Not Quite There Yet: The Amazon Kindle and Newspapers

by Mark Stephenson
edited by Anne Connaughton and Ryan Brooks

Newspapers in desperate need of financial relief eagerly anticipated Amazon.com’s May release of the Kindle DX—introducing their widely-discussed new service, “Kindle Newspapers”. However, problems surrounding the wireless reading device soon put a damper on their high hopes. A month after its release, Kindle owners received the following notification:

“We recently discovered a problem with a Kindle book that you have purchased. To remedy this situation, we have processed a refund to the payment method used to purchase Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). Upon the activation of the wireless, the title will be automatically removed from the device.”

The irony of this Big-Brother-like redaction was not lost on the media and customers alike. New York Times technology writer David Pogue called it “ugly for all kinds of reasons”:

“As one of my readers noted, it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.”

Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos later issued an apology to customers, calling Amazon’s reaction “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.”

He went on to note Amazon’s blame in the situation, promising to “use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward.”

Despite Amazon’s swift damage control, however, the somewhat Orwellian event represents only one example of the issues revolving around the Kindle reader, made even more problematic with the introduction of newspaper content onto the device, which has been called ill suited for publications with images. As a result, Kindle seems to be taking a while to catch on.

Dr. Scott Shamp, director of the New Media Institute at the University of Georgia, was familiar with the incident, though he only purchased his Kindle DX a couple of months ago.

“You couldn’t make that up. It’s too funny,” said Dr. Shamp.

Amazon’s ability to automatically, wirelessly delete the novels from a Kindle brought up old worries about digital rights management (DRM). DRM technology enables media publishers to impose limitations on the use of their content—even after it has been purchased.

“There is some sense that you don’t actually have real ownership of the stuff on your Kindle,” Dr. Shamp said. “But their DRM is still a lot better than previous ones, like Apple’s.”

Shamp argued that DRM is “not as big a deal” for an e-reader.

“You don’t consume as much books as you do music. They aren’t like songs. I’m an avid reader, and I only read about three or four books per month,” he said.

When asked why he purchased his Kindle, Shamp replied, “Because the AJC stopped circulating in Clarke County.” Till very recently, Shamp used his device only to subscribe to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the New York Times through the new Kindle Newspaper function.

“It’s been really great to be able to get the paper in the car,” Shamp said, adding, “The pictures aren’t wonderful. They’re grayscale; it’d be nice if they were color. But it’s not so bad that you can’t make out what’s going on.”

As far as issues over content sharing go, Shamp said, people have always considered newspapers disposable products anyway, read once and then forgotten. His main concern with his Kindle revolves around the limitations of battery power.

“In my entire life, I’ve never had a book run out of batteries,” Shamp said.

Dr. Richard Menke, a professor of English Studies at UGA and a specialist in new media, said he wasn’t planning on purchasing the e-reader.

“The idea is an interesting one, but I’m not sure Kindle is quite there yet,” Dr. Menke said.

Menke pointed out that the device is most suited for “the thing you need it the least for: out of print, standard, straight text novels. Like Jane Eyre.”

But, Menke noted, readers can easily go buy a used copy of Jane Eyre for cheaper prices than Amazon’s digital e-book, without the fear that they will lose it due to copyright infringement, or that the technology will soon go out of date.

“In a way this sort of technology is like the newspaper. What we care about that seems really big and important today, we don’t care as much about tomorrow,” Menke said.

When asked about Kindle Newspapers, Menke supposed the device might someday be better adaptable to such a service. However, he repeated, he still wouldn’t be getting one before some kind of significant design update.

While Dr. Sarah Steger raved about her Kindle’s ability to easily transport her library of books, she too didn’t find its format adaptable for reading the news.

An English instructor at UGA, Dr. Steger uses her Kindle as a tool of convenience for her research projects, which involve the textual mining of digital libraries in search of vocabulary patterns. She said the idea of “not having to haul around tons of books” for her work appealed to her.

Steger—a self-identified “techie”—purchased her Kindle back in January 2008, soon after it was first released. At the time, they were still so back-ordered she didn’t receive hers for a few months. As a first-generation Kindle owner, with its smaller screen, Steger didn’t think she’d like the experience of using it to read newspapers or textbooks.

“I mainly use it for my ‘fun’ books, although I did put some books on there for research when I was finishing my dissertation. Mostly I love it for casual reading,” Steger said.

Like Dr. Shamp, Steger was glad she had purchased her Kindle, but worried about its limited battery life. She said it often died unexpectedly, forcing her to do a hard restart by removing the battery entirely.

“That seems a little buggy,” Steger said.

Concerning the potential for Kindle or similar technologies to eventually replace print mediums like the textbook and the newspaper, Steger expressed her doubts, pointing out how difficult it was on the device to refer back to particular places or flip through a text.

Dr. Chris Pizzino, on the other hand, was much more embracing to the various possible applications of new technological trends.

“If that’s where the times take us, I’ll go with them,” said Pizzino, who teaches a course on science fiction.

“In five, ten years, I may be teaching all my classes from a Kindle textbook, so students can save the money from having to buy a new edition every year,” Pizzino speculated. He also pointed out the environmental benefits from saving the paper required to print newspapers and magazines by subscribing to them digitally.

So far, the limitations and problems with the device have prevented many newspapers and newsreaders less inclined towards science fiction from jumping on board. Perhaps with a few hardware updates, however, Kindle might provide a viable new market for struggling newspapers, despite lingering questions about the potential use of ad hosting and the manner in which Amazon shares its revenue.

“There’s definitely going to be a big place for the e-reader,” Dr. Scott Shamp said. “Newspapers aren’t moving half as fast as they should be. They need to embrace this thing as soon as possible—if not, they’re in trouble."