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Amazon launches ad-supported Kindle for $114: A milepost on the way to free

By | April 11, 2011, 6:42pm PDT

Summary: Amazon on Monday launched a Kindle that’ll run you $114. Why so cheap? This Kindle packs along a few ads for the ride.

Amazon on Monday launched a Kindle that’ll run you $114. Why so cheap? This Kindle packs along a few ads for the ride.

In a statement, Amazon unveiled “Kindle with Special Offers.” This Kindle has sponsored screensavers that run along the bottom of the home screen. The ad-armed Kindle will go along with the $139 Wi-Fi Kindle and the $189 Kindle 3G.

The Kindle with Special Offers—with ads from the likes of Buick, Procter & Gamble, Visa and Chase—will ship May 3. A few observations:

  • Will a $25 savings attract people to a Kindle with ads? I’m not so sure.
  • Amazon is making sure “anyone who wants a Kindle can afford one” so rest assured that $99 is the next price point.
  • It’s clear that Amazon’s monetization of the Kindle has little to do with the actual device. It’s about the store and now sponsorships. Amazon is pursuing the subsidization model for the actual device.
  • There’s even a data angle here. Kindle with Special Offers will feature AdMash, an app where customers can vote on ads. Now the Kindle base is a big focus group. That feedback is worth a bundle.

Add it up and the trend line is being established—the Kindle will be “free.” By free, I mean the Kindle will be part of an Amazon Prime subscription. It will be a conduit to get you to download content. The Kindle is an ad-vehicle. Apply these experiments to a tablet and you see why Amazon could be very disruptive to the Android market.

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Topics

Amazon.com Inc., Advertising, Kindle 3G, Advertising & Promotion, Marketing, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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I agree that this is just a stepping-stone to a $99 ...
mwagner@... 12th Apr 2011
... ad-subsidized Kindle - but, before it is all over, the primary beneficiary of those ads will be Amazon, in general, and Kindle-specifically. It seems to be that everyone wins.

And, if you feel intruded upon, you can still pay the $25 premium.

Regardless, the days of ad-free ANYTHING are numbered.
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RE: Amazon launches ad-supported Kindle for $114: A milepost on the way to free
Rama.NET 11th Apr 2011
If they give it free with ads probably people would turn toward it otherwise I think there is no much difference between Ad One and Ad-Free One.
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How about with the ad version, you pay the same as without the ads, but,
DonnieBoy 11th Apr 2011
you get some free books, and then, the books are a little cheaper? The ads could be targeted based on the books you have been reading.
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RE: Amazon launches ad-supported Kindle for $114: A milepost on the way to free
Rama.NET 11th Apr 2011
@DonnieBoy
I like this idea much better than $25 off of adfree.
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Not worth the investment for the intrusiveness
wackoae 11th Apr 2011
That price is only good for a ad-free version.

For an ad-supported version is too expensive for the intrusiveness.
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But, if they can make the ads un-obtrusive like they are with Google search
DonnieBoy 11th Apr 2011
I am sure a lot would go for it. But, they do need to make the ad supported version cheaper, or, throw in some free books.
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Google search is FREE
wackoae 11th Apr 2011
@DonnieBoy Nobody is paying for Google search, so the comparison is completely ridiculous.

People (without Adblock) put up with the ads because they get a free service from Google. In this case, you get a very insignificant discount (compared to the full ad-free version) and have to put up with ads.
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It is really the exact same thing. You get a free or cheaper service, that
DonnieBoy 12th Apr 2011
is ad supported. So, in exchange for a discount or even completely free, you have advertisements. You could argue that the discount is not big enough to justify the adds, that is a personal decision.
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Not very intrusive
Schoolboy Bob 12th Apr 2011
@wackoae

It's not very intrusive - ads on the screen saver (might even be cool) and on the bottom of the home screen - not while reading.

I think it's a great idea.
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How about you get cheaper books with the ad supported version?
DonnieBoy Updated - 11th Apr 2011
Heck, some content could be 100% ad supported.
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What about $1 books?
wackoae 11th Apr 2011
@DonnieBoy At $1 writers can make a hell of a lot more sales than at $20. $1 is considered "throw away" investment ... even for low income people.

Just look at how successful little know companies (like Rovio ... aka:Angry Birds) have become selling $1 apps. The same will apply to books. Even if the story stink, most people will not care that much ... because it was just $1.
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RE: Amazon launches ad-supported Kindle for $114: A milepost on the way to free
CarboneCZ 12th Apr 2011
@wackoae

The difference is there are millions of books and only handful of apps like Angry Birds. And it's the most succesful one, you can't apply it for millions of books. It's ridiculous to think that all of the books would sell 20x more. Most People have barely time to read what theyv purchased.
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RE: Amazon launches ad-supported Kindle for $114: A milepost on the way to free
Randalllind Updated - 12th Apr 2011
I think it sucks really. I would by an ad free kindle my issue is the books are high. A lot of the tech ebooks are the same price as the book itself.

putting ads on the device may help sell it but they really need to lowing price of books.
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Read the proposal
tradergeorge 12th Apr 2011
I think most of the naysayers are having a knee-jerk reaction to paying for a reader at all. Ads are not automatically bad, and I believe the implementation as they describe it is not bad at all. Some of the ads they propose are great deals for readers, such as the $10 for a $20 Amazon certificate.
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RE: Amazon launches ad-supported Kindle for $114: A milepost on the way to free
cmoore01 12th Apr 2011
When the price of the e-books was "reasonable" I considered a Kindle. My wife and her mother bought one each. The price of e-books is now rising. WHY? Both have quit buying e-books and went back to paper.
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If it has Ads, it's not free
GSG 12th Apr 2011
I'd rather pay the extra $25 and not have ads. Or, when my Barnes and Noble Nook wears out, and my laptop wears out, maybe the tablets will be better, more productive devices, and I'll combine the two into one, and download the free app from Barnes and Noble.
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RE: Amazon launches ad-supported Kindle for $114: A milepost on the way to free
paldino_z 12th Apr 2011
Don't care if they give them away - The keyboard is a waste of space. I'll never buy a Kindle until they trash that thing. It's an e'READER' correct ?
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I still don't care.
richard233 12th Apr 2011
Until I can legally buy/resell/lend/borrow/trade the ebooks in the same manner I can do paper books I see no reason to get an ebook reader. Right now I can go to a garage sale and pick up a used book for a small fraction of the cover price. I can usually pick up a paper book new at the stores for at least 30% off since I get weekly coupons offered to me. So many of their costs have gone down or completely away, so ebooks should also drop significantly more. They need not spend to deliver, print, store, return, recycle, etc. And they likely justify giving smaller commissions to the sales folk since "they" do not need to purchase, hold, store, display, etc.
As to getting a reader with an ad I MUST read, well use your own favorite profanity to reflect my contempt for that concept. I loathe being forced to watch a preview on a DVD which paid for. The reality is, its not a subsidy for US, its more profit for THEM.
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Missing the point...
Naryan 12th Apr 2011
They have not released this product so that you will buy it, they have released it so that you will buy the ad-free one.
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Ad removal... Wait for it...
pistonhead 12th Apr 2011
According to Wikipedea, it's running on Linux. So, what are the odds on how long until someone hacks/jailbreaks the ad-supported version to suppress the ads?
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ads subsidize what... 3G?
geolemon 12th Apr 2011
...because I'm sure as hell not saving a measly $20 in trade for a lifetime of ads.

Now a 3G Kindle, that's another story.

Seems like something the author would have wanted to make clear, rather than just saying "...the ad version 'joins' the 3G and Wifi versions"
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tv isn't free either
rengek 12th Apr 2011
People are complaining about ads but pretty much any website you go to is also filled with ads. Nobody really complains about that so whats the real difference. The kindle is a physical version of firefox with a keyboard.

TV is full of ads too and you still have to pay your cable company.
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I agree that this is just a stepping-stone to a $99 ...
mwagner@... 12th Apr 2011
... ad-subsidized Kindle - but, before it is all over, the primary beneficiary of those ads will be Amazon, in general, and Kindle-specifically. It seems to be that everyone wins.

And, if you feel intruded upon, you can still pay the $25 premium.

Regardless, the days of ad-free ANYTHING are numbered.

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