Daily Archives: November 19, 2015

Daily Links: Newsonomics – Can you get readers to pay a dollar a day for digital news?

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daily_links_1Newsonomics: Can you get readers to pay a dollar a day for digital news? (Nieman Lab) – Paywalls in general and paying for local news in particular are thorny issues. Is this approach a bit of a shakedown?

Mattel View Master is a blast from the past (Gear Diary) – Okay, who can resist this one? Probably not the nostalgic grownups….

Windows Turns 30: A Visual History (ReCode) – Has it really been that long?

Could the Hunger Games turn your teen into a revolutionary? (The Conversation) – Isn’t it interesting the reaction that dystopian lit gets from many parents?

And my Kindle book find of the day is the unusual vampire novel  Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Lindqvist has been referred to as “the Swedish Stephen King” and this one is a gem! The original Swedish film is highly recommended as well.

Daily Links are interesting links I discover as I go about my online day. The frequency and number of links posted depend upon the daily news. I also post other, different links of interest on the Google Plus eBook Evangelist Page.

Happy 8th Birthday Kindle!

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On November 19, 2007, Amazon released the first Kindle. It came in a book like case, and included a charger and a plain black faux leather cover. It had a unusual look that reminded me of something I might have seen on a TV show like Lost in Space or Space: 1999. The first Kindle cost $400 and they sold out immediately.

While people were waiting for the Kindles to come back into stock, there were numerous threads on the Kindle forums where customers would post when their order and expected delivery dates. This thread was started in December 2007. The camaraderie among the waiting customers was amazing. It was a very different forum then….

I bought mine in the second wave in the spring of 2008. I absolutely loved it! I cannot emphasize enough what a profound impact this device had on me.

Here’s a video that looks at the very first Kindle:

 

Here’s a snapshot of the Amazon homepage on November 19, 2007 (Via Internet Archive Wayback Machine):

kindle home 2007 page

(click to enlarge)

And the Kindle product page (the ASIN was B000FI73MA)

kindle 2007 product page

(click to enlarge)

And, yes, Amazon still sells them, albeit used. And, this version had a user-replaceable battery and they still sell those, too.

So, do you have a story to share on the Kindle’s birthday? Has it touched your life in any way?