Say Goodbye to Back Pain: Kindle Going Global

There is no need to carry around all those books any longer! You can thank Amazon’s Kindle, an electronic device sold in the U.S. made for reading e-books and other digital media. Books and other content are downloaded through Amazon’s Whispernet, by using free internet access. Kindles have a 6 inch (diagonal) screen, it holds over 200 titles, and it only weighs 10.3 ounces. Let me know if you find a book like that!

I did mention that the device was only available in the U.S. However, today, Amazon opened the market to 100 countries and territories with Kindle 2. This newer version uses AT&T’s network both domestically and internationally to offer U.S. and International wireless. It also has text-to-speech capabilities to read aloud to you! Amazon is selling Kindle 2 to customers in Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia and South America, for $279(U.S).

So what can you read?  Well, Amazon offers tons of books in English, and has some books in other languages. The reason for this is to focus on giving its customers a great experience for English-language content. I’m sure you are curious about the price too… Actually, book prices are pretty comparable to a regular paper copy, and some are even cheaper! For international customers, best-sellers are $11.99. For U.S. customers, best-sellers are mostly $9.99. There are also about 100,000 other titles offered for less than $5.99.

With all the buying and selling occurring globally, it will be exciting to see how this affects paper copy book sales. Will there be a drastic increase in the number of e-books offered? If the global response is as positive as the response in the U.S., pretty soon you’ll see more and more people sitting in cafés, airports, or even lying on the beach with a Kindle in their hands, where a book once was.