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Reading in a wired world
Posted By - Mark |
Date - 04/13/2009 | Categories - Advertising, Business, Domains, Economy, Family, Financial, General, Personal, Running, Sports, Technology, Travel | Comments (1)
A few weeks ago I bought the new Kindle2 and downloaded books wirelessly from Amazon. I love gadgets and this one doesn't disappoint. I still visit bookstores, but now just to browse and when I find an interesting book, I'll ordered it for my Kindle from my iPhone. Don't be surprised if bookstores soon become obsolete like record stores.
Reading books on the Kindle is easy, plus Amazon sells magazine and newspaper subscriptions. I was sick of seeing my daily delivery of the Los Angeles Times being thrown away still incased in its protective plastic cover. I was going to cancel my home delivery eventually, but the Kindle sped up that decision and now I subscribe to the "paper" and it automatically arrives to my Kindle by the time I wake up. Now no one ever steals it from my driveway, the sprinklers don't turn it into mush and I no longer run out in the morning in my underwear and scare the neighbors.
Will the Kindle help or hurt the newspaper industry? This is a topic all its own, but for me it helped me realize that day old news is not going to cut it much longer. I subscribe to so many blogs and news RSS feeds and read them using my iGoogle start page or Google Reader from my Web browser and/or from my iPhone. So Google Reader is my new main source of news. In one place, I read my industry news, sports updates and even breaking world news. News is posted as it happens and some of these news feeds are actually from the Los Angeles Times. So the following morning, not only is the paper outdated in general, but I've already read many of the LA Times articles for the Dodgers, Lakers and UCLA from my RSS reader. Why pay for a subscription to the paper, even the Kindle version, when I can read the same exact stories the day before?
The way I "read" books also drastically changed. I love to run and often listen to the audio versions of books or audio podcasts from my iPhone in a runner's armband. I subscribe to a service from Simply Audiobooks, which is like NetFlix for audio books. It's a great way to fill my mind while I plod away on my jogs. Now I have so many options.
Back to my vacation and how my reading habits have changed. In preparation of my trip, bought "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell for my Kindle, but I also have it saved in audio format on my iPhone and on the iPod in my car. Sitting by the pool, I was finally ready to start "Outliers", but Lisa was reading one of her books on my Kindle. So I used the Kindle application on my iPhone and started to read it there. Lisa finished her book a few hours later and I continued reading from the Kindle. The Kindle knew where I left off on my iPhone and opened to the exact spot in the book. Seamless and brilliant. The next day I continued the book, but this time I switched to the audio version on my iPhone while I was on a run. The Kindle doesn't sync with the audio version, but it was pretty easy to find where I was in the book. I stopped the recording after a couple chapters and resumed my reading by the pool later that day on either on the Kindle or the iPhone. The icing on the cake was the drive home. Everyone in the car was sleeping, so I fired up the iPod connected to my car's stereo and finished the book using the 4th device.
So much has changed and I can only imagine how our kids will gather their news and information in the years to come.
Posted By - Mark |
Date - 04/13/2009 | Categories - Advertising, Business, Domains, Economy, Family, Financial, General, Personal, Running, Sports, Technology, Travel | Comments (1)
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12:03 am 05/21/2009
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