2009 has been an important year for e-book readers – substantially as a result of the efforts of Amazon. The Kindle 2 was launched by Amazon in February 2009, which was an improved version of the first Kindle, originally launched in November 2007.
Amazon followed up with the Kindle DX in June of 2009, which was a large format version of the Kindle 2. It was specifically targeted at readers of newspapers, magazines and academic textbooks – and it created a bit of a stir.
The possibilities in the academic world – from interactive textbooks to constantly updated texts, and not forgetting the opportunity afforded to academic bodies to save a good deal of money – attracted a good deal of attention. In addition to entering into partnership with various colleges and universities, Amazon received plenty of free publicity from the political scene – such as the New Democratic Leadership Council and Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his capacity as Governor of California.
Thanks to Amazon’s foresight and innovation – helped by all the free publicity – the Kindle reader has now become Amazon’s top selling product. The Kindle currently has an incredible 60% share of the U.S. e-book reader market and recently brought out an international version. The Kindle has, to all intents and purposes, become synonymous with e-book readers.
It’s probably worth pointing out that Amazon didn’t enter the e-book reader market until fairly late in the day. The first e-book reader, the Franklin eBookman, was launched in 1999 – a decade ago. The Sony PRS reader was launched in 2007, before the launch of the original Kindle.
Amazon may not have been first to launch – but by combining clever marketing with technical innovation and addressing customer needs, Amazon has secured its current number one position. The vast choice of books available for the Kindle on Amazon’s website (360,000 titles at the last count and growing daily) and the wireless connectivity (with no monthly fee) were every bit as critical to the success of the Kindle as were the technical aspects of the device.
However, now that Amazon has – practically single handed – established the market, it seems that there are a whole bunch of other manufacturers who all want their share. Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Barnes and Noble, iRex, Plastic Logic, Asus – the list goes on – all have their own readers ready for launch or in the final stages of development.
Amazon’s current unique selling point – wireless connectivity – will become the norm and Barnes and Noble will allow users of their new Nook reader the choice of over 1,000,000 titles. Sony’s new Daily Edition reader will allow users to download e-books on loan from participating lending libraries. 2010 will probably see some industry standard e-book format agreed upon, which will allow users to lend e-books to family and friends or move them over to other readers if they wish.
Currently, a lot of industry analysts are checking out the line up of new readers and trying to predict which of them is the Kindle Killer. Neverthelss, Amazon has been commercially aware up until now, so they won’t surrender their leadership position without a fierce struggle. It took them less than a year and a halft after the launch of the original Kindle to release the much improved Kindle 2. The DX was launched just a few months later. Amazon almost certainly has big plans for the further development of their e-book readers. Could it be that the Kindle killer will actually be the Kindle 4 and that could we see this sometime in 2010?