Amazon’s made a few announcements on its e-Book reader solution demonstrating the momentum for a greener book reading solution.
If you are curious on the environmental impact of an e-book reader vs. print check this out.
After an analysis of a number of studies on the publishing and e-reader industries, we predict that, on average, the carbon emitted in the lifecycle of a Kindle is fully offset after the first year of use. Any additional years of use result in net carbon savings, equivalent to an average of 168 kg of CO2 per year (the emissions produced in the manufacture and distribution of 22.5 books). There are additional savings in toxic emissions from publishing and water usage that we haven’t quantified.
Multiplied by millions of units and increased sales of e-books, e-readers will have a staggering impact on improving the sustainability and environmental impact on one of the world’s most polluting industries: the publishing of books, newspapers and magazines.
Amazon says the Kindle 3 is the fastest selling Kindle.
Amazon Says Latest Kindle Is Fastest-Selling Version So Far
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) said the latest generation of its Kindle was "the fastest-selling" of its e-readers and the best-selling product on the company's websites in the U.S. and the U.K.
As of Monday, the e-commerce retailer said sales of the new, cheaper Kindle already surpassed total Kindle device sales from October through December 2009. Amazon began taking orders in late July and started shipping the models in late August.
Meanwhile, Amazon said it has sold three times as many Kindle books in the first nine months of the year from the year-earlier period. And in the past month, customers purchased more Kindle books than print books--hardcover and paperback combined--for the top 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 bestselling books on Amazon.com.
You can be suspicious of a press release as most of have learned.
An interesting piece of data I have is the traffic to my Kindle 3 frozen blog post.
Google Search is the overwhelming dominant way the post is found which would mean this is coming from users who are encountering a frozen Kindle 3. I am quite surprised how consistent over 2 months people are looking for an answer to their frozen kindle.
With the growth of the Kindle installed base, Amazon will be adding a lending feature.
later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable - this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.
One of these days we can hope Amazon will post how much carbon they have saved with electronic books. Maybe Amazon should add a counter to their Kindle page showing how many tons of carbon are saved as a kindle book, magazine or newspaper is purchased.
Imagine how few Kindle Servers Amazon needs. The Kindle solution could be one of the greenest data center solutions as paper, water, and environment are saved.