I Made the Jump

Yep. I did it. Finally made the jump. I ordered the Kindle 2 last week. I am currently tracking its progress from Campbellsville, KY to my doorstep. I've never considered myself a "gadget freak", but I'm pretty excited about this thing. The Kindle is an electronic reading device that allows one to store over 1,500 titles. It is offered exclusively by Amazon. The folks at Amazon currently boast 230,000 titles available for wireless download; the average cost for most titles is less than $10. Kindle weighs less than 10.5 ounces and is pencil thin. Being an avid reader and a fairly frequent traveler, there are many Kindle features that have me licking my chops. Just yesterday, I was packing about 35 pounds of books around with me. (OK. That included my laptop.) The total cost of those books: about $120. A little research on Amazon.com Kindle Store told me those same books would have cost me $50 in Kindle format. And...they would have all weighed less than 10.5 ounces.
I'm finding that more and more publishers are considering different forms of getting their stuff in the consumer's hands. Many are already offering books in PDF format. This makes me wonder if the traditional ink-on-paper book will ever be a thing of the past. What do you think? More thoughts tomorrow...