Ominous Kindle sign: paying for blogs
Jeff Bezos of Amazon wants to change the world with the Kindle, the e-book reader he's pushing hard with all that money he's got. He also wants to make more money.
Books for $9.99 each sound pretty enticing. You can also subscribe to magazines and newspapers on the Kindle. I don't know how good the graphics look, but I do know the thing's only black and white at this point.
As I said previously, what sets the Kindle apart is its wireless capability. You can download content from just about anywhere (it connects to both cell-phone and Wi-Fi networks).
If the iPod did this (and the iPhone and that other touchscreen iPod whose name escapes me do this with music, I believe), it would be another big deal. But just as having Apple being the dominant (and nearly sole) seller of music isn't all that good of an idea, having Amazon be the dominant (and nearly sole) seller of books, magazines and the like might not be all that good either. OK, so Amazon is already the dominant seller of books. They totally kill on price -- we all know that.
But back to blogs. Amazon will sell -- and yes, I do mean sell you blogs on the Kindle. Even BoingBoing, one of my favorites, is on board. The charge? $1.99 per month. And the content is pushed wirelessly to your Kindle.
Just wait a freakin' minute. $1.99 per blog per month? It'll either be the beginning of a whole new revenue stream for bloggers ... or one of the stupidest ideas ever know to electronically minded wo/man (see that use of "wo/man"? My UC Santa Cruzian roots are showing).
Bezos needs to take a tip from Apple and uber-black-mock-turtled genius Steve Jobs who smartly offers podcasts FOR FREE but charges for others stuff like songs.