Will Kindle Save Journalism

Amazon launched kindle 2.0 this Monday, the latest electronic display gadget. What they failed to mention was the new product might soon have a negative impact on industries from paper mills, furniture manufacturers, shipping companies, to people like librarians. But it might save journalism.

As Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, said his vision is to have "every book ever published in any languages available in 60 seconds." As of today, there is a selection of over 200,000 books ready to be downloaded into Kindle.

Using Amazon's current database, the largest of its kind in the world, it is easy to find out what people want to read and that's where Kindle is starting with --- the bestsellers. "But eventually we want to move to the long tail," Bezos said.

Compared to Kindle 1.0, launched 14 months ago, the newer version has a 16 shades of gray versus 4, pages turn 20% faster, battery life is 25% longer, process is stronger and it reads to you.

If Kindle 2 reaches the mass audience, it will overhaul industries that heavily rely on the print. If there is less printing, a lot less paper will be needed; there won't be need for bookshelves; newspaper/magazine delivery services will be out of business; in a long run, we won't need a library and librarians might need to find new jobs.

But on the other hand, publishers of New York Times and the New Yorker could cut down printing cost substantially and still be able to charge the same amount of money for their Kindle versions. As a matter of fact, print publishers are so excited that a whole list of newspapers and magazines have already released their Kindle editions from Time ($1.49 per week) to the Wall Street Journal ($9.99 per month). NYT's Kindle edition costs $13.99 per month, the most expensive news publication on Kindle.

Kindle, a new platform where there is no need to print but readers still pay, might save a dying industry.