and now starring Jeff Bezos as Steve Jobs

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos wants it both ways: He wants to change the way we read without making us feel that we have to change the way we read. The manifestation of this lofty goal is the Kindle - the company's first electronic book reader. After testing the device, I found much to like but plenty of room for improvement. At $399, I also think it's overpriced.
The Kindle is hardly a new idea. There have been plenty of attempts in this category, including one called the Rocket eBook reader and, most recently, the Sony reader. But none of those has done much to wean people away from paper books.
But Amazon has something none of the other players can match - the world's largest online bookstore and a powerful position with the publishing community. Its library of 90,000 e-books includes almost all the bestsellers.

I am very interested in this new iPod for the publishing game.

I am not sure it will catch on but the fact that it is produced by Amazon makes it fundamentally different from any other attempt. Previous producers were tech companies like Sony. This is Amazon’s business. They have access to the publishers, the authors and most importantly the readers. To many Amazon is the publishing business. Probably them and Barnes and Noble. I would argue that the majority of people buy their books from those two outlets, their local bookstore and their local library.

This also had me asking a few questions

- How is that the music business can’t keep a retailer like Tower open while the publishing business which is not nearly as big or culturally significant can support a mega retailer like Barnes and Noble?

-Is there still a place for retail in the music business?

-Having access to 90,000 books is great but how the hell do I navigate all those choices. It’s bad enough with all the music choices we have. Books take so much more time

-The music business needs to go through the same overhaul that the publishing business did when other media (radio, TV, Film) kicked their ass. Raise the profile of your industry. Add a real cache to your industry to increase its value. Do something to separate the music industry and its product from the internet, DVD’s, and TiVo
(more on this later)