

As an example, on my blog, the 1 day spike from the day of Oprah’s recommendation (Oct 24th) is unmatched – however, 1 month later  traffic is still close to the spike (and still triple of what it was before Oprah). Here’s the weekly traffic chart -

Oprah Kindle - Christmas came early

The timing of Oprah’s Kindle recommendation was too good – to the point that not only did she sell out the Kindle, the buzz and increased product awareness meant a LOT of people decided to buy or gift the kindle this Christmas, and that’s led to the 11-13 week shipping delays. Kindle 2.0 is going to come out next year – probably early in the year. There’s a non-zero probability that you could actually get a Kindle 2.0 before you can get a Kindle 1.0 – that’s just crazy - I bet Kindle 2.0 sells out in 4.5 hrs.

Filed under: availability, kindle