Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

Kindle launched big, but will it keep flying? I first read about Amazon's new digital book gizmo on a Wall Street Journal section front heading into the Thanksgiving holiday. Then, on my first venture out into the holiday retail whirl, the device slammed me upside the head courtesy of its Newsweek cover story. Talk about a Christmas coup! At every book store and big box I visited there was a mob of spend happy consumers, there was Newsweek and there was Kindle on its cover. Jeff Bezos, reward your marketing team by waiving their Amazon shipping fees ... forever!

At the health club, I got around to actually reading the Newsweek piece. Maybe it was just the gym-generated adrenaline, but I was jazzed. All those thousands of book titles at my fingertips. A more environmentally-friendly way of distributing the written word. A design that recalls the shape and feel of a paperback, giving the gizmo an instant retro twinkle before it even catches on. Talk about preemptive strike!

But then, when I was back on the shopping trail, I got to thinking about the appeal of good old fashioned books. My holiday gift list includes at least a dozen books for mom, dad, brother Ramone and the like. I bet only a quarter of those books will actually be read. The others will just stand handsomely on a shelf. And that doesn't bother me, because displaying a book is part of the pleasure of owning a book. The trophy book. We all have'em. An ad buddy has a whole army of terribly hip and just plain terrible marketing books lined up in his office, supposedly read and digested but frankly not looking very dog-eared.

After a laudable launch, can Kindle overcome the decidedly non-digital joys of buying a real book?

I am not writing this as a marketeer, but rather as a literature nerd.

I definitely applaud Amazon's ability to secure the front page of Newsweek magazine. Amazon must have caught Newsweek in a compromising position at some point and ransomed their way onto the front page. Regardless, a very nice media hit.

The Kindle is not new, it won't be groundbreaking, and it will most likely fail like all of the digital readers before it. Ask Sony, a company that actually makes electronics.

As a nerd, bibliophile or just a lover of books (I prefer the latter), I take great offense to Kindle and what it aims to accomplish: the dilution of literature.

Everything about this product underscores all of the efforts of the past 500 years to bring the printed word to the masses.

But you ask, "Won't this make reading more accessible to individuals?"

Absolutely not.

This product is $400. A price tag equivalent to the current cost of the iPhone, which offers far more capabilities (even many books online through the Gutenberg Project) in a much smaller and attractive package. The Kindle is ugly. I'm sorry, but I said it.

The argument against the cost is that books available through Kindle are far cheaper than those available in print. One big problem with this intended selling point. Can I go to a library, grab a Kindle and download a book for free?

Not yet.

There is a reason why Johannes Gutenberg's press with movable type is considered one of the greatest inventions in history. It provided information to those who couldn't previously obtain it. Kindle is a high-priced gadget.

More importantly, reading is Romantic (notice the capital "R"). There is a tangible aesthetic to picking up a book, thumbing through the pages and feeling the progress being made as characters and stories become life changing.

The Kindle cannot hold a candle to this feeling and I, personally, have no desire to even give it the chance to sway me.

Amazon's marketing team are taking a page from the Book of Jobs (Steve that is) and trying to influence holiday consumers into believing that the Kindle is the absolute future for reading. Unfortunately, they may have picked the wrong time to launch a high-priced toy that seems slightly half baked. 

The most I envision for Kindle is the role of conversation starter in an Omaha airport between two wealthy business travelers.