Weeks of speculative rumor mongering finally came to fruition today as Amazon launched the Kindle DX — the latest in the firm’s line of electronic reading devices.
The new Kindle, which can be pre-ordered for $490 on Amazon.com, offers a larger, 9.7″ electronic paper display, innate PDF support and 3.3GB of storage capable of storing 3,500 books.
Those of you who don’t require such a gargantuan faux book can still purchase the comparatively minuscule 6″ Kindle for $360.
Perhaps more interesting is word that Amazon has teamed with a number of notable newspaper publishers to offer the Kindle DX and electronic versions of each paper at a discount to customers willing to sign an as-yet-undisclosed contract.
While I’m sure the old-media tycoons have all sorts of fancy charts and graphs proving exactly how distributing their content on a platform designed to kill their entire industry is a solid plan, I don’t think they quite grasp their current predicament.
As their platform is being abandoned by the notoriously change-o-phobic geriatric set en masse in favor of Amazon’s shiny new toy, I almost feel like I have to invent an entirely new word to describe the fate of old media.
Something like “hyperscrewed,” or “ultraboned.” And maybe I’ll draw an emoticon frowny face to really drive the point home. 🙁
