Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

This obviously includes yours truly. It’s interesting to see so many articles and posts talk about what’s going to happen with eReaders and who is going to kill who when no one has any clue whatsoever.

Let’s start with what we do know.

Things we definitely know about eReaders

Here are a few of the things we actually do know -

1. There are people buying eReaders. Amazon have said ‘millions of Kindles’ and Sony has floated a ‘400,000 Sony Readers sold’ figure (the latter was in January 2009).
2. There are people buying eBooks. Amazon’s infamous ‘more ebooks sold than books on christmas 2009′ press release.
3. There are lots of eReaders being released. This suggests that lots of companies see a potential opportunity.
4. Multi-purpose devices are beginning to target eBooks. The iPad and the iPhone being the best examples.  
5. Publishers are trying to increase eBook prices.

The total amount of actual information is surprisingly low for a market that’s over 2 years old. 

Things we don’t know about eReaders

This could be a never-ending list - let’s start with the Top 10.

Top 10 most crucial things we don’t know

1. How many eReaders have been sold and what the market share is.
2. What the total potential market size for dedicated reading devices is.
3. How many eBooks have been sold and how the market is divided.
4. When we will get color eReaders.
5. When Kindle 3, Nook 2, and the new Sony Reader will be released and what features they will have.
6. How the iPad will do and what impact it will have on reading.
7. How many readers will prefer the iPad over a dedicated eReader.
8. What impact the agency model will have on eReader and eBook sales.
9. The impact of the Kindle App Store.
10. The impact of book apps and reading apps for the iPad.

More crucial things we don’t know

1. How many eBooks are sold via the iPhone App Store. What the division is between book apps and reading apps.
2. How many ebooks and physical books eReader owners buy.
3. How many free books eReader owners read.
4. Will eReaders go on to replace paper? 
5. The number of low vision readers and other new groups of readers that have been added.
6. The number of children that are now reading due to eReaders.
7. How the rivals for eInk will do and when they’ll come to market.
8. The surprises Amazon, Sony, and B&N have lined up.
9. The surprises Publishers have lined up.
10. Whether Publishers want to kill eBooks or not.
11. If eInk is better than LCDs (there’s no proof) and by how much.
12. If paper is better than eInk (again, there’s no proof).
13. How much more eReader owners read (Amazon had said in 2009 that 2.7 times the purchases are made) and whether they read more total books than before (Is the increase just a shift from paper to ebooks?).
14. What effect cellphone and PC reading apps are having on eReader sales.
15. Whether Publishers are necessary and what cut they should get.
16. What costs the platforms have to bear (Apple, Amazon) and whether a 30% cut for the platforms is too high, too low, or reasonable.

We could just keep going – ebook creation costs, book costs, fair eReader prices, and eReader technology arrival dates are all still unknown.

The different types of speculation

Given the almost complete lack of facts it’s amazing that people are still making predictions and speculating about the future of eReaders -

1. Things I Wish Would Happen articles – These are articles by people who like or dislike eReaders/ebooks/books/reading and just write what they would like to happen. They forget to include that it’s all wishful thinking.  
2. Analysis without any facts - These are guesstimates and analysis. The only thing missing is that they have no figures to start with. 
3. Predictions and Speculation without any facts – This is a step beyond mere analysis. These articles actually predict what’s going to happen (usually with the help of a survey). This is really bold given we don’t even know what’s happening right now. 
4. X will kill Y articles – The sales figures for Y are not know and X is usually not even released.
5. The Future of Reading articles – People predicting the death of books or the rise of new models of publishing without any data to justify what they are predicting.  

It’s not surprising that most of the speculation so far has been wrong.

Neither the Kindle nor eReaders in general have been killed. The iPhone hasn’t made eReaders redundant and eBook sales haven’t stopped. Publishers haven’t died and new Publishers haven’t arisen. Books haven’t died – in fact it’s entirely possible books are doing better now.

We have an amazing lack of hard facts and at this point it’d be foolish to predict anything. Talking in terms of probabilities – perhaps. Actual predictions – not really justifiable.

Filed under: eBook Reader Devices Tagged: | future of ereader, kindle analysis