Oprah Plugs the Kindle and Offers up a $50 Discount
Oprah Plugs the Kindle and Offers up a $50 Discount
Posted 10/25/2008 at 2:11pm
| by Justin Kerr
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Though I’m willing to bet the Maximum PC core demographic differs somewhat from that of the Oprah Winfrey show, oddly she has done something worth mentioning. The TV celebrity took the opportunity on Friday to do some heavy plugging of the Amazon Kindle. Oprah claims the gifted Kindle she received this summer “has changed her life”. Some might down play the significance of this endorsement, but the popularity of Oprah’s book club is often enough to catapult relatively obscure titles all the way to the New York Times Bestseller list seemingly overnight. Heck, new studies have shown even a simple nod from the celebrity will be enough to net Barack Obama an additional one million votes. Winfrey who was joined by Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos described the gadget as “pricy” but “environmentally friendly”. The endorsement does come with a fringe benefit however. A $50 price break is offered when using the promotional code OPRAHWINFREY during checkout. So if you’ve been waiting for a price drop before you pick up a Kindle this brings the device down to a modest $309.00 USD until November 1st 2008.
So while I’m willing to bet Oprah isn’t the primary reason our readers will pick up a Kindle, has anyone else made the switch from paperbacks? Let us know what you think of the Kindle.
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gatorXXX
October 28, 2008 at 7:09am
EDWINCNELSON.........READ before you call people idiots...i think it's something you learned a few years back......
The second opportunity relates to Audible.com, the audio book company it purchased in January. In a multi-media world, Amazon could provide an experience to let consumers purchase a book or other copyrighted work, along with the rights to consume it in multiple ways. So if you start reading the book on your Kindle at night, you could pick up where you left off during your commute--having the book read to you via Audible.
Here is the link for the WHOLE article.......
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2008/08/here_comes_kind.html
The kindle, I think might be great for the purpose for college students and the family as you stated. But not for children. PERIOD. Hands on with children is the only way to go. So now everyone, lets go buy a kindle cause JABBA...er....oprah says so!
Keith E. Whisman
October 27, 2008 at 12:30pm
I agree with you it's her show and she can talk about what she want to talk about. That is what she gets paid to do. I refuse to give credence in my life because of her Anti Christ stance. Because she stated numerous times that she is a Christian but also said that Jesus is not the only way to get to heaven. That you don't have to believe in Jesus. How can she call herself a Christian (err Christ follower) and not believe in Jesus and tell people that they do not have to either? Her beliefs are evil and I can't listen to her because although she has the right to Free Speech she can still get in trouble for what she says.
bear
October 27, 2008 at 8:58am
Sorry gang, I hate to break it to you, but the show is called "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and I hope to high heaven that she's damned well able to talk about whatever the crap she wants. (It's a First Amendment right, ya know.) Now, if the show were called, "The Justin Kerr Show" or whatever else, I'd hope to whom that show belongs is damned well able to talk about whatever the crap they want.
That granted. It is crap that someone of Oprah Winfrey's celebrity abuses that right, but then, she's doing what's best for Oprah Winfrey, not anyone else.
Edwincnelson
October 27, 2008 at 7:55am
Hello, the Kindle is NOT an audio book reader! The device downloads real books so you can carry hundreds or thousands of books in one small package. It can also download subscriptions to magazines and newspapers without having to waste all the paper. Books are great but they waste hundreds of thousands of tons of paper a year. That waste is harmful to the environement and very expensive to produce. The Kindle represents a leap in technology that will most likely replace paper books one day whether we like it or not.
Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. Imagine how much money local schools could save if this one device could carry all their books in one small package. Imagine how much less expensive it would be for college students to not have to purchase 50 different books for their classes. This is the future.
gatorXXX
October 27, 2008 at 4:20am
I can see where this device is good for the long haul. Meaning something for the kids and people who take long trips and don't want to listen to the radio. That's fine. But I'm talking about the good ole fashioned sitting on the couch alone or with family reading! I know you can turn off the audio and read it aloud and that's fine too. But I'm talking about IT reading the book for you and/or your children just out of pure laziness. After a few times of it reading to your kids, Do you think your child will pick up a book again? You tell them to get a book a read a story to you and the response you'll get is "WHY??", "WHY do I have too?", "I have that kindle to do it for me!". I'm not going to argue with my 8 and 10 year olds over that. I want thier mind to be active and hands on! Now, I believe, to the fullest extent of my heart that ALL MEDIA, need to stay out of politics. Includes: newspapers, newscasts, magazines, and of coarse tabloid shows such as OPRAH! They are supposed be unbiased and publish the facts, not endorse any one candidate or party. You have several million wanna be oprah fan club presidents out there that will bow down to her as if she is a god. They will side her way no matter the cost and what they actuallly believe. If she were to endorse the taliban cause they have a cause she believes in, all her fans and cronies will start to bash our military for killing poor ole innocent taliban fighters! SHE, and all media, need to stay out of it and be unbiased and let us, the people of america, decide for ourselves. Thank you and have a great day!
atomaweapon
October 26, 2008 at 8:38pm
Not that she had much credibility before, but as soon as she started shilling for Obama and instilling politics in her shows, she lost half her audience and the rest of her credibility. That being said, the kindle does look cool, I'm just not into the DRM book phase yet where I'm renting books to read on my digital handheld device.
SmackBlob
October 26, 2008 at 6:23pm
I just got a Kindle for my birthday because I'm running out of room for books in my house. Also, I like to lie on the couch to read and some of those hardback books are too big to hold for very long in that position. The Kindle can store something like 200 books and is pretty light. The best thing about the Kindle, though, is that you can go online at any time with it. It isn't the best web browser, but you can look up information on Wikipedia, etc. and there are no monthly fees for online access. It uses Whispernet, which is a cell-phone network. Just like a cell phone you can see how good your connection is with a bar display. Again, no monthly connection fee is awesome! It will be great to use on those road trips when I get into conversations with my son about various topics. A lot of these conversations end with, "When we get home, look that up online to find out what it means", etc. Now, we don't have to wait.
The biggest problem with Kindle is the display of pictures. The Kindle does four shades of gray and can display very nice graphics. But some book publishers seem to be fairly lax when it comes to migrating their photos and graphs to the Kindle. For reading most fiction, this is fine, but history books have lots of battle maps, and photos. I don't have much experience yet, but a fast look at a couple of books in the Liberation Trilogy disappoints. (You can download the first part of any book for free, directly to the Kindle. Full book downloads through Whispernet usually take less than a minute). Also I tried an issue of Analog Magazine on the Kindle. I had not read that mag in many years, but I remember that every story had an accompanying illustration. I was very disappointed to see that the Kindle version had no illustrations (except front cover)! The stories were nice to read, but no illustrations is just inexcusable. I don't think this is the Kindle's fault: it seems to be mere laziness by the publishers. Also, I don't think big format picture books would work well on Kindle because the screen space is too small.
So, with that caveat, I think the Kindle is great.
People who are interested should go to Amazon.com and read the buyers' reviews there. There are thousands of them, and most are pretty passionate about the Kindle. In fact, since I took the time to respond to this post, I think I'll just paste the preceding paragraphs of it to Amazon right now.
Keith E. Whisman
October 26, 2008 at 1:10pm
Queen girls have been telling us not to say anything bad for hundreds of years and us men have been actively ignoring those directives for hundreds of years. Oprah is an Anti Christ as she denied Christ on her TV show and she is the living imbodyment of Jaba the Hutt.
And if there was an actual market for a digital paper like the Kindle then there would be many more products than just the Kindle. There would be strong competition. I want a device not all that different from that transparent rollup digital map that was in the movie Red Planet.
BTW you can check my statement by actually watching the episode where Oprah denied Christ on her show on youtube.com Just search Oprah Antichrist or something like that.
Check out this youtube video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-HNNAqJrxw&feature=related
In further videos she repeats that she is a christian but then in other videos it shows her talking about her own reliegeon.
Sorry for turning this into a religeous thing but she is so damn arrogant it just pisses so many people off. I really don't have much good to say about her.
I always remember that Whoopi Goldberg was the star of The Color Purple but Oprah always screamed about not getting an oscar or emmy for her supporting role in the movie. She was power hungry back then too...
gatorXXX
October 27, 2008 at 4:31am
Queen...HAHAHAHA.....queen. I take it your an Oprah fan. As long as SHE distills politics into her shows, whether I watch it or not (I don't thank god!), and as long as SHE can say what she wants, then she is subject to ANY and ALL critizism by anyone at any given time. I choose to do so. Freedom of speech. I think it's written somewhere in our constitution about it (1st amendment) and apparently you haven't done your homework on the subject.
Queenof1
October 29, 2008 at 1:55pm
...but I find it ignorant that just because one disagrees with a person's views, one feels the need to name-call. That, kind sir or madam, is childish. Of course, you are exercising YOUR freedom of speech as am I in writing this reply. And you assumed I was an Oprah fan. You know what happens when you ASSume...
Queenof1
October 26, 2008 at 12:25pm
nothing like reading a good old fashioned book, turning the pages, holding the book in your hand. However, I would definitely endorse unabridged audio books to use WITH real books for the kiddies.
No need to rag on how Oprah looks; that's not what the article is about. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
gatorXXX
October 26, 2008 at 8:05am
This is whats wrong with this world.....I WANT MY KIDS TO READ!!!!! Not have something to read for them. This is the epitomy of laziness and the downfall of our society. All this reader does is free up your other hand to eat more junk food and become more of a couch potato, or look like one. See what iy has done to Oprah??
halger9
October 27, 2008 at 9:33am
You Sir (or ma'am) are an idiot. Your comment is irrational. First, the sole purpose of the kindle isn't to play audio
books. You want your kids to read? Okay, great, then don't buy them
audio books. Second, your claim that audio books are the epitome of laziness
and the downfall of our society is a little melodramatic. I think the
mindset of judging a person's work ethic by how hard they work instead of how
productive they are is the real problem. If there are smarter, faster
ways of getting the information you need then it is the senseless to ignore
that. Bottom line is, kids are still going to learn how to read and they
are not going to sit on the couch eating junk food while listening to an audio
book on their kindle. They'll sit on the couch eating junk food while
they watch Batman cartoons.
gatorXXX
October 29, 2008 at 3:12pm
LOL, your funny! I'm not judging ANYONE"S work ethic. But there are people out there that are totally lazy in just about everything they do. You know as well as I do, some parents will try to get away with as little as possible and/or give in to their child as they are spoiled. No little johnny, you've been a good boy today, so we won't read that book tonight BUt go listen to it on the kindle while you play your playstation, oh and here's some ice cream! Come on dude, get a grip If you thik for ONE second they are not going to sit there, eat doughnuts, and LISTEN to the kindle, you are sadly mistaken. AND yes, it is the opitome of laziness as the kindle, the internet, 300 channels on your HDTV have turned alot of people away from getting out in the great outdoors and have have become tech junkies. Instead of fixing the pool that's rotting away, most people would rather sit and google all day! So if that's irrational, go speak to the 100 million americans that are considered overweight because all they do is sit, eat, and google....and now can LISTEN to the kindle as well, read the morning paper instead of getting off their fat ass, walking out the door, and getting it the old fashioned way. I am for stopping the destruction of trees and waste and what not, but what I'm saying is this, the kindle, is not for kids. Thank you kind sir/ma'am and have a wonderful day!
sirphunkee
October 25, 2008 at 5:18pm
Man what is this site coming to?? In a few short months we've gone from high-res pictures of half-naked booth babes and cosplay hotties to screen captures of Oprah doing her best jabba the hut pose.
Primus2112
October 25, 2008 at 4:10pm
After checking out the demo vid... it is pretty cool and interesting. Even with discount its still quite a bit of cash though for me anyway.
I would get it though if times were not so tight. It would be handy for me and my family.
gatorXXX
October 25, 2008 at 2:29pm
Wow, thank you oprah!!! just what I always wanted and more!!!! This will be the best christmas ever!! ....NOT.....who really cares? No one that I know of.
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