“Kindle: iTunes for words” plus writers, readers, and the web
Okay, I'm already lying here.
I promised I would only post once a week on this blog, but I run across stuff that really excites me more than once a week. So, here are a couple of related pieces on writers, readers, and the web just today --
-- My friend rlp has a great post, Web 2.0, on writing in the brave new world of the web. If you're a blogger, writer, or just love words, check out his post. I also shared it under the Trends of Interest feed to the left.
-- rlp also clipped this video, which I am now clipping. This is good, clever, and seriously creative and explains what has happened to information in the last 10-years.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM&rel=1&border=0]
Today Amazon officially announced Kindle, their new e-reader. Very cool. And of course, it's tied to Amazon. Kind of like iTunes for words. The interesting thing is Amazon needs content to feed Kindle. So not only is it a book reader, but it's also a blogreader (yes, my fellowbloggers), a newspaper reader, and a Wikipedia reader all-in-one. Plus it stores you own docs, and works off cell technology. You don't need a computer -- no need to sync to a desktop or lappy, but you can if you want to. Amazon's Jeff Bezos says Kindle is a service. Hardware is not the star, writing is. What a great time to be a writer!
The Kindle has limitations as does every other device out there, and Kevin Kelly comments that he is still waiting for the cloudbook that will do everything. Me, too. Imagine a bigger iPhone that is also a reader, plus computer, plus cellphone, plus internet access, plus toaster. Okay, maybe not the toaster, but everything else. It's coming. Kevin Kelly writes about this Always On Book and has blogged about the future of books here and here. I love his labels -- People of the Book and People of the Screen.
What are the implications for church? This is the shift in the creation, storage, distribution, remixing, and redistribution of information. It is democratic, not top down, not expert-driven, and uncontrollable (at least by those who might want to control the free-flow of information). What do you think the possibilities are?
