Obviously, I have no idea – Amazon must have forgotten to post me my free review device, but I’m sure it’s on the way*.

It looks … well, it doesn’t look astonishing, really. But that’s irrelevant compared to how good it is for actually, you know, reading books on.

Initial reports seem to be positive, but until I’ve heard feedback from people I know to be serious lovers of traditional book reading, I’ll be holding back my cash. This might be the Model T of a new reading paradigm … if anyone has the clout to pull it off, it’s Bezos and Amazon.

I wonder how long it’ll take for someone to hack the Kindle for increased functionality? I doubt it’ll have the same kudos as the iPhone in that respect, but even so … [Image lifted from those jammy well-connected buggers at Engadget]

[* Little bit of wishful thinking never hurt anyone, right? ]

Hey, you! Ever read a free ebook that you downloaded with the author and publisher’s blessing? Did you go and and buy something by the same writer afterwards or not? Go and give up the ten seconds it will take to tick a box in Galleycat’s poll to determine whether giving it away is an effective loss leader tactic or not. I’ll be very interested to see the results from this.

Is the printed word on the way out? And are schemes like Amazon’s ’search inside’ feature and the Google book-scanning project hastening the end? Continue reading “Google: 1, Publishers: 0″