Amazon's Kindle

http://contemporarylit.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=contemporarylit&cdn=entertainment&tm=86&gps=133_133_1011_531&f=11&su=p284.8.150.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.amazon.com/

This is interesting. A portable reader should be fun. One can lug it around wherever and the choice available would be huge, not to mention the wonders it will do for the Rain forests and the book pirates. I believe that the future of books and reading is electronic and that a serious reading device is just around the corner.

However, I do forsee major challenges in the adoption of this technology. The greatest of all is the piracy issue. The publishing industry would rather choke to death than open their flanks to the book pirates. Secondly, the chances of a single format appearing for all ebooks are shot to hell. Why? because Microsoft is in the game. It has invested a lot of time and money on its pathetic microsoft reader and as likely to give it up as the devil is to give up Bush. Thirdly, Reading is a snob's pastime. Most book lovers are snobs. The common refrain is going to be either 'They don't feel the same as a physical book'( Obviously not!!! Isn't that like the whole point?) or ' I am not really a technology friendly person!(mostly housewives, pansies and idiots. Who cares about them anyway?). Oh yes, finally, the greedy publishers are going to be shortsighted as usual and overprice the e-books and are going to try and kill off the market. Why? Simply because the margins out of the traditional book business is definitely higher than what the ebook business can be. They cannot have different the formats(hardcover, paperback etc) either. We all know that the bulk of the revenues from a best seller comes from hardcover sales to Libraries and other institutions. Like they are going to kill a cash cow willingly! They will destroy the market by overpricing the e-books. But, the good news is that the number of devices for books in the market has definitely increased. That has to be a good thing, right?