Forecasting E-Reading

So, Barnes & Noble plans to go up against Amazon's Kindle sometime in 2010, which is less than six months away. Competition was inevitable; after all, even if most people use iPods, there are so many other mp3 player choices out there, too. I think there will be more devices going up against the Kindle soon. How soon? Check out this forecasted timeline:

• 2007-2009: E-reader adoption is driven by early adopters.
• 2009-2011: More mainstream folks buy e-readers as features like animation, content ports to other wireless devices and the $199 price point is breached.
• 2011 and beyond: Video and color appear and the $99 price point becomes reality.
• 2013-2020: The green movement drives e-reader usage.

The full article where I picked up this timeline is here.

The article also mentions Fujitsu, Samsung, and Sony as other companies producing e-Readers, with possibly Google and Apple joining in the fray. For me, Amazon's advantage is its store, akin to Apple's iTunes online store; but Google has been talking to publishers for some time now, and Barnes & Noble, being a bookstore, can easily do the same. Apple can also modify iTunes for downloading ebooks in the same way that people now download music.

Interesting times.