Some preliminary thoughts on Kindle: How the hell would you click on outbound links?
Ok, the release of Kindle, the new E-reader from Amazon, has already produced a number of reviews in the blogosphere and many have been negative. Most of the bloggers have never actually tried one out, and neither have I.
But there is one aspect that I think is being overlooked (at least I haven’t seen anybody write about it yet, which doesn’t necessarily mean that nobody has).
Amazon will be offering paid subscriptions to blogs. You pay like $1.99 a month to subscribe. Many have already pointed out that people won’t want to pay for content they can already get for free. But what I haven’t seen anybody mention is this:
What the hell use is a blog if you can’t click on outbound links?
Most — though not all — blogs rely heavily on linking to outbound sources. BoingBoing, one of the blogs you can subscribe to with this service, only writes about stuff that it can link to.
So let’s say that you subscribe and download Blog X, which is available through Amazon. Then, while reading Blog X, you notice that they’ve linked to Blog Y. So what happens when Blog Y isn’t one of the blogs offered through Amazon? If you’re not within wireless range (and I hear the wireless service isn’t very good anyway), then what use is Blog X to you if you can’t follow links?
Somebody please inform me if I’m just being ignorant here. Otherwise, that $1.99 you paid for BoingBoing will go down the toilet.
According to Mike Elgan’s review at ComputerWorld (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9048498): “You can just surf the Web in general. Kindle comes with a Web browser called Basic Web, which supports cookies, JavaScript and SSL, but doesn’t support plug-ins like Flash or Shockwave or Java applets. Basic Web lets you type in a URL, click on links and generally surf the Web like you would on a PC.”
Re: Tom
Yes, but if it’s just a matter of web surfing, then what’s the point of paying $1.99 to subscribe to a blog in the first place? It’s my understanding that these paid-for downloads would be for people who don’t have constant access to the internet.