But that's less of an issue on many college campuses that are blanketed in Wi-Fi. For example, the company has avoided integrating Wi-Fi, citing 3G as a superior consumer experience. And as textbooks are somewhat of a consumable, new business models could emerge that enable "rental" of the textbook for a semester, making prices more competitive with used books and with much less hassle and back strain.Īmazon, though, may need to change some key elements of the Kindle or its business model in order to compete effectively in the electronic textbook market as it courts institutions in addition to consumers. Fast-forward a few years and one can imagine full collaboration among classmates or study groups focusing in on key elements of a text or overlays of lecture recordings or transcription. There is even limited, albeit kludgy, sharing of snippets allowed. They would surely consider a device that offered similar advantages for their textbooks.Įven at launch, textbooks on the Kindle DX will have features that no printed textbook has, including text-to-speech, searching, on-the-fly definition lookups, non-destructive annotation and, oh yes, resizeable page margins. Millions of students eagerly plunked down hundreds of dollars for a lightweight iPod that let them take their music wherever they went. For textbooks, however, the Kindle DX - and the savings it may preclude by circumventing used books - are minor expenses compared to tuition and housing at many undergraduate colleges. Even with an announced geography-limited newspaper subscription discount, the Kindle's DX's $490 price - a 36 percent premium over the Kindle 2 - may be too high to justify for the daily news. Paradoxically, as the Kindle's design becomes optimized for mainstream content, its price becomes less so. But digital textbooks must compete with used textbooks, a major market on college campuses, and likely will not be able to be resold if other digital content is a predecessor.Īt the Kindle DX launch, representatives from The New York Times Company and Case Western Reserve University both characterized their involvement with the Kindle DX as a trial or experimentation. Textbooks, on the other hand, have no major electronic competition, and print still retains advantages such as better readability and color. Newspapers, though, are already struggling against competitors that did away with that expense years ago, including blogs that break stories and online entities such as Craigslist, eBay and Google that have siphoned away advertising revenue. For newspapers, the Kindle DX cuts down on the costs of printing. These publications both benefit from the larger Kindle screen size, but each face different challenges in finding success on the Kindle DX. But textbooks and newspapers were singled out as two printed sources that are particularly significant for the forthcoming device. The expanded display allows more detailed graphics to be seen without zooming or panning, and is better suited to a wide range of source material including maps, technical diagrams, and sheet music. Literally, though, the biggest change is the new 9.7-inch electronic ink screen, which displays two and a half times more content than the 6-inch screen on the Kindle 2 and Sony Reader. well, CEO Jeff Bezos seems to like the feature. Amazon's Kindle DX includes a few tweaks such as automatically rotating the orientation of the screen when it is placed in landscape mode and adjustable page margins because.
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