The Kindle is sold out

Turns out Amazon is tapped out when it comes to $399 Kindle e-book readers. But you are encouraged to order now "to reserve your place in line," as they are shipped on a first-come, first-served basis.

More Kindles are expected to be in stock Dec. 3.

And whether it's a hit or a dud, I'm pretty sure that the Kindle is going to be a huge gift item for the voracious reader in the family, even at $399. At that price, why not throw in 10 books for an extra $100?

Here are some Kindle stats from Amazon:

Product Overview

* Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
* Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.
* Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.
* Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
* More than 88,000 books available, including 100 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers.
* New York Times® Best Sellers and all New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
* Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
* Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
* Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
* More than 250 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN's Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post—all updated wirelessly throughout the day.
* Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
* Holds over 200 titles.
* Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
* Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones—so you never have to locate a hotspot.
* No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments—we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read.
* Includes free wireless access to the planet's most exhaustive and up-to-date encyclopedia—Wikipedia.org.
* Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing.

And watch these Amazon videos (they really, really want you to buy this thing):

Kindle overview
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on the Kindle
Author Toni Morrison on the Kindle
Ex-Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki on the Kindle
Uber-best-seller James Patterson on the Kindle
Lemony Snicket author Daniel Handler on the Kindle

(Hey, those Amazon videos are way clearer than YouTube's.)

What's the common denominator? Everybody wants to make a buck with this thing.

For me, the things about it that are game-changing aren't it's ability to store 200 full books and have a "paper-like" screen. I've seen Sony's version of this very same product, and it didn't impress me. The screen ain't all that great. It'll get better ... in five years.

But what is unique is its wireless capability. You can bring down content -- books, magazines, newspapers, blogs, and who knows what else -- wirelessly, just about anywhere you are that has Sprint cell-phone service or Wi-Fi Internet, and you don't need a computer with which to do it. There's also a little keyboard -- not a great keyboard, but a keyboard nonetheless. Other things that make the Kindle attractive include its adjustable text size -- every book can become a large-print edition instantly. Does it have text-to-speech for the sight-impaired? I'd like to see that feature. The Kindle does play audiobooks and music, though.

The backing of the world's largest book retailer is nothing to sneeze at. Without Amazon, this wouldn't be happening with the hugeness that it currently enjoys. In that respect, it's got even more of a chance to succeed than Apple's iPod did when it first came out and nobody wanted to sell digital songs for 99 cents each. And we all know how that turned out.

And you can access Wikipedia with the Kindle. Web browsing is still classified as an "experimental" feature, but the Kindle does have it (and here's how to activate it). And the Web software can only get better.

So am I changing my mind about the Kindle? I'm not the best predictor about what will be huge, but just as Netflix is moving toward what its company name suggests -- flicks over the Net -- so too will Amazon be moving away from a physical-book model to the electronic equivalent. It may not happen this decade, but that sort of thing will be happening, and Amazon is smart to get out in front and innovate.

For the Kindle, it's all about pricing. I never thought the iPod would catch on until they cost $50 each, and even the cheapest Apple-branded music player costs more than that. I was wrong there. Of course the fact that they sound and work great is one thing, the 99-cent songs are another. Steve Jobs may be working the mock-turtleneck too hard, but he is a flippin' genius.

Is the $9.99 book the equivalent of the 99-cent song? I hope Jeff Bezos has done some extensive market research. This crazy, ahead-of-its-time idea just might work. Now that I'm 40-something and live in a normal house, I don't have room for new books -- my space is maxed out. Electronic books that are this convenient may be just the thing for me. There are already publishers selling PDF-format books as well as online-subscription-based books (my technology favorite O'Reilly being one, with its Safari service being a GREAT deal for tech books to be read online). But tech books go great on the computers that they help us use, and "real" books need more flexibility.

Enter Kindle, stage left, I suppose. One thing Bezos has going for him: it's the holiday season, and as many of these damn things he can make, he'll sell.