At Slate, Farhad Manjoo examines the new version of the Kindle, and comes up with one of the best metaphors to describe what is, perhaps, its largest stumbling block:
Say Barnes & Noble signed a deal to sell the next Twilight book at a huge discount. But with a catch—the book would be published in invisible ink, and in order to read it you’d need to buy a special Barnes & Noble black light. This is ludicrous, of course, and no bookstore would ever attempt such a deal. But what’s the Kindle other than a fancy digital decoder ring?
Manjoo’s analysis of digital publishing in comparison to digital music is one of the more nuanced ones I’ve seen, and the conclusions he reaches (think, basically, of all of the negative connotations monopolies and Wal-Mart’s pricing bring to mind) are more than a little ominous.
That said — if you’re feeling like a good counter-argument, via Richard Nash comes this piece by Mike Shatzkin, which argues that this isn’t actually the case.