What Kindle Developments Can We Expect in 2008?

Mike Elgan of ComputerWorld refers to it as a mystery and asks a boatload of questions about the Kindle in this blog post. One of Elgan's questions is "How many Kindles have been sold?" That seems to be a pretty popular question -- Fran Toolan tells me that this same question is the #1 incoming search phrase leading visitors to his blog.

There's plenty of curiosity, that's for sure. Librarians are also jumping into the fray. Here's a story about a New Jersey library that ordered two Kindles to loan to their patrons. The loaner period is limited to a week so you better be ready to read quickly. I'd be too worried that the darned thing would break during my week and I'd be on the hook for the replacement cost; it will be interesting to see how rugged and durable Kindle Version 1.0 turns out to be for applications like this.

Speaking of Version 1.0, I'm still way more interested in 2.0 and beyond. I think Amazon has only scratched the surface of what's possible with this sort of device and I'm excited to see how the Kindle will evolve in the coming years.

This reminds me of one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time. If you haven't seen it already, watch this entertaining video of what it was like when "Book Version 1.0" first hit the scene.

Happy New Year!