Technology might actually be a boon for traditional media providers, thanks to Amazon’s new version of Kindle, called Kindle DX.
If you read my blog posts on the New York Times and news media in general, you know that traditional news providers seem to be in trouble. Their revenue keeps falling, readership is mostly in decline, and other factors point to a shift in the way people gather news.
This Kindle development is a welcome bit of good news.
I read about Kindle in an article in Computer World, entitled “New Kindle creates new challenges for publishers.” This sounds quite exciting. The previous Kindle version had a six-inch display, but the new one will have a 9.7-inch display, making it easier to read books, newspapers, magazines and other content.
Instead of facing the problem of providing news free of charge, news publishers might actually be able to pull in decent revenue with portable devices like this. The New York Times has already been offering its content to Kindle readers for a monthly fee, but it is expected to lower that fee for the new version.
This is certainly a good opportunity for news publishers, but it comes with a few question marks. Since the technology is so new, it might be difficult to tell what price consumers are willing to pay. Also, news websites and blogs are still popular, and it might be difficult to persuade people to give up their free news sources for a portable, paid service. Cell phones can be used to read news articles, but they are much smaller, so maybe this is a viable option.
Amazon is the first to delve into this new industry, but there will surely be competitors soon, and that could also help news providers by giving them more avenues to sell their content through.
I’m glad to share this positive story. I might write a follow-up blog entry about the Kindle product after it debuts. We’ll wait and see. Stay tuned for more ecommerce stories like this in the eHarbor Blog.
The photo of Kindle and the New York Times is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of jocke66.
Tags: Amazon, article, Ecommerce, eHarbor, internet, Kindle, Media, new, new york times, news, online, positive, revenue, technology
[...] The Kindle DX’s launch last week brings up an interesting discussion on the value of content in the digital age. I couldn’t cover this whole discussion before, so now I’ll follow up on that discussion, as I promised to do in my first blog entry on Kindle. [...]
Interesting, I have not heard about this
Tech Blog,
Thanks for commenting on this blog post.
This is a pretty cool product, isn’t it? I also talk about Kindle’s effects on book publishers in another blog post you can check out.
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Robert Lockard