beyond 140 for @lewmoorman

A good plan. Not sure what the hold up is: http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-new-york-times-to-offer-get-a-kindle-subscription-deals-2009-5

I'm still waiting for the device maker to see that having a well organized OPEN platform for content (like the iTunes store minus the proprietary stuff) will sell tons of devices.

Great post, Lew. I think we already have a great device for reading-- a small laptop. I prefer reading the Times and the New Yorker on the Adobe reader (my wife takes the print subscriptions), ditto the Kindle for PC to the Kindle itself and to the bulky hard copies. Its brightly lit, convenient to do other stuff like have the keyboard and web at your fingertips for further research, you can attach and send on a whim, etc. Of course, what i like doesn't do much for the poor dead tree publishers-- i don't envy them. But they have great staffs, products, and not least amazing archives. it seems like either they have to go cold turkey and give up offering their product for free on the web and make us pay for something like the above that is so feature rich and dynamite and gives us depth that we just have to pay up for it, or they will have to become wards of generous philanthropists or subsidized by the public.

Thanks John. I read all but weekends on the Adobe reader as well. I loved it at first but I hate a few things. One, it lacks graphs and some smaller stories. Two, it is not as good for random access of content. I love the ability to scan a big paper and see subtitles and the first few sentences easily. Three, I can only read it well in a normal sitting position.

Finally, there are no ads. This makes it not viable. Ads are essential to the economics of any newspaper. They have to figure that part out with the Reader and the Tablet. Google has made a mint on ads. There is still money in them thar hills.

We will see what happens, but I sure hope the NYTimes, the New Yorker and all the other derided MSM figure out a way to make it.

Oh, yeah, ads. I remember those. Well, at least we still have drinking since we no longer have Detroit and since Craigslist stole our classifieds right out from under us while we were dozing after the martini lunch. To think these businesses -- the local paper -- a news weekly -- once defined the meaning, cash cow. Momento Mori. Oh, the agonies of money that was once ours but is no longer....

Interesting observations. I have held out on buying a kindle to see what Apple brings out. For me it must solve the following problems:
It must be light weight and have a good form factor for casual reading and writing, display in colour, can handle all my normal computer files and has a good battery life. Easy on the eyes to read and has the ability for me to write on documents. This would replace my notebook that I carry around in my laptop bag and allow me to read my PDF technical books easily and search them and bookmark pages.

I would use it to watch Hulu or NetFlix when not using it for reading. If it solves these problems I will buy one and I guess there are lots of people like me.

I suspect whatever Apple releases will have good media support and will do good audio and video. Without a shadow of a doubt it will have a lot of touch interface stuff and probably will incorporate an onscreen keyboard.

My guess is that this could be the iphone of the netbook world.

Apple has a lot of Newton experiences that they have put to good product development and you can see these in the innovations that made the iPhone.

My guess is that it will be a success, but its hard to follow the iPhone and iPod successes.

Now that the iPad is out i freely admit to my lust. A gorgeous object of desire. Off point from the question whether the MSM reinvents business around it. And who knows if will become truly useful and change computing habits or become yet another gadget of interest for a season. But, just sayin', really beautiful!