Kindle Comic: "Smell of a Good Book"

We kept going back and forth with the caption on this one, not wanting to offend anyone by suggesting the only purpose for old books these days was to make furniture. Personally we enjoy old books just as much as we ever did, as visitors to the huge library we made in the space that was meant to be our dining room will tell you.

Past "Kindle Culture" comics:
"Sci-Fi Wi-Fi"
"Choose Wisely"
"Dinner"
"Talk To Me"

Ten Great Kindle Tweets - April 2009

Once again, I've tweeted @ messages to the ten folks included in the tweetset above and the first one who comes to this site and posts a comment will win a free copy of my book "Kindle Culture."*

I also decided to change the title of this month's non-contest, since a true measure of "Top Ten Kindle Tweets" of any given month would require a 24/7 review of posts, and as I write they're being posted at a clip of over 100 an hour. This is actually a collection of ten posts that tickled me at random times when I happened to be on Twitter and happened to search "Kindle," culled from about three dozen that I gathered throughout April. Good luck!

UPDATE: We have a winner! Congratulations rich_kilmer!


*Prize will be awarded in the form of an Amazon gift certificate for the price of "Kindle Culture," which is due out for the Kindle in May 2009.

Kindle Demographics

As I was pulling together the final pieces for my book "Kindle Culture," one of the last items on my list was to comb through almost 70 pages of the Amazon Kindle Forum's "Average Kindle Owner's Age" thread to get a better idea of who's actually buying the Kindle.

Though I ended up culling 1,387 responses from almost 1,700 posts, these charts don't adhere to polling science standards and should thus be taken with a grain of salt. That said, my methodology included the use of second-hand figures ("my son, 27, has one too"), and the exclusion of ill-defined ages ("I'm in my 50s"), questionable responses (106-year-old Sigmund Freud says, "I like the large type!"), and a handful of entries that were repeated one or more times.

The resulting data suggests that the largest group of Kindle owners by decade are in their 50s. The next two largest are owners in their 40s at 19.1% and owners in their 60s at 18%, making the total number of Kindle owners between the ages of 40 and 69 an incredible 58.6%. Owners above 70 make up an additional 8.1%, with owners under the age of 40 accounting for just over a third of all Kindle sales.

Using broader target demographic standards, the results look like this:

Younger adults (18-34) – 22%
Adults (35-54) – 38.4%
Older adults (over 54) – 37.3%

The Kindle might also be a popular 60th birthday present--more 60-year-olds reported owning the device than any other age, with 59-year-olds coming in a close second. (Another side note I found interesting was the number of respondents in their 20s and 30s who mentioned that they had been reading since a very young age.)

There are plenty of factors that could skew these results, ranging from affluency and disposable income to the overall age of visitors who visit Amazon's boards. But if these numbers are any indication, the Kindle appears to be the first general purpose technology device I know of with an early adopter demographic that favors the over-54 age bracket over the usual 18-34 group, effectively turning one perennial marketing trend on its head.

Kindle Comic: "Sci-fi WiFi"

The logical next step after Amazon opens the UK and European markets. Kindle 9 from outer space!

Kindle Offers Free U.S. News For a Year

With the April 15 release of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on the Kindle, owners can now get a full year of domestic newspaper subscriptions absolutely free.

Granted, cycling through 14-day trial subs of all 26 domestic papers Amazon now offers for the Kindle would certainly require some serious dedication. But the result would be a free education comprised of a broad range of news voices. Besides the old-school stalwarts like the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Washington Post, the fare includes more topic-specific rags like Investor's Business Daily and the Wall Street Journal, plus Politico, which is mostly associated with its online presence and not the free print version that makes the rounds in D.C.

For me, this represents a benchmark of sorts at a time when the newspaper industry finds itself in a life-or-death struggle. As someone who came from a print background, I've lamented the loss of one daily after another with colleagues. But I see a potential for rebirth in devices like the Kindle, which replicate the old model by charging a reasonable fee and "delivering" the paper to your virtual door.

The chance to nab a free year of newspapers might appeal to the freebie-lover in all of us. But I also hope it leads to more people exposing themselves to a (hopefully) higher standard of journalism, and ultimately choosing to support an important industry by picking a favorite and ordering a regular subscription.