

A Kindle trick changes the reading experience - gabrielroth
http://goodexperience.com/2009/01/a-kindle-trick-to-cha.php

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kqr2
Imagine if the Kindle or other e-reader allowed plugins. Perhaps you could
write a greasemonkey like script that automatically alters the reading
experience for you.

The reader could write a simple script to replace "heart in his mouth" with
whatever metaphor he wanted.

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AndrewWarner
A simple find feature -- which is what this article talks about -- isn't
enough to crow about.

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briansmith
Right now it is, since many of the competitors to the Kindle (including Sony
Reader) do not have any search capability.

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gravitycop
_"his heart in his mouth." [...] just how many times did Follett use that ONE
metaphor in a single book? [...] And the answer is: 13. Actually 17, if you
count the four instances of "her heart in her mouth."_

Searching at that book's Amazon Reader page, I counted 16 instances of hearts
in mouths. <http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0451166892>

Maybe there were 2 instances on a single page.

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biohacker42
I've got a great secret trick for the astute kindle owner - read it on paper!

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unalone
I don't know how to say this entirely politely: where do you get off?

The sheer _hatred_ for this device staggers me. It's become a joke! People
who've never used one call it ugly. They call it a waste. It's become a joke
of the industry, and I _have no clue why._ It's selling well, isn't it? It's
just selling to a niche audience of people who actually read things. So I
guess the joke has to do with the implied functionality, like your wonderful
joke implies.

I am an astute reader. I own a Kindle to go with my miniature library. I enjoy
cuddling up with my Kindle just as much as I would with any other book. The
screen is gorgeous. The _device_ is gorgeous. I've never understood the
mockery. No, it doesn't feel "high tech" and gleaming, it feels very down-to-
earth. It feels like a book ought to feel.

Now, I'm the sort of person who likes Shakespeare. And it's much easier to
have The Complete Shakespeare on a Kindle than it is to have it in a backpack.
I also have The Complete Asimov, and I'm considering The Complete Sherlock
Holmes.

The Kindle got me into reading P. G. Wodehouse for the first time, because his
stuff was free on Gutenberg. I managed to find a complete archive of Diana
Wynne Jones stories: they're for teens rather than adults, but they're still
very well-written and they're childhood favorites and I like that I can find
them and read them when I couldn't purchase half of them physically on Amazon.

When I got to a meet-up an hour early, I had my Kindle, and I could go and
search for half a dozen novels and read excerpts from each one. It's like
window shopping but you can do it anywhere.

Not to mention the free wireless Internet I get everywhere, the NowNow asking
feature (which I've used several times to get quick feedback on projects), and
the music player, which I've loaded with Bach, and which isn't a _brilliant_
player but which makes for pleasant background music while I read. I value my
Kindle more than I value my iPod.

So, you who would mock the Kindle, try planning out a 7-hour train ride when
you read books often at the rate of one every 90 minutes. Try figuring out a
better way to store 200 books in a dorm room without cluttering everything to
hell. Try making a physical device that does as much, as unintrusively and as
beautifully as the Kindle does. _Then_ mock it. But I don't hear the Kindle
users complaining, and isn't that the important thing? The fact that the
people who _actually_ use the Kindle enjoy their product a lot?

~~~
biohacker42
I don't know how to say this but... are you paid by Amazon?

Perhaps I'm being a bit too paranoid, I'll assume you're an honest kindle fan.

It is not the kindle that I hate, it is the Amazon marketing.

The kindle is in fact not selling well. It can't both: _sell to a niche_ and
_sell well_ at the same time.

Not if you go by the standard definition of _well_.

It only sells well if you go by Amazon's much lowered sales expectations.

But honestly I sort of admire Amazon's hutzpa, they know what they're doing
and they're dong it well.

The kindle, I don't hate, it's not for me, but I wish you the best with it.

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rjprins
Selling to a niche is a great way to sell well. Look at any company except the
obvious humongous ones; they all specialize to niche markets. I don't know if
the Kindle is intended to be a niche product or if it sells well according to
the expectations of Amazon, but your general premise is wrong.

