My Second Date with the Kindle 2

I just gave my Kindle 2 its first real, cross-country workout on a five-day trip to the west coast. 

It was sort of like a second date: You remember that I was all goo-goo eyes when we first met, but I’ve now seen the first indication that it, ah, she might not be as interested in the Red Sox as her eHarmony ad implied, if you know what I mean.   (I’m wondering now if it’s La Kindle or Le Kindle in France, and if I might be having some sort of mid-life technological identity crisis.)

I’m still deeply attached to the device, mind you, but I can now see a few places where the folks at Amazon may be making future tweaks. 

Herewith, my Kindle 2 thoughts after our second date:

1. It’s way, way too easy to order stuff.  I mean, way too easy.  That’s good for authors and publishers, but very bad for literary dilettantes, especially ones who think everything in the NYT Book Review sounds interesting.  In other words, Kindle is an expensive date. 

And saying “she’s easy” doesn’t enhance her reputation much, either.

2. The “Clip This Article” command is insidious.  I used to see articles in newspapers or magazines I wanted to file or needed for futures, and it would take scissors and some effort to capture them.  Since Google search, all it takes is a web site and print command.  But now, with Kindle 2, it’s just “push-toggle-push.”  Three little wiggles of the thumb.  All of which leads me to. . .

3. Kindle Thumb.  I want to call it “Eric’s Thumb,” as I have never had an ailment or disease named after me, but I’ll settle for Kindle Thumb.  If you read two or three newspapers in a row, that little toggle gets a real workout, and so does your thumb.  And the Sunday papers are killers.  Every so often I have to stop and do thumb calisthenics. 

Note that the Kindle’s sweet spot is books, making Kindle Thumb much less likely as the “Next Page” command is a nice, flat click vs. “Next Article,” which is that aforementioned toggle of pain.  Nevertheless, those of you who must read a couple of papers each morning while traveling will want to order my (coming soon, and patent pending so don’t even think about it) Kindle Thumb Emancipator.

4. Charts in books are difficult to read.  I just finished David Allen’s new GTD book and could not really see the flow charts.  The ability to change font size for text is terrific, but it doesn’t extend to charts.  Maybe the Kindle-processors can give each chart a single screen until this little snafu is improved. 

5. The Kindle is, so far, unsuited to real research.  I was working through the second Daniel Boorstin’s The Americans book, highlighting and saving passages, and discovered that the “clippings” file mixes everything together in a single running list, in the order it’s saved.  So, I need to manually sort clippings from books, newspapers, and magazines, and re-sort them into Word.  Further, when used as a reference, the Kindle-archived passage doesn’t capture the required information (like page number).  So, with Boorstin, I ended up having to purchase the paper book.

Like I said, Kindle can be an expensive date.

6. To me, the Kindle is a book.  To Virgin America, the Kindle is an electronic device.  That means I can’t read it on take-off or landing.  I love Virgin America, which does just about everything right.  But they don’t print a magazine, which is the last resort of the bored flyer.  Imagine my pain at having to sit for ten minutes, just thinking.  It’s almost anti-technological.

7. Which brings me to my last point, and the thing that really had me on edge during my second Kindle date.  Despite all of her charms, that little cutie absolutely, positively contributes to the scourge of the information age: the short attention span.  I’ll be reading something in, say, Tom Friedman’s book that will reference something else interesting.  So, I’ll stop, go into Amazon, find the referenced topic, download a book about it and read the first chapter.  Then I’ll think, hmmm, I didn’t finish the Wall Street Journal this morning.  Meanwhile, the novel I’m part-way through beckons, as does a return to Tom Friedman. 

I'm not saying she talks too much, but I am suggesting that Kindle has ended forever the quiet solitude of reading. 

There's no question that I'll go on a third date with la Kindle 2, because I know a good thing when I see it.  But the person who said “relationships are work” sure knew what he (or she) was talking about.  

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

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