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My Mom’s Turning Into a Kindle Geek

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My mom’s a writer and avid reader. She’s obviously older than me, reads more books in a week than I do in a year and isn’t a computer or gadget geek. But she is on the fast track to becoming a Kindle geek.

She uses an iMac and HP Pavilion notebook, but she often calls or emails me to help her solve relatively simple problems. Sometimes it can get frustrating explaining the same process to her over and over again, but I guess I owe it to her considering she probably had to train and re-train me on a number of things.

Our family pitched in to buy her the Kindle DX for her Birthday, which was last weekend. To say she’s excited about her Kindle is a gross understatement. She spent most of Monday reading the entire Kindle manual, exploring Amazon’s virtual book store, experimenting with the mobile browser, downloading samples of books and of course reading part of her first e-novel. I don’t think anyone has had a single conversation with her since Saturday without her mentioning the Kindle.

She hasn’t asked anyone for help with the Kindle DX and feels completely comfortable with the device. She carries it everywhere she goes and said she can’t wait to show it to her friends.

Yesterday I gave her a ride to Costco. I needed a new microwave and she needed some groceries. While I was comparing specs on the selection of microwaves she wandered over to the store’s book shelves.

When I caught up with her, I found that she’d altered her book shopping pattern. Costco sells hardcovers for about 40% off and she found a book she wanted to buy. Before the Kindle, she would either buy her books on impulse or jot down the title and buy it later from Amazon.com. She now handles the book, admires the artwork on the covers, but then move over to the Kindle for the rest of the transaction. Instead of buying the book on impulse, she took a few seconds to download a sample passage of the book and said she’d buy probably buy the book $9.99 version of the book on the Kindle. All this before she was three feet away from the bookshelf at Costco.

My mom probably fits Amazon’s ideal Kindle customer profile about as well as anyone. She’s less concerned with the technology behind the device and more concerned with the overall experience. It makes discovering and shopping for books convenient, fun and exciting again.

I’m going to ask her to share more of her Kindle DX experiences as she continues it over the coming weeks.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. turn.self.off

    08/06/2009 at 2:59 am

    makes me wonder how much amazon is paying in data traffic fees…

    and also how much people would be willing to pay for content online, if the initial internet connection they used where free. This because is suspect people feel they get double dipped by first paying for the connection and then having to pay for content as well…

    hell, now i find myself pondering how much cable tv companies could make if they changed over to a video rental on demand kind of setup, where you got the box and the connection for free, but could subscribe to specific series and order videos that would download to the box and allow you to watch it when you wanted, maybe having a x number of episodes and movies in queue, so you needed to delete some to get more…

  2. TateJ

    08/06/2009 at 8:18 am

    turn.self.off,

    What a great idea!! I’d leap on a setup like that in a heartbeat.

  3. jwhiteinfo

    08/06/2009 at 12:53 pm

    Really enjoyed the post and looking forward to see how your mom’s experience with the Kindle DX works, truly a thoughtful gift. I really like mine and use it all the time. I keep discovering new books I didn’t know about. There are a couple of simple hacks your mom might enjoy, eg. adding the ability to use her own personalized screensaver pictures. It is described here:

    https://pbickford.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/kindle-hacking-changing-the-screen-saver-pictures-on-the-kindle-2-and-dx/

    -J.

  4. Ben

    08/06/2009 at 5:38 pm

    i’m looking forward to reading about your mom’s kindle experience. it sounds like it’ll make for a few interesting articles.

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