Shortly after the news of "Kindle or withdrawal from the Chinese market" came out, it quickly appeared on Weibo hot search, stirring up thousands of waves with one stone, and then various discussions were overwhelming. Although Amazon China officials have denied this rumor, saying that the Kindle will continue to sell in the Chinese market and supporting services will continue to operate, it is an obvious fact that the enthusiasm of the Chinese people for the Kindle has large-scale faded in the nine years since it entered China, and the frequency of use is generally getting lower and lower.
Many of the business analysis articles about kindles more or less blur the distinction between the Kindle reader as hardware and the Amazon online bookstore as software. Most of the voices that question the Kindle's unusable use actually point to the Kindle reader, Amazon online bookstore not only does not have much to blame, but is still an important support for the rise of the Kindle reader, which can explain why some readers are used to buying books in the Amazon online bookstore, and then using the Kindle APP on the mobile terminal to read.
That being the case, the question that needs to be discussed should actually be more accurately described as: Has the Kindle reader really been abandoned by Chinese e-readers? Has it completely lost its market value in China today, and ultimately has only one way to die? To answer these questions, we must first explain why the Kindle has changed from a "reading artifact" to today's "bubble face artifact".
Focus on the business model of the service platform
Since the rise of e-reading in the new century, a classic topic has been the comparison of e-books with paper books. Due to the different media carriers, the advantages and disadvantages of the two reading methods are obvious, "radish cabbage has its own love", in fact, it is a problem of personal habits and hobbies. So here's just a discussion of how the Kindle reader can beat the competition and achieve a surprise in the field of e-reading.
In the history of e-reader research and development, Amazon is not the frontrunner, as early as 1990, Japan's Sony company launched a digital disc reader, very limited book resources are stored in Sony-produced discs, but few people are willing to spend $550 to buy such a product. With the development of the Internet and technological progress, Sony released a portable e-book reader with a model of PRS-500 in 2006, which costs $350 and is equipped with a brighter electronic ink screen, a battery with longer standby time and a larger memory capacity.
Sony PRS-500 eBook Reader
It is generally believed that the mature e-book reading market needs to have four conditions: experience good reading terminal equipment, high-quality book content, and moderately priced and easy-to-use e-book formats. On the whole, the Sony reader only met the first condition, and the other three conditions were not met. The quantity and quality of books in the online bookstore provided by Sony are not high enough, and users also have to download Sony's special BBeB format e-books to the computer first, and then use USB data cables to transmit to the terminal reader to read, which invisibly increases the cost of time.
Compared with Sony's e-reader, Amazon's Kindle reader launched in 2007 is really not excellent in hardware performance, and even some analysts have commented on its "very bad" design because it is larger, bulkier, has poorer screen performance, and uses a closed system. Amazingly, the Kindle reader, with slightly inferior hardware, eventually achieved commercial success, which in turn pushed e-books to the mainstream readership. According to the analysis of Ron Adena, a professor at the American Business School, in the book "Wide-angle Mirror Strategy: The Ecology and Risks of Enterprise Innovation", the key to Amazon's success lies in the establishment of a giant service platform of "hardware equipment + software content" that provides readers with a one-stop solution for buying books.
The total number of books in Amazon's online bookstore reached 90,000 in the early days, and quickly grew to 330,000 in two years, where users can buy classic books such as "Notre Dame de Paris" or subscribe to the latest periodicals and newspapers such as "The New Yorker" at moderate prices. Most importantly, users do not need to use a computer, just use the Kindle reader's built-in wireless network connection, you can immediately download the e-book to the end device, greatly saving the user the time spent downloading the e-book.
Kindle e-book store
The reason why Sony readers are not rich enough in book resources is partly because they fail to open up the intermediate links of publishing houses, and most traditional publishing houses at that time still insisted on a conservative and wait-and-see attitude towards the new thing of electronic reading. Although Amazon, as the world's largest book retailer, holds 30% of the annual market share of the U.S. book sales business, it did not use its dominant position to force publishers to support Kindle, but used its powerful digital rights management system to attract publishers to "join".
The Kindle is a closed, exclusive technology system similar to the iOS smartphone operating system developed by Apple. Under the Kindle system, users can neither read e-books on other devices, share them with others, nor print them, although this restriction is a deduction for users, but for publishers, it can minimize the risk of e-book piracy. After all, in the market environment at that time, the phenomenon of piracy in the field of digital music and film was already very serious, and the interests of content producers were extremely harmful, so Amazon's powerful digital rights management system was equivalent to giving publishers a reassurance to support Kindle, providing an urgently needed sense of security.
The imagery of books and the ritual of reading
Whether in the West or the East, reading has been the right and demand of minorities since ancient times, although after Gutenberg invented movable type printing in Europe, books can also be purchased and read by ordinary people, after all, few people will develop the habit of reading for a long time, and after entering modern society, this is still the case. Therefore, the target customer group of the Kindle reader has never been the general public located at the bottom of the pyramid, but the more educated intellectuals, white-collar workers or business people, and even become a prop to highlight their personal identity and taste, which explains why the Kindle reader will be more and more used as a gift.
A netizen posted a Weibo after hearing about "Kindle or withdrawing from the Chinese market" fully illustrated this point: "Five years ago, I had embarked on the road of starting a business for an education company, while lamenting the gap between dreams and reality, while running to and from major cities in China, running customers and doing projects. On the high-speed train and in the hotel lobby, holding a Kindle to read management, read business, and read celebrity biographies has become a daily routine. While reading, I also imagined the envious eyes of the people around me to this elegant middle-aged business man. ”
Amazon's initial product positioning of the Kindle reader was a single reading function, and compared to Apple's iPad, the Kindle has almost no other entertainment features. To this end, Kindle has specially adopted an "ink screen" - an electronic material close to the display effect of paper books, simulating the texture and reading experience of physical books for users. This "ink screen" does not have any brightness, even if the user reads in the sun, there will be no reflection, avoiding the fatigue of the eyes staring at the screen for a long time.
A reader is reading a Kindle eBook
In his 1976 book Symbolic Exchange and Death, french philosopher Baudrillard divided human history into three periods according to the style of making symbols of things: the classical period of imitation, the period of industrial production, and the current period of imitation. To paraphrase Baudrillard's theory, if books are regarded as a symbol, the three periods correspond to three different symbol forms: in the classical period, the precious parchment Bible was a copy of this sacred "book" with uniqueness; in the industrial period, books were reproduced and produced through modern printing; in the postmodern digital context, the Kindle reader is actually an imitation of the book itself, creating an atmosphere of surreal (more real than reality).
The Kindle reader provides users with a new visual experience of immersive reading experience, and even the small action of turning the page will reflect the realistic effect on the two-dimensional screen, although it is a digital product, it allows users to obtain a sense of ritual of traditional reading behavior. "I use kindles for serious books, and mobile phones for unorthodox books", the netizen's message proves the irreplaceable significance of the Kindle reader as a book image in the digital age.
So, what is the essence of the book? Why does reading require a sense of ritual?
The great Borges answered for us: "Of all the tools used by man, the most amazing is undoubtedly the book. Other tools are extensions of the human body. Micromirrors and telescopes are extensions of the eyes; the telephone is an extension of the voice; we have the plough and the sword, which are extensions of the arms. But books are another matter: books are extensions of memory and imagination ... The idea of scripture, the Qur'an, the Bible or the Vedas – this book also says that the Vedas' idea of creating the world may be outdated, but books still retain something sacred, and we should try to preserve this sacred thing. Getting a book, opening it, creates aesthetic possibilities. What is the big pile of words lying in the books? What are these inanimate symbols? Nothing. If we don't open the book, what is the use of the book? It was nothing more than a pile of paper and a sheepskin cover; but if we went to read it, strange things happened, I believe, and the more we read it, the greater the change became. (Borges, Dictation)
In today's day and age, whether reading on a mobile phone or an iPad, energy is too easily distracted by other information or entertainment activities, and a single-function Kindle reader can at least "force" users to focus on the "sacred" act of serious reading (non-web text) itself, and enjoy the ritual that comes with it.
The key reason why Chinese users are idle With the Kindle
On June 7, 2013, the first Kindle reader was officially launched in China at a price of 758 yuan, basically maintaining the low-price strategy in the United States. At that time, Zhang Wenyi, the general manager of Kindle China, was an executive recruited from Intel at Amazon's headquarters in the United States, and the price of Kindle after entering China was less than 1,000 yuan, which was the result of the Chinese team led by Zhang Wenyi insisting on the headquarters. The reason why kindle readers can drive down prices in the U.S. market is that users often have good paid reading habits, and Amazon can sell terminal equipment at cost prices and make a profit on the content of the platform. But this model will not necessarily be recognized by the Chinese market.
The civilian price of the Kindle reader helped it quickly open up the Chinese market, coupled with the precise positioning and marketing of the target customer group by the Amazon China team, the initial development momentum has been all the way. At the end of 2014, Kindle created a creative ad that exploded social networks at Jing'an Temple, one of Shanghai's most crowded subway stations— a 2.8-meter-high, 25.6-meter-long glass bookcase was built in the promenade of the subway station, stacking more than 2,000 best-selling books available at Amazon's bookstores, and a 200-gram Kindle reader in the middle of the shelf. The implication is that it is enough to take away so many books with just one Kindle!
At the end of 2014, Kindle created a creative advertisement at the Jing'an Temple Station of the Shanghai Metro
Although the Kindle reader achieved good sales results in the early days of the Chinese market, after the fresh period, there was still a situation of "water and soil dissatisfaction". Chinese users' stickiness to the Kindle seems to be difficult to cultivate, and the use of the Kindle has gradually become a cycle state of so-called "charging - putting - remembering - no power - charging - putting". In addition to Amazon's official marketing of the "cover bubble noodles" function, the real-life idle Kindle is often used as a clock, desk calendar and other functions.
However, self-deprecation does not change the embarrassing situation of the Kindle reader in the hands of Chinese users, the premise of the change is to know what is the reason behind the widespread idleNess of Chinese users?
The idle Kindle became a clock and became a "bubble noodle artifact" (picture from the Internet)
Previously, some analysts believed that the reason why kindle is unsustainable in China is that the "hardware device + software content" model has no advantages, and Amazon's carefully crafted immersive reading experience is a directional error, etc., as if Kindle is useless, which is really a contradictory and confusing hindsight. As mentioned earlier, these factors are not only not the reasons for the decline of Kindle's development in China, but also the core value of Kindle's survival.
In fact, the key reason why kindle readers are idle by Chinese users is the difference in the distribution mechanism of books in China and the United States (the time difference between hardcover books and paperback books in the United States, kindle can issue e-books at the price of paperback books at the same time as hardcover books) and the relatively weak ecological environment of domestic book copyright protection.
Take, for example, the reading need (need for a traditional sense of reading ritual) users of Kindle's main service, who are often knowledge groups engaged in content production, who not only need to read new books, but also the relatively early publication of literature is also their main reading object. Most of the digital scanned versions of old books are not authorized by publishers and authors, and exist in PDF format on the domestic Internet, and readers can easily download them for free. About a decade ago, the famous "Sina Aiwen" search engine was the base camp for providing such free e-book downloads, although after rectification, the "Sina Aiwen" scenery is not there, netizens will still obtain these free resources through other means. Once the "free lunch" has been tasted, it will be extremely difficult for users to get used to paying.
On the other hand, while the Kindle Reader supports opening scanned versions of e-books in PDF format, the reading experience is not very friendly. Because the screen size of the mainstream Kindle reader is only 6 inches, the font size of the general PDF document after the full page is displayed will become very small, if you do not use a magnifying glass, it is basically impossible to see, and the response speed when turning pages is extremely slow. Although the problem of small font size can be used by third-party software to crop the PDF document to a size that matches the size of the Kindle reader screen, or to send an official email to Amazon for transcoding and rearrangement, it will undoubtedly add trouble to users. Therefore, for domestic reading users, of course, they are more willing to use iPads or computers to read free PDF format e-books.
It's too early to sing the Fading Kindle
In view of Kindle's weakness in reading PDF documents, in recent years, domestic e-reader brands have come to the fore, such as the iReader reader released by Palm Reading Technology Company, which uses a larger screen, coupled with support for PDF format document rearrangement, electronic pen handwriting and other functions, thus gaining the favor of some users who mainly read PDF documents. However, it should be distinguished that the scanned version of the e-book in PDF format is essentially an electronic presentation of the paper book, and it is not really e-reading in the strict sense.
True e-reading should be a digital product that has been recoded and carefully typeset, which is actually the form of content currently supported by the Kindle reader, but Chinese it is not amazing enough to make users feel a very obvious sense of improvement in the reading experience. If Kindle wants to turn over in China, it must rely on the technical team to work the layout design of e-books, consider the problem from the user's point of view, and conquer the reader with more humane design details. For example, can a footnote or endnote in an e-book be folded along the text so that the reader doesn't have to flip back and forth to get the information.
Now Amazon China should mainly consider how to improve the content quality of Kindle e-books, rather than spending more energy on updating the terminal device, because a Kindle reader means a potential consumer market for millions of e-books, and finding ways to increase e-book sales is more important than using terminals to expand market share. The biggest advantage of the Internet economy is that the marginal cost is small, the spread speed is fast, and it is most suitable for application in a populous country like China. A Kindle e-book only needs to invest in the cost of typesetting design upfront, and once it is produced, every sales action can bring profitability, and the marginal cost is almost zero.
E-reading should not be just scanning paper books into PDF format, it should present a new kind of immersive reading experience in the metaverse, a seamless reading experience anytime, anywhere, such as memorizing the reader's reading habits and progress, and automatically synchronizing on different platform terminals. For example, it supports personalized customization, and according to the reader's reading record, pushes relevant books for readers that may be of interest to them, so that readers can take notes on the screen as they like, and so on. In these areas, the Kindle still has a lot of room for improvement.
Secondly, Amazon China should also strengthen the supply of superior resources according to the characteristics of the Kindle reader, such as the Kindle ink screen is very suitable for reading comics, this type of book, Amazon online bookstore should vigorously introduce more comic categories of electronic books; and foreign language original books are also a major feature of Kindle, then it may as well further make these Kindle advantages of the content into a brand, and gradually cultivate user stickiness and payment habits.
There should be reason to believe in the eternal need of the human spirit for books. The British writer Maugham said: "Cultivating the habit of reading can build you a refuge and let you escape almost all the sorrows of the world." I say 'almost' because I don't want to exaggerate that reading relieves the pain of hunger or calms your unrequited depression. But some good detective novels and a hot water bottle can make you not care about the discomfort of the worst cold. (Maugham, "Reading is a Refuge to Carry", Beijing United Publishing Company)
After the rise of electronic reading, many people sang about paper books, but after so many years, it has been proved that paper books not only did not die, but established their own unique value through digital mirroring. Therefore, it is inevitably too early to sing the Kindle. Kindle's positioning is actually a reading device between paper books and electronic reading terminals such as mobile phones and iPads, which has the characteristics of both electronic reading and paper reading, how to combine the advantages of the two reading methods and avoid disadvantages will be a problem that Kindle constantly has to think about.