Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Kevin C. Tofel writes a post which makes three assumptions that almost every ‘Will Kindle survive?’ article makes -

1. The Kindle is a device and not a service.
2. The Kindle is something other than an eReader. 
3. Each year the Kindle ought to save up 50 different improvements and release them all simultaneously at the end of the year – instead of releasing them as soon as possible.

Let’s look at why these assumptions are wrong.

The Kindle is a service

The Kindle is about -

1. How easily readers can get the books they want.
2. How good their reading experience is.
3. How easily authors can get their books in front of readers.

Kindle is a service and delivering that service involves building out a platform – a platform for all of Publishing.

Kindle is not just a device or a store – it is all of reading and publishing.

It’s a service that takes books right from the hands of authors to readers -

1. It encompasses the entire reading experience – the words, the dictionary, the reference, the audiobook.
2. It encompasses the entire purchase experience – finding books, buying them, getting them to the reader, and storing it on the reader and in the cloud.
3. It also encompasses the experience of the author – uploading the book, storing the book, getting a POD version, setting prices and writing sales copy.

Kindle is a service – not a device, not a store. It is also a service that has a very strong platform underlying it.   

Competitors are underestimating Kindle as a service

By fixating on limitations of the physical device (some of which aren’t even relevant to reading) competitors are rationalizing away their fear and lack of understanding.

Competitors and journalists limit themselves to thinking in terms of -

1. Kindle as a device. That perspective limits itself to prettiness and coolness and features. 
2. Kindle as a Store. That perspective limits us to thinking of range of books and prices.

These perspectives have some amount of value. However, they are myopic in their scope.  

Every article that talks about how the Kindle is not a flashy enough gadget is missing the point entirely.

The Kindle is a service for readers

This is the most amusing and most consistent mistake articles about the Kindle make.

1. They know it’s an eReader.
2. They call it an eReader.

Yet they can’t make the jump that the Kindle is devoted to readers and to reading.

The standard argument is that devices that have ‘good enough’ reading will kill devices that ‘do nothing except reading’.

1. The mistake here is that people who don’t really read are trying to predict what people who read a lot will do.
2. To compound matters they are making predictions without enough experience with the Kindle.

Here are a few examples of what the ‘good enough’ argument sounds like to people who love to read and have actually bought and used an eReader -

1. Eye Lenses are going to be replaced with multi-purpose lenses that also function as computer screens and television screens. They won’t give you 20/20 vision any more – However, they’ll be good enough. 
2. Cars will double up as treadmills. Their top speed will only be 50 mph – However, you can both exercise and drive at the same time.
3. Windows are going to be replaced by Multi-function walls that switch between being windows, blinds, and walls. They only let in half as much light – However, that’s okay because you can use them as a wall.

If those examples seem far-fetched it’s probably because you’re not the target audience for eReaders.

If you’re not the target customer then don’t worry about it

 People feel this desperate urge to rationalize dedicated reading devices -

1. Can’t imagine ever buying a dedicated eReader – Must write an article and talk about their imminent death. 
2. Can’t imagine people not liking reading books on LCD screens – Must write an article talking about how LCD screens are ‘good enough’.

It’s as if someone told them -

You better not let this dangerous virus of reading spread any more.

Attack it at any cost. Next thing you know you might be the only one who doesn’t read and you’ll feel left out.

What’s especially interesting is that eReaders aren’t a threat -

1. It’s not as if it’s a minority of people who don’t read attacking the rest.
2. There are no religious or political reasons to attack eReaders. Unless there’s a cult somewhere that hates reading and has every main stream journalist as its member.
3. eReader owners aren’t maniacal or overzealous.
4. It’s not as if eReaders are very elite and people who can’t get them are attacking them.
5. eReaders haven’t stepped on anyone’s toes. All they’ve done is begin to succeed with people who read.

Yet, that small amount of success (millions of Kindles sold) has managed to upset a huge number of people and compelled them to attack.

One possible explanation is that Publishers of all sorts are banding together to attack eReaders as they threaten to take out Book Publishers. It’d be one heck of a conspiracy.

The Kindle is an incrementally improving service for readers

We know that Amazon and Mr. Bezos are hooked on Kaizen – the Japanese concept of continuous incremental improvement.

Kaizen has two key intertwined concepts -

1. You are always improving – right before a release, right after a release, and in between. 
2. You have incremental improvements – the aim isn’t to throw a 60 yard touchdown on every single down. It’s 4 yards every single down.

It’s worth keeping in mind that a team that gets 4 yards every single down scores every time.

Kaizen is why Japanese car makers pulled ahead of competitors and it’d be foolish to assume that a company based on Kaizen is killable.

1. You have a competitor announce a big release.  
2. By the time the product arrives you’ve already closed a lot of the gap.
3. Then, while the competitor is working on its 1 big feature for the whole year, your product keeps improving and outpaces them.

In the long run your consistent, incremental improvements beat out everyone else.

Consider the Kindle in the last 4 months -

1. PDF Support.
2. Price cut to $259.
3. International Kindle.
4. International Kindle DX.
5. Whispernet and free Wikipedia in 100+ countries.
6. Faster screen refresh.
7. Better battery management on the international kindle.
8. Screen rotation.
9. Kindle Apps and Kindle App Store put into motion.
10. Kindle for PC.
11. Kindle for iPhone improvements.
12. Multi-touch company acquired.
13. Announced and probably being worked on – Kindle Folders, Kindle for Mac, Kindle for Blackberry, Supersize fonts, accessible Menus.
14. Jumped to 410,000 books available.
15. Increased royalties for authors to 70%.
16. Started War for $9.99.

Amazon could beat a lot of drums and set up a big conference and announce ALL of these features on one day and then it would fit in with what a lot of people are comfortable with and they’d think the Kindle was cool.

A marketing oriented company would pretend they had eradicated world poverty -

Kindle is now available in 171 countries with free Whispernet in over 100 countries – we are uniting the world through reading.

1 cent from every Kindle Book now goes to orphans in the Mars colonies.

We have embraced academics and professionals – We now support PDF natively on the Kindle.

We have embraced hundreds of millions of people who have PCs - Kindle for PC is very cool.  

The battery life is now enough to read 27 books in one go. It’s awesome.

We now have 60% more books – so you can read what you want – anytime you want.

Instead of having a dog and pony show every 6 months Amazon is just improving the service – every aspect of it. Consistent and incremental improvement.

Closing Thought – An incrementally improving service is hard to beat

Now that we have seen the Kindle is -

1. A service that encompasses all of Publishing. 
2. A service that caters exclusively to readers.
3. Always improving in little increments that add up.

It’s clear why Amazon and the Kindle bother tech journalists and some people so much -

1. The incremental improvement concept is alien to them. Especially the improving all the time part.
2. They want to hear a story as opposed to read one. 
3. They want a device to raise their dopamine level as opposed to letting the books delivered via the device (and read on the device) do the dopamine raising.
4. They want companies to entertain them as opposed to serve their customers.
5. They want to believe that a company can be ‘good’ or ‘evil’.
6. They want to think that companies that earn billions in profit a year actually care more about the rainforests than their own bank accounts.

Basically people want to eat their cake and have it too. They want a company to -

Deliver a great product. 

Deliver it in a way and form that they are comfortable with.

Happen to do it in the middle of saving the rainforests.

Make product owners sexy and cool.  

The Kindle definitely is a great product.

The Kindle can’t do the second because it is a service and very different from what people are used to.

Quite frankly Amazon seem not to care about playing the charade of ‘we’re in it only to save the penguins’.

That leaves making product owners sexy and cool – Perhaps Amazon is just too busy building up a huge service. Perhaps people who read a lot simply don’t need a device to be sexy and cool.

Filed under: kindle Tagged: | kindle as a service