Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Club Penguin Cheats — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 04:18:17 -0000

Arrington is right about the Sony Reader being better, but I think that the best is going to come out of Samsung or Apple in the near future.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

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Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

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Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Bala Sankar — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:46:56 -0000

Hello,

I have published a book, Web On-The-Go in Amazon Kindle version.
Here is the link for the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Web-O...

This book is all about innovative ideas for wireless web.
I'll be very glad if you could review the book, Web On-The-Go.

Your review and comments will be very valuable.

Thanks
Bala

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Moda Evi — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:16:03 -0000

Absolutely agree with you here... This *might* have been cool in 1995. Arrington is right about the Sony Reader being better,Moda Evi but I think that the best is going to come out of Samsung or Apple in the near future.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Max Bender — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:54:05 -0000

Uggghhhhh... Scoble is a dweeb. No social network?? I couldn't care less what my "friends" are doing much less reading. Its an electronic book! More twenty something got to be connected doing five things at once mentality. You could say the same things about the drill motor in my toolbox but its pretty useful when I need to drill holes. Someone needs to drill a hole in Scobles head and see what really is in there. Buy it or don't buy it but stop the juvenile whining about how everything "sucks". The word "suck" is not a very grown up way of describing something. Just say what you like and don't like. I don't know how guys like you get paid?

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Herne — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:05:56 -0000

I wrote a blog post on this the other day.

Why would I pay $360 for a butt-ugly device simply for the privilege of RENTING ebooks for a further $10 a pop? Assuming they ever made it work in Canada, which is doesn't. It's a useless bloated piece of tech designed by a marketer to sell (or rent rather) more Amazon products. I can go to the library and get books for free, why would I want to rent them from Amazon?

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Rock — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 03:08:45 -0000

Kindle to big to survive!)

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Aaron Neville MP3 Music — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:12:28 -0000

For Aaron Neville, being on the road feels far further normal than being by home.

“somewhere the street takes me, that's anywhere I go,” understood the 67-year-old singer from a tour stop in Northern California. “I just quit where they tell me.”

As a unaccompanied artist, Neville is top known for soulful ballads, approximating his 1966 rejection . 1, “Tell It Like It Is.” bar that all changes when he and brothers Charles, painting and Cyril get jointly on phase .

“We execute a minute bit of everything,” he said. “mood , jazz, depression , R&B. Everything.”

On Saturday night, the Neville Brothers bring their eclectic stylings to fuss 29 Casino into Coachella. And while Aaron said he's been to the desert several times over the past decade before so, this time is special as he'll be performing with his brothers.

“I love the desert,” Neville said, “but then I love wherever (people) like my composition .”

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Lash LaRue — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:58:37 -0000

I think the Kindle is a cool idea but it just costs WAY WAY too much. Think about it. The screen it uses should be the most expensive part of that device and those 6 inch monochrome screens purchased in bulk are dirt cheap. No more than $10-$20 max. add in the battery, the EVDO radio and casing and I would doubt if Amazon has more than $50-$75 tops in harware costs. Probably a lot less with their bulk buying power. The major cost in publishing books is in printing, binding and physical distribution. With electronic distribution all of that goes away but if you look at what Amazon is charging for new E-books they are within 80%-90% of the price of paper books. Those prices are just pure ripoff, considering the incredible savings they are getting via electronic distribution. No e-book older that 6 month-1 year old should cost any more than $3-$5 MAX. So Amazon is charging a 300-400% premium on the books + a 300-400% premium on the harware. Thats just outrageous from a money standpoint, forget about all the usability and quality issues with the product. If the harware was between $100-$150 and if the books were around $10 for new releases I would consider it but $400 and $25 for the books? Thats just too much like sodomy for me to pay for it.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Amazon Kindle — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:45:49 -0000

435 of 484 people found the following review helpful:
Killer e-book Reader, November 20, 2007
By James Means "jamesinhouston" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

I received my Kindle today and I have to say "NO" to the haters. This is a killer reader. Here are some pros and cons:

Pros
1. The reader response time is excellent and the display is crisp and clear.
2. The interface is extremely intuitive and well-designed.
3. Shopping in the Kindle store is extremely easy and relatively fast
4. Page and menu navigation are easy and well thought out.
5. The mp3 player works very well so audio books would be great as well
6. In general it's a great design in perhaps not the most beautiful package.
7. Great non-skid backing

Cons:
1. The keyboard can be a bit slow to respond while shopping.
2. It's a tad uncomfortable to hold without the book cover but I'll manage.
3. Pricey

All things considered, I'm extremely pleased with the Kindle. The device is already registered and it is ready to go as soon as you unpack it.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

John Maas — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:44:33 -0000

The passion behind Tom is great! Getting to the point saves a lot of time, especially when you're new to something, or aren't fully illiterate on the topic.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Anthony Vito — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:06:45 -0000

I searched through the comments and didn't see anyone posting the actual technical reason to not having a touch screen. It's not because of finger prints. ( Although that would piss me off. ) It's probably a "little" bit due to expense. It's not because of battery life, resistive and capacitive touchscreens don't use much power.

It's all about light. Touchscreens block nearly 40% of light passing through them. ( sometimes more! ) These screens are lit from ambient light, so you lose 40% on the way into the screen, and 40% on the way out, cutting the light getting to your eye by nearly 66% !! This is why Irex Technologie's Iliad, which I own, uses a Wacom tablet to implement stylus based touch. Wacom tablets measure magnetic interference, and don't place a "flim" over the screen. It it more expensive then a touch screen, but it was the only option from an engineering perspective.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Goofball Jones — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:45:58 -0000

No social networking? Hey Jeff, get your head out of Twitter.

I want something to read books. Lots and lots of books. I probably read more novels a year. I read them. I don't annotate in them. I don't go on Twitter every 5 seconds and tell people what I'm reading. If I recommend someone a book I say to them "hey, this was a great book, you should read it". I don't lend them the book or give it to them, I just say "it's a good book". That's it. I'm not a fricken library. If they want to read the book, let them buy it themselves.

I'm interested in READING books. This seems to be the perfect device to get. I can buy books for cheap, get them, read them and then move on to the next book. I don't read PDF documents...I've seen a few, but mainly their a pain in the ass. I'm not reading scientific journals, I read books. If I read a blog or a web-page, I do it on my computer. I don't want to read a blog or a web-page on my book. When I'm reading a book I'm reading a book.

Also, why in the HELL would we want a fricken idiotic social networking thing on a book reader? STOP TRYING TO MAKE THIS THING SOMETHING THAT IT ISN'T. Keep it simple. Buy books, download them wirelessly anywhere and read them. That's it. That's all I want. Don't want a messenger. Don't want to watch movies or play music or chat with my friends or anything like that. It's a book reader. They should just stick to that.

You're geeks, you want all the latest bells and whistles on everything. You're thankfully in a very small minority as people that I've physically seen test out the Kindle want one. Plain and simple. They're not geeks, they like the screen, they like that you can buy books for cheap (last I checked, I couldn't go into Barnes and Noble and buy a brand new hardcover bestseller for $9.99), they like that you don't need a computer or anything to get the books.

Jeff Bezos seems to be kind of a jerk-wad about this...I understand he doesn't like it...but I don't think he would like it no matter what. He doesn't like ebooks. Ok, I get it. It's like someone who doesn't like Rap music write a review for a new Rap album. I mean, come on...

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

russianwomen — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:05:29 -0000

Good work, and good news! Thank you Robert.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

mdvp — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:28:32 -0000

You forgot one thing- as of yet, it has failed miserably at ushering in a new era of world peace. And wouldn't it be great if it could make your breakfast? Okay, anyway, I have a Kindle and I'm very satisfied with it. I'm watching the video and commenting as I go along:

1. Are you absolutely sure? Because as soon as I went into the Experimental Web Browser, the first bookmark was Amazon. Clicked on it and managed to get all the way up to "Checkout" with an item in maybe a minute in a half. Didn't have any desire to actually buy it, so I stopped there, but still, I think it would have let me buy the item. Why have Amazon as a pre-existing bookmark if not?

2. I actually like the page turn on the side reminiscent-of-book design. I hope you could get used to holding it differently after a week. But I can definitely see where you're coming from, even though I rarely inadvertantly turn the page after four months of ownership. However, this is what that piece of pleather that came in the box is for- the Kindle cover. This particular problem disappears when it's in the cover. You also don't feel "this piece of crap on the back" this way.

3. Menus? This issue is simply something the target customer is not going to care about. It takes me maybe ten seconds total to open the menu, close it, and scroll once up, once down. That's okay for me. And the average user, again, is simply an avid book reader, not a tech geek. No one's going to mind the menu.

4. It's the difference between able to "gift" from a selection of maybe 75,000 books and being able to just buy exclusively for yourself from a selection of 115,000 books. Do you know how many publishers would get cold feet if they heard Amazon wanted to let people share/give books? Amazon has to create a no-risk enviornment for them as long as the reward is relative. Once (if ever) the Kindle is established as a powerful force, I'm sure you'll be seeing some new gifting, etc. features, since publishers will want their books on Kindle, rather than Amazon wanting the publishers. In the meantime, if the person in question is trutworthy, you can have them registered to your account, send the book to Amazon, and have them retrieve the book from Amazon (up to 6 Kindles on one account.)

5. Amazon is advertising this as a new way to buy and interact with books. It IS a new way to buy and interact with books. There is a notable difference between shopping for and downloading a book in two minutes wirelessly and making a 45 min. trip to Barnes&Noble, spending an hour in there, and making the return trip. Plus the "sample" system. I think your wife is in the minority. Most book readers would at least be interested in the Kindle.

6. Why no touchscreen? I'm sure this was considered, and no one wants to wipe fingerprints off a book every time they turn a page, and no one wants to put up with fingerprints all over the screen. Come to think of it, why not go to the next level and have direct brain-to-device interaction? You have to not think of it as relative to the iPod Touch, which seems to be the main source of all of your criticisms.

7. You realize that changing font sizes makes fixed page numbers impossibe? It's a sacrifice, and I'm sure you could get used to 4 digit location numbers. Not much of a difference to me either way, but...

8. Yes, most blogs suck... so don't buy them. But I get the NY Times Latest News (and Amazon Daily- only good thing about it is it's free), and it's really quite convenient.

9. I don't see the problem with newspapers. You can see what's on the front page, you can see what's on each section, and you can easily skip from story to story. And no ads. I like the Kindle Philadelphia Inquirer much better than the print version, personally, and it's much more usable (can skip over entire chunks of stories and no ads to get in the way.)

10. Yeah, keyboard does suck, but it's not unbearable.

11. A box is the best you'll get for a highlight when you have an e-ink screen.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Aron — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:32:22 -0000

It's supposed to be a reading device, not an internet device. If you want an internet device, buy an iphone.

your comments on the usability, however, no touch-screen, and holdingit while you read, were helpful.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Super Reader — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:34:31 -0000

ABSOLUTELY - I cannot believe that Amazon did not give the Kindle the ability to buy from their website? I must be mistaken. Surely you can buy Amazon products from your Kindle. You are reading your book... you get to the end of it, you decide you should order your mother a pair of shoes you saw on Amazon. Bada bing - the tool is already in your hand - you don't forget and end up having to buy her something locally and Amazon cops a sale.
Also - I'm not much of one for communities - but I understand that this coming decade is predicted to be the decade of online communities - that being said Amazon should have some functionality in that area so that they are not left behind. Would probably be profitable for them to start their own KINDLE COMMUNITY>

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Bob Sanchez — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:43:47 -0000

You are a douchebag. And I presume you are one of those who trashed the early PDAs and converged phone devices....

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Dexter Legaspi — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:24:03 -0000

when i read the first few lines of this blog entry, i thought it was all a joke...then as i read more...i felt compelled to respond to this even though i don't even own a Kindle (yet).

Based on a thorough research on what Kindle is supposed to do, here is a list that i came up with:

1. offer the convenience of carrying a lot of books with you and read it anytime anyplace
2. offer the convenience of instantly buying your books anytime, anywhere.
3. provide a reading experience as you're reading a real book.
4. do 1 to 3 with as little power consumption as possible.

Now, witht those facts at hand, let's do a point-by-point rebuttal on your complaints

1. Ability to buy paper goods. I can see why Amazon did this (they're trying to push the Kindle, after all) and frankly, I'm not sure a Kindle user would mind...that said, it's not something that can be corrected with a future software/firmware.
2. Useability sucks. That's debatable, but i'll give you that.
3. Complaining about menus. WTH? Do you mind sharing whatever you're smoking there? You know why Amazon used soft menus instead of mapping everything on a key? One word: FLEXIBILITY. If Amazon decides to add more features to the Kindle, how the heck are they going to do this if they already mapped all the buttons? I mean, Jeezus.

So you made a little clarification that you're poking fun on the MS UI designers pre-Windows 95. Again, I'd love to see what custom version of Windows or Microsoft software you have installed on your computer...because the one I have STILL HAVE MENUS. even Office 2007 still has it--granted that they're now CONTEXT-SENSITIVE menus...they're still menues.

And what the heck are you talking about XBoxes and Zune not having menus? REALLY now? The XBox Dashboard has a chock full of menus...and looking at Zune demos...OH LOOKS! MOAR MENUS.
4. Again. I can see why Amazon did not do this in version 1.0. Heck, I can almost bet that they had this. You know why? Look no further: Zune song sharing. Yeah, it's a great concept, but nobody would hardly use it. So why build an intricate business model just to support that?
5. No social network. Are you serious? I want to read a book i use this device. if I want to know what the others are reading, I'll use my laptop or--check this out--call them on the phone! Not all people have the need to stalk someone else 24/7. What's next? Instant Messaging so you can chat with your friends about the books you're reading? Please.
6. Touch screen. Now this is the most stupefying complaint. You did not ask for a color screen or a grayscale with more than 4 shades of gray...you asked for a touch screen. Good Lord. Did you even bother to read and understand how e-Ink works? Here's a clue: it doesn't use power when displaying text; it only uses power when re-drawing text...now imagine, adding Touch Screen at that that dog-slow refresh rate...are you getting it now? Gawd, for somebody who consider himself a geek, you missed this one BIG TIME.

In conclusion, not only that you missed the point of the Kindle, you missed by several miles.

You bought it because "you're a geek?" it's like voting for McCain by virtue os just being a Republican. NO! you bought it because you happen to be a dude with too much money and bought this thing so you can trash it. "geeks" will not write this travesty.

oh and by the way, that little video you made is UNWATCHABLE; if others thought it was funny, to me you come across as very obnoxious. i could not get past the 37th time you said "whoever designed this piece of cr@p should be fired." I have a tip for you: when talking in front of a web cam, stay at least a few feet away! holy crap you were almost kissing your web cam lens (any GEEK knows that)...because, you know, you're not exactly easy on the eyes.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

freddyzdead — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:22:14 -0000

I haven't heard much about how we simply do not need yet another proprietary ebook format. I have tried many different ebook "solutions", and they all suck for a variety of reasons.

What I have settled on is the Haali bookreader for the Pocket PC; it comes from Russia, reads plain txt files, formats them on the fly, automatically bookmarks, extracts text files from within zip archives... the list of neat features goes on.

There is no DRM, no special formatting, so that any document that can be converted to plain ascii text can be added to your library. Zip files make a marvellous way of organizing your library and avoiding cluttering up your device with thousands of txt files. They also take up far less space by being compressed.

Best of all: it's free.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Tom Jones — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:31:21 -0000

Your morons.

Who the fuck wants to read more than a couple pages on an iphone or read an entire book on a computer. Why dont you learn what a product is actually designed to do before making idiot comments like these.

Why doesnt it browse the web? wahhhhhhhhhh why doesnt it drive my car? wahhhhhhhhhhhh why doesnt it have 2000gb on onboard flash wahhhhhhhhhhhh why doesnt it cost 5 dollars? wahhhhhhhhhhhh

The thing is sold out because, despite being ugly, the function is incredible.

LONG BATTERY LIFE, a display designed for reading, instant access to over 100,000 books, conversion of your existing files. Seriously this is designed for reading not for the year 2040. Comparing this to a cell phone highlights your idiocy.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

Gavin — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:49:15 -0000

Now now.. had you taken the time for a little tough-minded thinking.. you might have put the wee device in its cover. Then you would have seen how it's meant to be used.

a) the angled cut-backs on the right side give you a place for your thumbs on the "book." .. and suddenly the buttons are in a handy place.

b) the rubberized backing helps hold the device in the cover, and there is a little plastic tab that snaps into the backing to hold it in place.

c) once "clothed" it holds comfortablely in one's hands -- reads and feels like a book.

I've handed mine to a half-dozen people, in its cover, and they all say -- "oh.. now that makes sense..." "feels like a book..." or "wow!"

It always helps to fully assemble the parts before you start to play with things.

Menus -- still suck.. but that's just software. Easy to fix, n'est pas?

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

John — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:35:13 -0000

One other note....

Steve Jobs has dissed this device as a non-starter and is quoted as saying "people don't read anymore" as his reasoning for his analysis. Don't look for Apple to do anything anytime soon in this area.

Re: Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review)

John — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:05:42 -0000

This device is meant to appeal to book readers, not necessarily tech geeks. Why in the world would I want my fingerprints all over the screen I'm trying to read? Reading a book is an inherently private activity; why would I desire social connectivity invading my private time? Sometimes simplicity itself is elegant and just because a device could do more doesn't mean that it should. Hopefully Amazon won't complicate this device by adding a plethora of functionality having nothing whatsoever to do with storing and reading books.