Kindle, Amazon's e-book reader, is reportedly heading to a college near you, as the book vendor is working on a redesign to accommodate academics' needs.
As reported back in July, various versions of Kindles are on the way. The "College Kindle" is said to have an improved interface and operating controls, issues noted by earlier buyers.
Tim Bueneman, an analyst for McAdams Wright Ragen, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer "there are already several new, improved versions of the Kindle in the works." Priced at $359, the current Kindle weighs 10 ounces and measures 7.5 by 5.3 inches and is 0.7 inches thick.
It is not clear yet which of the two new Kindles in development will be the one aimed at colleges, but reports say that one of them will have the same dimensions as the existing Kindle, while the second is slated to be larger, measuring 8.5 by 11 inches. Nevertheless, we can easily assume that with students' need for lightweight portability, the academic version will be the smaller one.
Reports suggest that Kindle's functionality refresh will not include a much-awaited MP3 playing feature. Even though audio plays an important part in the learning process these days, with podcasts and audiobooks ever present in universities across the world, Amazon seems not to be very keen on taking Kindle a step further. Still, the online bookseller plans on adding note-taking features, again, quite helpful when it comes to learning, also taking full advantage of Kindle's complete keyboard.
Even though Kindle's revolution feels more like plain evolution, it becomes clear very easily who is Amazon's model when it comes to strategy. Like back in the early iPod days, just a device is not enough to take the market by surprise. That is why Amazon unveiled an online store (PC and Mac compatible) that will deliver wirelessly any book, newspapers or other subscription to the Kindle, similar to Apple's over-the-air iTunes Music store. And coming back to college, using this distribution method, IT administrators could easily leverage on-demand textbooks and lecture notes to students.
Amazon sold about 280.000 Kindles so far, but if the device really takes off, we could see another iPod-like frenzy. If the device has have a cooler UI (user interface) and countless colors, success among college students may be within reach.
