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The Amazon Kindle seems to be the current hot “must have” gizmo on the market at the moment. It seems very much as if the ebook reader is an idea whose time has come – and the kindle ebook reader is clearly the best example of such a device on the market right now. It is also, and let’s be frank about it here, cool.

The Kindle has often been compared to the Apple iPod – which, incidentally, now has a kindle application that allows you to read kindle books on it – by a number of industry insiders. Indeed, going all the way back to the launch of the original Kindle in November of 2007, Steven Levy’s Newsweek cover piece suggested that the Kindle was the “… iPod of reading”. Two and a half years later it seems that drawing a comparison between the two devices might go some way towards explaining the current phenomenal success of the Kindle – and perhaps even allow some insight into what may happen in the near future.

Amazon supremo Jeff Bezos is quoted as saying, again way back in 2007, that “This [the Kindle] isn’t a device, it’s a service.” – and that is absolutely critical to understanding why the Kindle works so well in Amazon’s business model.

Some criticisms have been aimed at the Kindle’s high price – it currently sells at $359 for the Kindle 2, slightly reduced from the original Kindle price of $399. The original iPod was priced at $399 when it was released – prices have lowered as the product was first accepted, and then passed through mainstream to virtually ubiquitous. At the same time functionality has risen.

Apple is, and has been for some time now, synonymous with music downloads and has increased the available portfolio of products to incorporate videos, games and a host of ”apps” for the iPod. In a similar manner, Amazon is strongly linked with books, making the kindle a perfect choice of product for them. The recent unveiling of the larger Kindle DX is noteworthy, not solely because of the numerous technical upgrades that it offers, but because it improves Amazon’s capability to provide newspapers, magazines and even academic textbooks to its customers.

It would be unwise to overlook the technical advantages of the Kindle family of readers completely of course, but it seems that, for Amazon, the technology is a means to an end and not the end itself. In fact, as far as e-book reader technology goes, Amazon are rather late to the party when you consider that there have been earlier contenders – for example; the Franklin ebook (no longer being developed but still available from some sources) kicking around since 1999, and Sony have had ebook readers for quite a time. There are several others, some have already dropped out of the market, others are soldiering on without, currently at least, gaining anything near the volume of interest generated by the Kindle.

Another key advantage enjoyed by Amazon at the moment is the 3G wireless technology employed to enable Kindle users to download their ebooks in under 60 seconds without the use of a computer or a broadband connection – and without being tied in to a monthly contract or requiring to pay a download fee. It’s a fantastic example of the way Amazon have [leveraged the technology to furnish a perceived benefit for their customers.

No monthly connection fee plus no download charges means that customers do not feel tied in or committed to the Amazon service, a significant factor considering the relatively high selling price and the current economic climate. Of course, while customers will be able to buy ebooks elsewhere to read on their Kindle, it is still going to be considerably simpler for them to buy from Amazon’s large, and ever growing, selection of Kindle friendly books. Amazon are going towill see a just as Apple do with their iTunes store.

Using the iPod experience to predict the Kindle’s possible future, it seems unlikely that the Kindle will have it all its own way. As previously stated, there are already a number of existing alternative ebook readers available – the Sony PRS is probably the most significant player aside from the Kindle at the moment, but there are others. These will either develop and provide strong competition for the Kindle or disappear from the marketplace.

Also worth considering is the fact that there are a number of new readers in development. Plastic Logic, has a Kindle DX sized reader in development which is planned for release in 2010. Rumours abound about the release of an Apple tablet based notebook, suggested to be aimed at the market between an iPod Touch and a full blown MacBook. It wouldn’t be too fanciful to suppose that Apple might grow their iStore to include ebooks just as they expanded it to incorporate videos following the release of the iPhone and iPod Touch.

And it’s not just fiercer competition based on enhanced reader technology that Amazon might have to face. In March of 2009 Google and Sony announced that Google’s giant library of public domain e-books would be made available gratis for Sony’s reader. That’s a total of 600,000 titles and is a clear signal that the ebook reader marketplace going to be strongly contested in future.

At this time Amazon is in the driving seat. It has a downloads and, most important of all – the Amazon Kindle is cool. Whether or not it grows into a ubiquitous iPod type product or not in the face of what will surely be fierce competition only time will tell. Amazon have been more than smart so far, so it seems likely that they will be a big player in this emerging market for a long time to come.

One thing seems certain, we will all have the facility to read books, magazines, newspapers and even academic textbooks using portable digital readers in the immediate future. As competition, volumes of scale and improvements in technology combine to drive prices lower this will become an increasingly popular choice for many, possibly even the majority of, readers. The way we read is poised to change, perhaps faster than you might think.

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