Kindle sales top 1 million per week
Amazon recently announced that Kindle sales topped 1 million per week. With accessories and Kindle covers now available from a multitude of retailers, and with Amazon’s new Kindle 4 on the horizon, have devices like these sped up the so-called ‘death of print’?
I actually covered this subject in Uni: at the time, the commercial use(s) of the Internet were thriving, post dot-com boom. The industry was looking ahead and what could be possible, and e-paper theories were flying around.
I must admit that, in actual fact, I can’t remember the guts of the argument – something to do with the alcohol level in my blood – but the overall feeling was that yes, print would eventually decline. It’d become a vanity medium, the exclusive preserve of rich artists and other such wealthy types who’d be able to afford the material.
As it happens, it doesn’t seem to be declining at quite the rate that was initially expected back in those heady days before the Kindle and the iPad. It is declining, though. From The Guardian:
In the month of November, the 11 daily paid-for national titles sold an average of 8,897,221 copies a day. Just one year ago (before The Independent’s launch of i), the 10 titles together totalled 9,540,993…
…Meanwhile, users of virtually all the newspaper websites go on rising month by month. In front of our eyes, the press business is changing shape.
Whatever your opinion of the state of the print industry, though, it’s clear that these devices are here to stay.
George
George Rosier runs this blog. It's somewhere he can vent his spleen about web design, usability, SEO, and other such nonsense that will no doubt mean nothing in 5 years' time.