Demise of the book – again?

Newsweek reports on the latests electronic reader, the Amazon Kindle. The device has some tempting features: you can search the text and change the font size. It holds about 200 books, more if you get a memory card. It connects to the store: browsing, and reading and posting reviews can be done without a computer. It’s small, easily portable.

The article wraps up with musings on how e-readers like these will affect writing. There’s an environmental note as well:

“Microsoft’s Bill Hill has a riff where he runs through the energy-wasting, resource-draining process of how we make books now. We chop down trees, transport them to plants, mash them into pulp, move the pulp to another factory to press into sheets, ship the sheets to a plant to put dirty marks on them, then cut the sheets and bind them and ship the thing around the world. “Do you really believe that we’ll be doing that in 50 years?” he asks.”

I’m pretty excited that we’re about to have such a gadget. But it needs work. Here’s where there’s room for improvement:

-          It’s an extension of the Amazon store. One store only? Amazon’s Jeff Bezos does say, “The vision is that you should be able to get any book—not just any book in print, but any book that’s ever been in print—on this device in less than a minute.” If he can do that, that would be wonderful. However, when anyone makes a claim like this, I get wary. Paperless office hasn’t happened; the book, the radio, or the tv aren’t dead yet. Bezos doesn’t say anything about his schedule, though.

-          Subscribing to selected blogs is possible. Selected blogs? For it to really take off, there should, again, be more freedom of choice.

-          There’s antipiracy software. What happened to your right to resell or lend your property? How about libraries being able to offer Kindle material? Bezos is apparently open to the idea “eventually”. Why not right away? Wouldn’t that be a great way to get more publicity and widen your user base?