Kindle 2.0 Tips » Uncategorized

Kindle 2 Commercial

bridgett — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:50:10 +0000

Have you seen the new commercial for the Kindle 2 from Amazon? I must say that it REALLY surprised me that Amazon was advertising the Kindle on TV. In case you haven’t seen the commercial, it’s included below…

It’s a catchy tune with a rather artsy feel. The colors are current/modern and it features a young woman. It kind of makes me believe that Amazon is going after the twenty and thirty something crowd with this advertisement. And I find it quite interesting that the commercial does not tell the viewer what a Kindle actually is. Do they assume you already know? Or are they trying to make you curious enough to go to their site to see what it’s all about?

What do you think of the advertisement?

5 Reasons to Love the New Kindle DX

bridgett — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:00:09 +0000

Amazon just announced its newest addition to the Kindle line – the Kindle DX.

What features are new to the Kindle DX?

It’s BIG! The Kindle DX screen is larger in size. The Kindle dx features a screen size of 9.7″ (diagonal measure). Crisp and clear images (thanks to the E-ink display), the larger screen makes it easy to view pictures, periodicals and reports.
The screen rotates when you turn the device – quite handy if you have a pdf or picture that will display better in landscape mode. Great for reports, spreadsheets, or even a map of the city.
PDF built in – no longer considered an “experimental” form. This unit will now carry and display your pdf documents with clarity and ease. Send your pdf documents straight to your Kindle DX using the Whispernet service. Great for white papers or e-books!
Holds up to 3500 books and periodicals with its 4GB of storage.
Textbook manufacturers are jumping on board the Kindle train. Amazon has reportedly reached agreements with three leading textbook publishers: Pearson, Cengage Learning and Wiley. In addition, five universities have plans to try out the Kindle dx with students this fall: Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, the University of Virginia, and Pace

Kindle 2.0 is a Pretty Hot Topic on Twitter

bridgett — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:59:39 +0000

I am a big fan of Twitter. At first I didn’t get it. Why would anyone need to post “what he/she is doing” at anytime and in less than 140 characters? But after a few back and forths, a few links clicked, a lot of new friends made …well, I am now hooked.

On a friend’s recommendation, I recently adopted the use of Tweetdeck to read all of my Twitter goings on. One of the great things about Tweetdeck is that you can separate your search “items of choice” into columns. By “items of choice” I mean that I have one column showing for my regular “tweets” but then I have another column set up to pull in any tweets that have the word “Kindle” in them. Pretty cool stuff.

After I set this up I was amazed by how many people are tweeting about the Kindle 2! That column gets the most action of all of my columns. Tweets about the Kindle are constantly paging through. Just in the last hour, there have been over 100 tweets with the word Kindle in them. That’s amazing to me.

Here are a few Twitter Kindle gems for your enjoyment:

My dad just got the Kindle 2. Its pretty sweet to play with. I wonder if he’ll notice it’s missing.
Kindle arrives tomorrow. Can’t wait to go to Barnes and Noble, browse the aisles and decide which books to download from amazon.
Disability groups urge publishers to keep “text to speech” function on Kindle.
Yoga was canceled today so I’m staying late to get ahead on stuff for this week. Rest of the night will be grilled cheese, Kindle & laundry.
Preparing for the 8 hour haul back to Atlanta. Maybe I’ll allow the wife to drive so I can read my newly acquired Kindle.

If you’re new to Twitter and want to see what it’s all about, go to Twitter.

You can follow me on Twitter – Kindle Tips

You can learn more about Tweetdeck at Tweetdeck

InstaPaper and the Kindle 2.0

bridgett — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:14:40 +0000

Got “InstaPaper”?

News of this handy website/service is quickly sweeping through the social media avenues. Basically, Instapaper is a site that will collect all of the web articles and posts you mark and want to come back to later. Have a blog post you want to read but don’t have time right now? Send it to the Instapaper site. Find a great article you want to read on your next train ride? Keep it at Instapaper. When you have time to catch up on your readings, you can access Instapaper using your pc, your web-enabled phone, or your Kindle.

Do I have your attention yet? Yes, send your favorite web articles to your Kindle using Instapaper.

I should tell/forewarn you that the site is in beta so keep that in mind with all of this. Things might not work perfectly and their site is still very “plain Jane”… but it delivers a great service! Be beta forewarned!

The process is actually very simple.

Go to the InstaPaper site and register
Drag the little “Read Later” button up into your bookmarks toolbar
When you’re on a different website and find something you want to save, click the “Read Later” button you just put into your toolbar and it will save it for you.

Ready for the Kindle magic?

After setting up your Amazon supplied Kindle email account to accept the Instapaper articles (follow Instapaper directions here), you can choose to have InstaPaper send (via the Amazon supplied Kindle email ) the articles you saved to your Kindle for your reading pleasure wherever you go.

Your delivery can be set up to automatically arrive to your Kindle on a daily or weekly plan. You can also send articles to your Kindle email on demand by going to the InstaPaper site. See the InstaPaper site for details.

Handy Tip: You can highlight a line of the article text before hitting the “Read Later” button and the text you highlighted will become the item’s description in your InstaPaper article list

What’s on Your Kindle?

bridgett — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:42:26 +0000

What’s on Your iPod?

It’s an interesting question. One that has been asked of last election’s presidential candidates (Obama:What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye; McCain: Dancing Queen by ABBA). Do you think Jennifer Aniston has some John Mayer on there? Oprah even had a “What’s Playing on Your iPod Concert”. But don’t ask that question of Bill Gates.

And so a book lover is then naturally led to wonder…

What’s on Your Kindle?

Give us some insight into your life by answering the nagging question…

Is the Kindle 2.0 the “iPod” for Books?

bridgett — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:04:11 +0000

Has Amazon hit the mark? Will the Kindle 2 become wildly popular as the “iPod” for books?

With nearly 1000 comments from purchasers in the first half of March, it would seem that the Kindle is “selling like hotcakes”. The Kindle 2.0 was released February 24, 2009. And while Amazon has not officially released how many Kindle 1 units were sold last year, estimates are that Amazon sold more than 500,000.

And when Oprah endorsed the Kindle on her “Favorites” show in October (2008) Amazon is said to have sold over 100,000 Kindles in that week alone. Analysts estimate that Amazon sold 500,000 of the Kindle 1. That’s strictly a guess, however, as Amazon is keeping very tight lipped about that.

But will the Kindle be the iPod for books? It depends on how you look at it. The Kindle 2.0 will be wildly popular for readers just as the iPod has become wildly popular for music fans. Just as the iPod made music light and mobile, the Kindle does the same for a reader. The Kindle makes taking your entire library with you as easy as slipped an 11 ounce item in your bag.

Will the Kindle be the iPod of the book industry – making book downloads the way of the future? The iPod paired with the iTunes store has virtually wiped out the old school CD store by offering digital downloads. Will Amazon be able to replace the “printed page” with downloads? I don’t see that happening with the Kindle and Amazon.

Kindle will not replace the paper book. In fact, Steve Kessel (of the Amazon Kindle team) reports that Kindle users buy just as many bound books as before, so that their total consumption of books goes up by 2.6 times (the Economist). And until all publishers are on board and available on the Kindle, total dominance is one thing Amazon will not be able to master.

Is the Kindle a Book Killer?

bridgett — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:37:06 +0000

I have to admit that I am a lover and collector of first edition hardcover books. I have a collection of a few John Steinbeck first editions and have all the Harry Potter books (don’t we all?). And I love an old cookbook, full of blobs and chocolate fingerprints. I have some old poetry books and Little Women on display in the living room.

I just finished reading a new book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I would say it ranks right up there with my favorites of all time. It was a great read and one that I immediately thought about buying in hardcover just so I could add this first edition print to my collection.

And then I thought about having to pay for the Kindle version AND the hardcover. The $9.99 price for a Kindle 2.0 bestseller is hard to beat. Buy enough books and your savings pays for the actual Kindle 2. However, what if I want to buy both the Kindle version AND a hardcover edition?

Wouldn’t it be nice if Amazon would offer a discount on the hardcover edition to Kindle users that buy the Kindle version? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a 50% discount on the hardcover book after you buy the Kindle version? The Kindle 2 wasn’t designed to be a hardcover book killer, right?

Is it just me or would you ever consider buying the hardcover version of a book you purchased in the Kindle version?