Is Kindle 2 a Game Changer?

The Kindle 2 is coming this week.

I was initially excited by the possibility of e-book readers and rushed to try out the Sony Reader in 2006 and the Amazon Kindle in 2007, but felt disappointed with various limitations.

Naturally, I feel curious again – though not entirely optimistic – about the debut of the upcoming Kindle 2, which is scheduled to begin shipping in a few days. (Pre-order: $359.00)

Then, I heard Marc Andreessen carry on about it with Charlie Rose the other night, and I started to wonder.

I don’t think Kindle 2 will be a game-changer on the scale of the iPod or iPhone, but it is starting to look more than anything like the right new platform, somewhere between the scale of a smart phone and the ultra-compact laptops we know today.

Next, I polled my Twitter-firends and got responses including “half-baked,” and “too expensive” but a “killer” at half the price. One friend suggested uncool-points on par with the pocket protector and another was concerned with publishing-monopoly risks. Finally, somebody tossed in the universally-menacing “I don’t get it,” suggesting at least that Amazon still has some marketing to do.

Maybe it will be the next, next generation – perhaps with video – that makes all the difference, but for now I am also excited to see new but affordable paid-subscription models for newspapers and bloggers as well.

I don’t know if I will get one, but I can hardly wait for the reviews.