Kindle; With Ads

     Amazon has been recently trying to be able to lower the cost of their popular Kindle eReader, and today they announced one of their latest attempts.
     The company announced earlier today that the Kindle will now be available for $25 cheaper. This is the same Kindle hardware as the current version, so what's the reason for the price drop? Amazon will be introducing a new advertising UI for the Kindle device.
     In the new $114 Kindle, you will see an ad when the device goes into screensaver mode, as well as under the main menu UI. There will be no ads when you are reading, and Amazon made sure to point our that the ads will be completely unobtrusive.
     To go along with the new Kindle, which Amazon is calling Kindle with Special Offers, Amazon created a new application called AdMash. AdMash allows users to vote on ads that appear on the screensaver, and is designed to bring you more targeted ads, and ultimately making the ads more successful. This ad voting system would follow in the footsteps of Facebook and Hulu.
     Another really cool feature, one that may even make someone favor the ad-based Kindle over the regular one, is the special offers that will be sprinkled in among the traditional ads. For example, one might see an offer for buying a $20 gift card for $10.
     The new Kindle is available for pre-order now, and will be available for purchase on March 3rd.
     This a great step for Amazon in bringing the Kindle's price down. With the price of the Kindle when it was first announced at $399, getting it down to only $114 is a great feat, and will probably be good for everyone: Amazon, the consumers, and the advertisers.

Nook follows Kindle with New York Times Paywall

     A paywall for the New York Times website was announced a few weeks ago, and went into affect March 28, 2011. This paywall allows users to read 20 stories per month, and then they must pay for the ability to read stories on the New York Times website. This paywall costs $15 per four weeks, but print subscribers can access all of the stories for free.
     Recently, Amazon announced that those who subscribe to the New York Times via the Kindle will get free access to the New York Times website, just like print subscribers. Now, Barnes and Noble is following suit. Any subscribers to the New York Times on the Nook will now be able to access all of the stories online without a paywall.
     Currently the New York Times iPad app is free and ad supported, but that is not going to last forever. I wonder what the iPad subscribers would get once they have to start paying.
      So if you subscribe to the New York Times via Kindle or Nook, have a good time surfing up the New York Times website, while I carefully count my stories, trying to keep it under 20.