Consumer Wise
Q: As the former senior program manager of Amazon's Kindle team, you had an early look at the then nascent relationship between readers and digital content. Were there any trends you noticed that changed your perception of how people interacted with books and book content?
As far as the way that people interacted with ebooks, I will say that I noticed a “diffusion of innovation” through the reading populace. At first, the people who tended to read ebooks were those who I would call innovators or early adopters. These were the people who could see the value in plunking down $500 on a new e-reader, people like former astronauts, presidents, actors and actresses—the trendsetters. These are the people you would see on airplanes in the early days of ebooks with a Kindle, and everyone would crowd around them to see how ebooks worked. Gradually, as the “diffusion of innovation” spread, in part because of these early advocates, e-reader technology became more common.
- Companies:
- Amazon.com
- Bowker
- Harlequin