Will the Kindle DX change reading habits?

One big question about Amazon.com's new Kindle DX, unveiled May 6, is how it will change people's reading habits, affecting the fate of textbooks, mass-market books and newspapers.

More than either of the device's two previous versions, the $489 DX is being discussed as an alternative to those print publications. It's the first model to include built-in support for the popular PDF format, a larger screen (though still not color) and autorotation of the display to suit the documents’ orientation.

Those technical improvements are one reason for the current flurry of excitement over the Kindle. But at least as important are the arrangements Seattle-based Amazon has made with publishers. Those relationships have some observers predicting the Kindle will make a gigantic cultural impact on how we read in the future.

"The most important thing about the new Kindle is its existence in an ecosystem that Amazon is creating," said Adrian Sannier, technology officer at Arizona State University, one of the six universities launching pilot programs with the Kindle DX. "It's all the elements coming together that makes this attempt so different."

He compared the Kindle to Apple's iPod and all other electronic readers to Microsoft's Zune.

"If you can find some music to put on the Zune, good for you," Sannier said. "The iPod is a music delivery system, with excellent software for finding and downloading and arranging your music, as well as a good player for the music."

Getting college students accustomed to the Kindle is important because they will likely retain that reading habit after graduating. College is the perfect training ground for a new way of relating to reading material.

E-readers still scarce
Whatever impact Kindle makes won't be immediate, because it and other electronic readers, sometimes called e-readers, are still scarce.

Citigroup Global Markets recently estimated that Amazon sold about 500,000 Kindles — launched in late 2007 — last year. That sounds like a lot, but think about it: how many people have you seen carrying around a Kindle? Citigroup's estimate puts ownership at just over 1/10 of 1 percent of the U.S. population.

But Kindle uptake is poised to increase. In anticipation, Apple is said to be preparing a Kindle competitor of its own, and Sony is reportedly working on a successor to its electronic reader. Other upstarts, such as  Mountain View, Calif.-based Plastic Logic, have products on tap, too.

The five other schools launching DX trials this fall — Case Western Reserve University, Pace University, Princeton University, Reed College, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia — said they plan to offer the Kindle edition of selected texts from three publishers: Cengage Learning, Pearson Education and Wiley, together representing more than 60 percent of the U.S. higher-education textbook market.

Pace said it will get Kindles at a 50 percent discount from Amazon for the 50 students in its pilot program, and then provide them to the students at no charge.

"Eventually, the prices will come down, obviously," said Geoff Brackett, Pace University provost.

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