New Ad-Supported Amazon Kindle sheds new light on advertising within the publishing world

(This blog post has been edited from its original published version by the author)

For some who already have an Amazon Kindle eReader, the newest development in Amazon’s Kindle may be a bit shocking or perhaps long awaited.

The latest version of the Amazon Kindle is an ad-supported version that actually costs less!!

According to an April 11th article on Cnet news by David Carnoy, Amazon shipped its new ad-supported version of the popular e-reader on May 3 for just $114 (or $25 less than the standard Wi-Fi-only Kindle, which retails for $139). This new model--available for preorder now--is also Wi-Fi-only and comes in the same carbon color as its ad-free sibling. Specs-wise, the two devices are identical. 

On the new $114 Kindle with Special Offers, Amazon's AdMash app will allow users to vote on which display ads they'd prefer as screensavers.

(Credit: Amazon)

Customers now have three  different versions of the Amazon Kindle to choose from, the ad-supported version being the cheapest and latest model.

Though some customers might find the ads on their new kindle irritating or distracting, they can quickly get around the first batch of rotating screen saver ads by hitting the home button.

On the home screen of the new kindle, customers will notice a small ad running along the bottom of the screen. As of now, ads don't appear within books themselves, though some feel that's coming soon. 

According to a Dec. 13th article on the Wall Street Journal by Emily Steel, one digital-book store, Wowio Inc., is making inroads selling ads in the e-books users download from its site onto, say, laptops or e-readers like Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle. Some Wowio e-books have three pages with promotions: an introduction and a closing page each with an ad, plus another full-page ad. The company also is experimenting with techniques to insert ads between chapters and to target ads using profile information that users submit to its website, says Wowio Chief Executive Brian Altounian. 

As the above video from YouTube, brings up some interesting questions about the new ad-supported kindle. (Almost is more of an audio track than a video but still has some good questions in it)

But ads in e-books will most likely be tough to sell. 

According to the Dec. 13th article by Emily Steel on the Wall Street Journal, while it was typical for books a century ago to be published in serial form with ads, in-book advertising now is atypical. For starters, most books sell only a few hundred thousand copies, not enough to interest most advertisers. And many author contracts say the writer has to approve any ads. The lifespan of books, meanwhile, is such that an ad that appears when it first was published could be irrelevant years later. But digital books can address that problem by inserting ads that are appropriate for when a person accesses the book and targeted to the reader's interests. Some companies also are working to sell space across a number of books to entice marketers to purchase ads. 

Because the new ad-supported version of the Amazon Kindle seems to work well for Amazon and will most likely attract enough sponsorship and customers due to the lower price, you might be able to expect the price of the Kindle to continue to drop over the years and maybe even become free someday...

Personally, I think that the possibility of free e-readers or even free books in general would be awesome, though I am still suspicious about Amazon’s ability to delete books; but if it was free I would probably take an Amazon Kindle anyway.