SAN FRANCISCO – Amazon.com Inc. is dropping the price on its Kindle e-reader, but the change comes with a trade-off: On-screen ads. The online retailer was set to announce Tuesday that the new Kindle with Special Offers will cost $114 — $25 less than the currently lowest-priced Kindle — and include advertisements on the bottom of the device's home page and on its screen savers. Seattle-based Amazon will start shipping the newest Kindle on May 3, and it will also be sold in Target and Best Buy stores on that date.
Now we know what retailers think of us. We're worth 
25 dollars. Amazon figures you'll buy a Kindle for 25 dollars less than its regular price if all you have to do to save that money is put up with some advertising. They say every man has his price. Yours has been set.
In a demo of the device, a screen saver showed a deal where customers would pay $10 for a $20 gift card to Amazon. If a user is interested in that deal, they can click to have details of the offer e-mailed to them. A much smaller ad shown across the bottom of the Kindle's home screen — the screen that shows you the content stored on the e-reader — was less obtrusive, but still clearly an advertisement. The ads will change frequently, Marine said, and there will not be any ads in Kindle books. "It was very important that we didn't interfere with the reading experience," he said.
How does an ad across the bottom of the home screen not interfere with the reading experience? Anything that happens after you turn on the device that doesn't directly involve reading interferes with the reading experience.
As some of you know, I own a Kindle DX, and I love it. If it magically started displaying advertising on its screen I would either sell it on Ebay or send it back to Amazon. We have enough advertising in our lives - some blatant and some subliminal - and we do not need more, regardless of its purpose or any so-called monetary benefit.
25 dollars. Amazon figures you'll buy a Kindle for 25 dollars less than its regular price if all you have to do to save that money is put up with some advertising. They say every man has his price. Yours has been set.In a demo of the device, a screen saver showed a deal where customers would pay $10 for a $20 gift card to Amazon. If a user is interested in that deal, they can click to have details of the offer e-mailed to them. A much smaller ad shown across the bottom of the Kindle's home screen — the screen that shows you the content stored on the e-reader — was less obtrusive, but still clearly an advertisement. The ads will change frequently, Marine said, and there will not be any ads in Kindle books. "It was very important that we didn't interfere with the reading experience," he said.
How does an ad across the bottom of the home screen not interfere with the reading experience? Anything that happens after you turn on the device that doesn't directly involve reading interferes with the reading experience.
As some of you know, I own a Kindle DX, and I love it. If it magically started displaying advertising on its screen I would either sell it on Ebay or send it back to Amazon. We have enough advertising in our lives - some blatant and some subliminal - and we do not need more, regardless of its purpose or any so-called monetary benefit.
The real monetary benefit must be in the advertising and the retail, otherwise why would they do it? Is Amazon as interested in your "reading experience" as they are in selling more Kindles?
No. If they were, they would just drop the price of the Kindle 25 dollars and spare us the advertising.
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