Where in Silicon Valley is the Amazon Kindle?

You would think that hanging around universities and cafes in Silicon Valley that I would have seen an Amazon Kindle by now, but I haven't. Maybe it's one of those hidden picture puzzles where the longer you look, the more you see things which aren't what you're looking for. My MacBook Air count is also 0, but my iPhone count is up by about 15. Seriously, it really feels like 1 in 5 people in the Valley who visits Starbucks has an iPhone. One thing I've noticed is that the iPhone is primarily a guy's phone -- while I've seen a handful of girls with iPhones, it's definitely more popular with the men than the ladies (or perhaps men are the only ones more likely to clip it to their belts).

The Amazon Kindle has been selling well, according to Jeff Bezos, with some customers waiting nearly six weeks for theirs. With over 2,000 reviews of the Kindle, it's definitely one of the most reviewed products on Amazon (the Nintendo Wii only has 984 reviews, to compare). In just glancing through the reviews, it seems as if people really love it (5 stars) or really dislike it (1-2 stars), but many of those who gave it 5 stars are beta testers reviewing on the day of the announcement, which makes me wonder if part of why they love it so much is because they got it for free when it costs the normal person $400. Five months after the announcement of the Kindle, no one knows exactly how many they've sold; though if I had to guess, it's still well below the 100,000 mark.

The Amazon Kindle is geared for travelers and commuters, but reading has never been one of those things I've enjoyed doing on a plane or a train, I preferred to read comfortably at home. For me, the greatest problem with the Kindle is that I already feel as though I've bringing enough gadgets with me when travelling, and the Kindle is not a convergence device, it's extra baggage. The one place I see it saving weight and space is the replacement of travel guides; instead of carrying around a thick Lonely Planet or Rough Guide, you could carry them both on the Kindle saving both weight and space, but as far as I know, neither of them have made their books available on the Kindle. As it stands now, you'd have to buy a whole lot of ebboks to make the Kindle worth it.