I got an e-mail from Amazon today touting the fact that they now offer Kindle editions of "more than 185,000 books, blogs, newspapers and magazines." What it really should have said is they have more than 185,000 books, 26 newspapers and 18 magazines for the Kindle. (I don't focus on their blog offerings since I get all the ones I need for free from Kindlefeeder.)
I'm thrilled that the amount of Kindle content available continues to grow but it's obviously all about books. One could argue that the number of newspapers isn't likely to spike till the Kindle installed base grows dramatically, particularly in areas outside NY, LA, Chicago, etc.; I figure I'm the only Kindle owner in the entire state of Indiana, which probably explains why the Indianapolis Star isn't available yet.
What bothers me most is the thin assortment of magazines for the Kindle. 18?! Where's BusinessWeek? FastCompany? Wired? All of these would be excellent choices for Kindle editions. I currently have paper subscriptions for the latter two and would gladly drop them for the Kindle edition, even at a higher price. I also get Time and MIT's Technology Review on my Kindle and I'd gladly add more.
Given that the Kindle is still in its early adopter phase, why aren't there more technology and other early adopter magazines available for it?
Monday, October 27, 2008
185K+ Books, But Where are All the Magazines?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I would definitely love to see more magazines on the Kindle, especially Wired.
I don't know how graphics-intensive content would show on the Kindle's screen, though. It seems like text-heavy magazine content would be more appropriate for the Kindle.
I agree. When I checked out the magazine section, the first 2 mags I looked for were Wired and Fast Company. I was surprised neither was available. After that wore off, I was surprised how few magazines were available in general.
There are likely hundreds of Kindle owners in Indiana. I live in Columbus, and there are lots of owners in this city alone, and it's not really that different from Indianapolis (which we call "Columbus West"). :-)
Post a Comment