For Jeff Bezos, the 'great run' for books is over. Really?

Jeff Bezos sat down with Steven Levy at Wired's Disruptive by Design conference in New York for a conversation called "Having Confidence on the Edge." They talked about which size Kindle is best to read in bed, textbooks and the Kindle, and the Google Books Settlement. "We have strong opinions about that issue," the Wall Street Journal reported Bezos as saying, "which I’m not going to share." 

Tech guru Tim O'Reilly has already posted some bon mots from Bezos, whom he calls "very quotable," noting that he said, "I get grumpy now when I have to read a physical book."

Because Wired has made the video available, we can transcribe this part of the conversation in full (it's also after the jump).

Levy: For a special book, do you still want to read the physical book?

Bezos: No. No, in fact, I now ... I kind of am grumpy when I am forced to read a physical book. Because it's not as convenient. Turning the pages ... I didn't know this either, until I started using the Kindles a couple months ago, I mean a couple years ago, I didn't understand all of the failings of a physical book, because I’m inured to them. But you can’t turn the page with one hand. The book is always flopping itself shut at the wrong moment. They’re heavy. You can only take one or two of them with you at a time. It’s had a great 500-year run. [Audience laughter.] It’s an unbelievably successful technology. But it’s time to change.

Which seems an odd thing to say for an empire built on the bindings and pages of actual hard-copy books. But Bezos is looking forward, not backward.

But is he? Is Bezos right? Is the book's 500-year run over?

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Jeff Bezos at the Kindle DX announcement in May 2009. Credit: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images

Comments

[frank]

I feel like the Kindle won't replace books, but it will supplement the reading experience for people who can afford to buy one. I've been considering one for a while, but these are economical times, y'know.

My main feeling is that like the iPod, the Kindle's main driver is to be fueled with content that is available through the product's developer. Which is fine if you don't mind buying all that stuff from one place and having to keep going back there to refuel. I do buy the majority of my books from Amazon nowadays anyway...

Until I can put the books I already own on one of the devices (which yes I realize my books are paper and the Kindle is not but still just continuing the iPod analogy) or get a nice pipeline of pirated content, it's just too spendy. I don't steal books, but I sure do accumulate a lot of them without often dropping a lot of dough. I don't know how.

There will eventually be a point where we're wired to the point where we need to be unwired. If you pay attention to record sales, CDs might be on the decline but records are having a small but steady improvement.

There's something to be said for wanting to be off the grid.

[pseudoswashbuckler]

The e-reader will be king, but Bezos is calling it too early---by 5-10 years is my guess.

It's great technology. Once the price comes down and the initial flood of upgrades settles, then Kindles and the like will start replacing print books at a surprising rate.

Until then, only the most compulsive gadgetophiles are wading into the pool. I'm counting on them to buy these things. You know, drive the price down so I can afford one.

[ChrisC]

The best features about a Kindle is ease of reading the text on the screen and the lightness of the device. I love books and have a house jam-packed full of them, but with a Kindle I can change the font-size on the fly and carry lots of reading material without breaking my backpack or my back. Large print books are enormous and heavy -- not so on an electronic reading device.

For me, an electronic book reader is about accessibility -- for that reason, I would like to see more competition by other manufacturers to drop the price on the device. For anyone dealing with age-related vision issues or has carpal tunnel pain, a device like the Kindle will re-open the world of books to you.

Book technology has gone from tablets to scrolls to codices and now electronic -- we're still going to read the words other people write.