Kindle Newspaper Publishing
Posted on June 2, 2008 - Filed Under General, Kindle
I have been reading non-stop since getting my Kindle and am very happy with it, warts and all.
Mark Briggs of the Tacoma News Tribune posted a Kindle question to his Online in the South Sound blog readers. Would you read news on a Kindle?
I answered the question there but wanted to repeat a few things here.
The current newspaper offering from Amazon is pretty weak. There are currently 19 newspaper available from local papers like the Seattle Times to international publications like Le Monde and The Independent. I think this is an incredibly low number and wish Amazon would do more to encourage publishers to jump on board.
There are several issues with the current offering of newspapers and the way they have formatted their work on the Kindle. I have not seen any of them take full advantage of the bookmarks, index and search features that the Kindle has to offer.
The kindle can handle images if they are formatted the right way, but I have yet to see a magazine or newspaper take advantage of this. If you are going to publish a newspaper and include images, take the time to format them for the Kindle or don’t include them at all.
Most publications have trimmed their content to the basics and are not offering a full blown newspaper experience.
There are a few exceptions to my complaints, one being The Washington Post which is doing everything right when it comes to content publishing on the Kindle. Sadly, I live in the other Washington (the state) so I’m not interested in subscribing.
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I just finished reading Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home by Nando Parrado. It’s the personal story of Nando and how he walked out of the Andes mountains after a plane crash. It’s an amazing story that covers details not available in the book (and movie) Alive.
I am half way through Forever on the Mountain: The Truth Behind One of Mountaineering’s Most Controversial and Mysterious Disasters, a story about the doomed 1967 expedition to scale Mt. McKinley. It’s an objective view of what happened and a sad story.
I have been on a survival kick the last month and both of these books were the reason. I still have some Stephen King, Richard Matheson and the new Scott McClellan book on President Bush to finish as well.
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