The Kindle 2 and other eReaders

Tim O'Reilly Unplugged: The Kindle 2 And Transforming Industries

A journalist from the industry publication Information Week interviewed Tim O'Reilly, the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Publishing (which is a major publisher of tech guides). They had a very interesting discussion, with the entire transcript of the interview available for reading. David Berlind, the interviewer, also presents a lengthy introduction to the interview in which he gives an overview of the issues discussed.

The main issue that was presented was the old debate about open source vs. proprietary formats for distributing media. Amazon's Kindle 2 e-reader, about to be released on February 24th to a public that is already awaiting delivery of out-of-stock original Kindles, is made using a proprietary format for the books, magazines, and other media available.

O'Reilly talks about how currently he finds the open source products to be better, and he feels that after some period of time some kind of standard will be developed so that print media can be transferred to all sorts of mobile devices. He goes back to how the Web 2.0 standard is partly defined by this ability to useful on multiple devices and platforms.

Apple found that trying to be proprietary with their format of music ended up backfiring. Instead of simply distributing the universal MP3 format, they made their content only playable with iPods and through iTunes. They abandoned this model when it seemed to cut into their sales and people were just saving the songs into MP3 format (through multiple programs available for download online) and then giving them to others anyway.

I'm personally really excited by the Kindle product, and I've been wanting one ever since Amazon first developed it. However, the more I read, the more convinced I am that I just want to wait. Just as swiss army knife cell phones like the iPhone have gone down in price, I expect that eReaders in general will go down. I also dislike proprietary formats, though it bothers me less than it bothers other people I know.

While thinking about this interview, I went and read other articles about the device. I grabbed little pieces here and there to think more deeply on. For one, I read that some libraries have been loaning out Kindles, probably for in-library use only (I hope!). That's interesting, and certainly would save the library space (eventually, when eReaders become a lot more common), and money (eBooks are cheaper). Once there is a more consistent standard and eBooks will be available on many different devices, I forsee a time when the current method of having people "check out" copies of books from eBook Libraries (like the Ohio e-Book Project) will be extended to eReader format. This would be a vast improvement over the different software reader formats available from current eBook libraries which can generally only be used on a computer or specific mobile devices.

And what a great world it will be when for a wait in the doctor's office a person could have available a small paperback sized device that contained up to 1500 books (and other print formats like magazines)! Or to just have an eReader in the house instead of a huge mountain of books. Of course there will always be good reasons to have a print copy of some books. (Classics, favorites, beach reads...) but do I really need the hundreds of books science fiction and fantasy collection that takes up an entire wall in my basement? (And I just weeded hundreds out!--I only kept the ones I really loved, or that I still plan to read sometime because I hadn't read them yet).

The eReader technology is just getting off the ground, and I think the sleek design, readability, and wireless subscription and purchasing aspects of the Kindle 2 are great. I look forward to seeing the developments that come about in the future, and I think it is entirely possible that the world will change so much because of it that my youngest daughter will not have to break her back in college carrying around a huge backback full of books.