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Amazon's Kindle a sell out

You probably were not expecting this
Thursday, 22 November 2007, 09:04

AMAZON'S ugly duckling e-book reader, Kindle, has apparently sold out.

Despite abuse from the cheap seats that the Kindle was "Jade Goody in cling film", punters can't get enough of them.

This is partly because Amazon is also surprised by the reader's success and did not order enough of the beasts.

CharlieRose.com was chatting to Jeff Bezos, chairman and CEO of Amazon.com and he revealed that he had not got any more Kindle's to sell as all the stocks had disappeared off the shelves within a five and a half hours.

It is not clear how many Amazon actually had on its virtual shelves when the product went live. Bezos said that he has ordered a few more and these will be available on November 29 although the product page says December 3.

More here . µ

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Comments
o rly

It's quite easy to "sell out" if you don't release a whole lot to start with.

I predict a yawning absence of verifiable sales figures, ever.

Kindle: the Zune of e-book readers.

posted by : David Gerard, 22 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Looks like...

...an Apple iSpeak&Spell

posted by : William, 22 November 2007 Complain about this comment
finally

i sincerely hope that this is the final push i was praying would happen to make eBook readers popular with the masses and make more companies interested in building them and make the existing eBooks cheaper and more widely available (you hear that sony??)

I envision a future with eBooks replacing paper books, for the good of trees and for the good of my kids' back (hauling a backpack full of books to school can't be good for your back)

oh, and for convenience sake too

posted by : Mr C, 22 November 2007 Complain about this comment
I would by an e-book

There is apparently a new kind of electronic paper in the labs, where the page needs electricity only to change the state if its pixels. Once a page is written, no more current needed until a new page is called for.

An e-book with that kind of paper (readable in broad daylight, outside, even in direct sunlight) would tempt me.

Until then, I will keep to dead trees to read my books. I already work all day long on LCD screens, it is out of the question that I read a book on one as well.

posted by : Pascal Monett, 22 November 2007 Complain about this comment
DRM?

Oh joy! I look forward to the day when buying a book is the DRM nightmare that music and video is nowadays ...

posted by : Unluckypixie, 22 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Figures

Bit ironic isn't it, a reader that tracks everything evrybody reads, a company that keeps plenty of stats on all kinds of stuff, and yet they can't even say how many they have sold? sad.


posted by : W.-, 22 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Ugly but functional?

I don't really care on the uglyness of the device. It seems to do what it says and very well. For me that is all I want. I read a LOT of books and am now faced with the prospect of moving countries AGAIN. That means leaving behind a lot of books. 

I am currently making a business case for one of these to give to the missus.

posted by : gimmegimme, 22 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Kindle Reviews on Amazon - 2.5/5 stars (595 reviews)

If you go to the Amazon Kindle's webpage, you may notice that the Kindle has received, after only a short period, almost 600 customer reviews. 

The cumulative score from all reviews is only 2.5 out of 5 stars - Not exactly what I would call a barn-busting customer response. 

With clunky buttons, no native PDF support, high price tag and no capability to use other ebooks libraries (Rocketbooks, MS Lit ebooks, Palm ebooks), not to mention the nickel and diming of customers, the Kindle needs to be seriously reworked for v2 (end cheap seat shoutout).


posted by : RVideo, 23 November 2007 Complain about this comment
Amazon Rating

One of the posts pointed out that the rating on Amazon for this product is relatively low. What they didn't tell you is that a significant number of the reviews are from people who have never actually used the product. Just people generally commenting on the technology, their perception of the Kindle.

posted by : Bill, 30 November 2007 Complain about this comment
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