News – Amazon beats expectations by reporting a whopping 71-percent increase in net income for the fourth quarter of 2009 and offers its first-ever information on how many Kindles the company has sold. Apple presents to the world its gorgeous tablet, the iPad. In the long-running soap opera known as “Who Will Kill the Kindle?” Steve Jobs’s presentation had plenty of pundits declaring “game over.” Not so much on Wall Street, or among four leading Kindle bloggers – Andrys Basten, Stephen Windwalker, Abhi, and Bufo Calvin.
Tech Tip – How to keep track on your Kindle of words you’ve looked up using the built-in Oxford American Dictionary or another dictionary which you’ve set to the default dictionary.
Interview – Brad Stone, New York Times technology reporter in San Francisco, is one of the lucky few who not only touched but had a chance to try out an iPad at Apple’s debut extravaganza on January 27. I spoke with him that night about his impressions of Apple’s new creation, and about what he thinks the impact will be on the Kindle and other dedicated eReaders. This episode contains the first portion of our conversation. The conclusion is posted here, at my new companion podcast, The Reading Edge.
Content – Harvard Business Review and Amazon launch an innovative use of the Kindle Store, selling HBR titles by chapters as Short Cuts. I sampled the $3.16 book summary of The Innovator’s Dilemma: Why New Technologies Cause Great Companies to Fail, by HBS Professor Clayton M. Christensen.
Comments – Because of the volume of terrific comments prompted by the release of the iPad, I have created a separate episode for the comments this week. Click here to hear from Pastor Mark Pierce, Mary McManus, Bob Anderson, Jim Jones, Kipp Poe, Jean Remple, Marie Sotiriou, Dan Meyers, John Halkias, Candy Yates, and Stace Wile.
