I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Competition is always a good thing for consumers.
When Amazon released its Kindle e-book reader nearly two years ago, it sold out in just five and a half hours and could barely keep up with demand. Besides smart phones, tablet PCs and other general purpose devices used as readers, Kindle was the first truly successful dedicated e-book reader on the market (although certainly not the only game in town).
But as Apple proved with its wildly effective iTunes/iPod strategy, access to content is what drives gadget adoption. That said, massive book publisher Barnes & Noble appears to be working on its own e-book reader — called Plastic Logic — which would present the only real challenge to the Kindle to date. A story in today’s Wall Street Journal suggests, Barnes & Noble is getting ready to fire a direct hit in Amazon’s direction — however, the world’s largest bookstore chain also wants to supply content (i.e., books, magazines, newspapers) to a wide variety of devices from different companies.
The following YouTube video provides a decent demonstration of Plastic Logic’s latest e-reader (note the reader’s generous screen size).
Neither Barnes & Noble nor Plastic Logic have announced how much its e-book reader might cost, but individual book downloads will cost $9.99, which is the same as what Amazon currently charges (yeah, that still seems a tad high for something that doesn’t involve trees and ink, but remember that competition is a good thing). At first glance, it seems as though Barnes & Noble has the edge: Its screen size is 8.5″ x 11″ (Kindle, a smallish 8″ x 5.3″) and Barnes & Noble will offer 700,000 downloadable titles (Kindle, a mere 300,000).
Amazon will no doubt ramp up its catalog and may even lower its prices, as it did with music downloads in order to better compete with Apple’s iTunes music store. And the Kindle, at $299, might become a little cheaper as well.
Personally, I think these readers are really cool but way too expensive right now. So I’m looking forward to the fruits of a crowding market and the inevitability of lower prices.
Photo courtesy of Plastic Logic.
