One irony that is not lost on me is the fact that I’m a reluctant early adopter of new technologies. I’d prefer to be on the leading edge but I’ve had a lot of (memorable) pain from being on the cutting (there is a reason why it is also known as the bleeding) edge to know that I don’t like it there.
There are a lot of people who are very keen on having the latest of everything (and I’m very thankful for them going through the pain for the rest of us) but I’m not one of them, although it has to be said it depends on your frame of reference – my frame of reference is being surrounded every day by really smart people who are super tech savvy, not necessarily the frame of reference that many others may have.
Why am I going on about this? Two reasons, a long disused Sony MP3 player and my Sony e-book reader. If you’re thinking that the common element here is Sony, you’d be wrong, it would be an interesting line of thought to follow but I digress.
The MP3 player in question was a 32MB (yes, I’m ok with the fact that it dates me somewhat) that I bought some years ago well before the iPod came out. It was great at the time but it got usurped by the power of iTunes and the iPod which meant that it became a serious pain in the ass. Why? Well, I just came across it when I was cleaning out and before I threw it out I pulled on some headphones and listened (yes, it still worked!) to some great tunes that only live on that player because getting them off there onto the next generation of technology (iPod in this case) was too much effort or impossible – I didn’t spend long enough at it to figure out which.
Which leads me to my e-book reader. I got one some time ago and I love it. The fact that I can carry around my whole library, omitting the minor detail of the fact that I can’t get my paper based library into the reader or the fact that not all the books in my library are available in e-book format, is fantastic particularly when I’m travelling. Also ignoring the fact that the Sony e-book store’s interface is a bit dodgy – it could do with a decent graphic designer’s touch and its availability (both for new books and uptime) sketchy - the concept and the reader itself is a masterpiece. Sony have once again done themselves proud. The fact that I’m not needlessly adding to more trees being chopped down as I throw away books (or build another bookshelf) is an added bonus (ignoring of course the fact that the carbon footprint of the reader’s manufacture and distribution probably outweighs the benefit for the moment).
It is therefore with mixed feelings that I have read about Amazon’s Kindle reader being rolled out world-wide. Is the Kindle going to be the next iPod? Am I once again going to have some great books on my Sony that will be relegated to the drawer and then the bin?
On a wider scale, and a lot more worrying, will this cycle of experience for early adopters teach them not to be? If so, will we run out of people willing to try early to market products? Should companies be doing more to reward early adopters by assisting the transition?
