Amazon to Unveil Super-Sized Kindle this Week

Posted 05/04/2009 at 12:10pm | by Paul Lilly

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According to a report in The New York Times, Amazon is thinking big (literally) with its Kindle eBook reader and plans to introduce a larger version later this week tailored for displaying newspapers, magazines, and possibly textbooks.

"We are looking at this with a great deal of interest," said John Ridding, the chief executive of the 121-year-old, salmon-colored British newspaper The Financial Times. "The sever double whammy of the recession and the structural shift to the internet has created an urgency that has rightly focused attention on these devices."

Larger eBook readers like the upcoming Kindle could prove game-changing in how media outlets do business. The current business model calls for newspapers and magazines to offer up content on the web for free, which The New York Times said is being viewed by many as a "critical blunder that encouraged readers to stop paying for the print versions." But not everyone sees a black-and-white eBook reader saving the day.

"I don't think we would be anywhere near as excited about anything in black and white as we about high-definition color," said Tom Wallace, the editorial director of Condé Nast, who publishes magazines like Vogue and Wired. "But technology changes at a pretty high clip these days, and if we are now in the Farmer Gray days, it will be only a very short while until we are in the video game era."