Digital Textbooks on Campus: When Will It Catch On?
As integrated marketers, we’re always weighing the balance between print and digital messaging. Bookstores are, too. Amazon’s Kindle is being tested on several college campuses across the country. So far, the reaction from students and professors has been lukewarm for the book industry’s hottest digital reader.
Apparently the Kindle’s bookmarking and underlining features just don’t have the same appeal to students as the offline sticky notes and yellow highlighters. Maybe a future color edition of the Kindle will do the trick.
I own the first generation of the Kindle and while I enjoy downloading books instantly to the device (see my reading list on LinkedIn.com), I have to admit, the black and white interface is dull and searching underlined sections of text is slow and tedious.
The retail price of a new Kindle is more than $400 and even the academic editions currently selling for just under $200 are out of the price range of most college students who might be leery of the user experience.
It might take government intervention to push digital books on campuses and Governor Schwarzenegger has already moved forward on that front.
