Amazon Kindle ‘great white hope of newspaper industry’

Posted by Andrew Hodgson on 2 June 2009 at 12:30
Tags: Journalism, Mobile, New Media, Newspapers, Online

Michael Bywater writing in The Independent today lauds the Amazon Kindle as “the saviour of publishing, and probably the great, literally white, hope of the newspaper industry.”

Bywater reports that the newspaper function does not work on the Kindle he tried out because it requires connection to Whispernet (an Amazon-sponsored wireless network for buying newspapers and books) in order to automatically update newspaper editions - and there is no Whispernet outside of America.

The Kindle is yet to launch in the UK. Bywater speculates that it will be in Europe by Christmas “and the paradigm of publishing will be changed forever”.

He suggests it will pose an alternative to pay-per-view newspaper websites becoming a “virtual paperboy”.

Tags: Journalism, Mobile, New Media, Newspapers, Online